Abbott faces backlash after coronavirus restrictions lift



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The two-term governor of Texas announced in Lubbock on Tuesday, during an event at a Mexican restaurant surrounded by supporters where he was not asking questions, that he was abandoning his orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. The move could accelerate the spread of the virus at a time when only a small slice of the state’s population has been vaccinated, public health experts have said.
Dropping coronavirus restrictions in Texas could appease a conservative base that rewards Republican governors who flouted expert advice and opened their states early. Abbott is following the lead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who finished second and third behind former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential poll of the Conservative Political Action Conference this week. last.
While his sudden move may appeal to some Republicans, Abbott has come under heavy criticism from President Joe Biden, who said Wednesday that he and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, who had announced similar measures, were guilty of “Neanderthal thinking. “.

“We’re about to be able to fundamentally change the nature of this disease because of the way we can get vaccines in people’s arms,” Biden said. “The last thing – the last thing we need is for Neanderthals to think that until then everything is fine, take off your mask, forget it. It still matters.”

Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said in a statement that Abbott “was clear in telling Texans that COVID was not over and all Texans should follow medical advice and safe practices to continue. to contain COVID “.

“It is clear from the recoveries, vaccinations, reduced hospitalizations and the safe practices Texans use, that state warrants are no longer needed. We now need to do more to restore livelihoods and normalcy. Texans, ”Eze said. “The Governor’s goal has been, and always will be, to protect the lives and livelihoods of Texans.”

Abbott has also come under heavy criticism from Democrats, the media and prominent figures in Texas. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a potential opponent of Abbott in the 2022 governor’s race, called Abbott’s decision “a death warrant” and said the governor is “killing the people of Texas”. San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich called him “quite mystifying” and “ignorant”. The opening sentence of a Fort Worth Business Press editorial read: “It’s official: Greg Abbott is a jerk.”

And his decisions on Tuesday came too late to appease some of Abbott’s outspoken Tory critics, who accused the governor of trying to deflect blame after the recent deep freeze left millions of Texans without power and water. .

“He has to get through the primaries first, and that will be a tougher challenge for him than Beto, I’ll tell you. He has driven a lot of conservatives very crazy,” said Shelley Luther, owner of the Dallas salon. was jailed last year after refusing to follow Abbott’s order to shut down his business.

“All he’s trying to do is hide the blame,” Luther said. “He’s trying not to focus on the power grid problem anymore, which I think should have been blamed a lot more for it.”

In the latter part of his second term, Abbott faced pressure from GOP factions that were largely silent in the early stages of his governorship.

Abbott has said he plans to run for a third term in 2022 and could face a primary – Texas Republican Party Chairman Allen West refusing to rule out a possible run.

West, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and other leading Tories protested outside the governor’s mansion last fall, criticizing Abbott’s use of emergency powers to demand masks and shutting down restaurants and bars. West did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Some conservative Abbott critics have said his decisions on Tuesday did not go far enough, as the governor left county leaders with the power to implement their own restrictions.

“You are far too late”, former state representative, Jonathan Stickland tweeted. “A lot of lives and businesses have already been destroyed while you were playing King. Texans deserve better, you have to go.”

Democrats also said Abbott’s measures were clearly aimed at appeasing his Republican base.

“There is no doubt that he is concerned about a major challenge,” said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa.

And, with 2024 on the horizon, Hinojosa said: “He wants to put himself in a position to be competitive in the Republican primary, and the only way to do that is to take extreme measures in the direction of what Allen West and the far-right Republican Party demanded that he do it in Texas. ”

As Abbott was under siege, potential rivals for 2022, including O’Rourke and former housing and urban development secretary Julián Castro, were visible. O’Rourke mobilized his network of supporters to reach Texans facing power and water outages after a historic freeze shut down much of the state’s electricity grid last month and crisscrossed the state himself. Castro has also been a vocal critic of Abbott, and the former mayor of San Antonio has reached out to mayors to ask how he can help, Hinojosa said.

“You’re going to have a much stronger group of people in this primary than we’ve had in the past,” Hinojosa said, naming O’Rourke, Castro and several mayors and county leaders as potential candidates.

Although Abbott continues to face the heat from the right, he would remain a big favorite in next year’s governor race – a reality that was highlighted when other Texas Republicans rallied to his defense. Wednesday.

Texas Senator John Cornyn, responding to Biden’s criticism of Abbott, said Biden should not “preach to my state on how to deal with this COVID-19 virus.”

“People in Texas don’t really like governments telling them what to do. And I think they have tolerated it for as long as they want, ”he said.



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