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Tarrant County Republican Celebration Chair Bo French is underneath hearth this week for a sequence of current social media posts wherein he repeatedly known as his political opponents slurs for homosexual folks and folks with disabilities.
“This is the gayest ad in history,” French, 55, wrote in an Oct. 11 response to a Democratic commercial on X, previously often called Twitter. “Guarantee every one of these ‘dudes’ is a homo. There is literally nothing manly about any of them.”
“Retard strength,” he wrote Tuesday underneath a video from the Main League Baseball World Collection.
In one other publish, French polled his 14,000 followers concerning the upcoming presidential election. “If you believe (Vice President Kamala Harris’) policies are better for Americans than (former President Donald Trumps’) policies, you are:” he requested earlier than itemizing 4 decisions. “Ignorant,” “A liar,” “Retarded,” or “Gay.”
The posts have prompted public condemnations from a handful of Republican officers in Tarrant County and different elements of the state, a few of whom have mentioned they’re a part of a broader normalization of hateful and dehumanizing rhetoric within the social gathering.
Tarrant County is the nation’s most populous Republican-led county, however has steadily tilted blue in current election cycles. Backlash to French’s feedback comes as Republicans within the fast-diversifying county search to preserve management over highly effective seats in native authorities, and forward of statewide races wherein Tarrant’s 1.3 million registered voters will probably weigh closely.
As social gathering chair, French has been open about his purpose is to “make Tarrant County inhospitable for Democrats,” and in August he unsuccessfully tried to stress native Republican officers to shut polling websites on school campuses for this 12 months’s election — a transfer that the social gathering explicitly mentioned was geared toward drawback Democrats.
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French has for years been a fixture in a sprawling political empire funded by Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, two West Texas oil tycoons who’ve spent tens of tens of millions of {dollars} cleaning the Texas GOP of extra reasonable members whereas concurrently using white nationalists and associating with well-known antisemites. Teams funded by the billionaires gave French roughly $375,000 for his unsuccessful Texas Home bids in 2016 and 2018, and he was backed by their community in his profitable bid final 12 months to guide the native GOP.
Since then, French has continued to drag the Tarrant County GOP additional to the proper. In September, the social gathering hosted Jack Posobiec, a outstanding far-right activist who has praised Chilean autocrat Augusto Pinochet and Spanish fascist dictator Francisco Franco — whose regimes murdered, tortured or imprisoned a whole lot of 1000’s of their political opponents.
And in July, French joined different Republican leaders onstage at a convention in Fort Price that urged attendees to withstand a Democratic marketing campaign to “rid the earth of the white race” and embrace Christian nationalism. The occasion was held by True Texas Challenge, a outstanding group in Dunn and Wilks’ community whose leaders have sympathized with the racist motives of the gunman who murdered 23 Hispanic folks at an El Paso WalMart in 2019. The convention included a number of audio system who’ve ceaselessly collaborated with white nationalists or eugenicists, prompting some right-wing Republicans to condemn or pull out of the occasion.
Neither French nor different social gathering leaders responded to interview requests or a listing of questions. He has since deleted a few of the posts regardless of defending them and mocking “fragile snowflakes” who critiqued him. His X account was briefly restricted on Wednesday. Within the 20 hours after it was unlocked, he posted a minimum of 70 extra occasions — usually sarcastically deriding those that took subject together with his posts.
“Uh oh, you said the R word,” he mockingly responded to a person who had simply used the slur. “Totally,” he wrote to a different person who’d known as French’s critics “gay n’ retarded.”
French isn’t any stranger to on-line controversy — earlier this 12 months, he was criticized by some Republicans for writing on social media that “there are just some things where you can’t trust women” in response to a Harris marketing campaign advert that requested voters to “trust women” with selections about their well being care and future.
However his habits this week was a tipping level for some fellow Republicans. In social media posts, Republican leaders in Marion County and Keller condemned French, as did a current member of the Texas GOP’s govt committee and a handful of elected officers from different Texas counties.
Some Tarrant County Republicans have been equally irate, and mentioned his habits was a part of a broader sample that has normalized hateful rhetoric throughout the native GOP.
“I cannot stomach the ‘wife in the kitchen’ mindset, the name-calling and the puzzling hate towards gay people,” Stacy Reddy, a former Tarrant County GOP precinct chair, wrote on Fb, including that she stepped down from her publish due to French. “Women own their bodies and minds, disabilities are not slur words, and love is love, as long are [sic] both consenting adults.”
On Wednesday, Tarrant County Precinct Chair Sheena Rodriguez additionally despatched an e mail to different social gathering leaders wherein she demanded that French apologize for his “outright vile and dehumanizing” feedback and resign instantly after subsequent week’s elections.
“Mr. French’s counterproductive and outright destructive rhetoric is detrimental to the Tarrant County GOP,” Rodriguez wrote. ”Conservative members, supporters and constituents of the Tarrant County GOP deserve a brand new, humble, respectful, and productive chief — one who’s able to being a good human being.”
Rodriguez declined an interview request, however in her letter mentioned that quite a few different county precinct chairs have been “disturbed” by French’s habits.
French is simply the newest right-wing Texas Republican to be criticized for his or her feedback about folks with disabilities. In 2020, two longtime leaders of Dunn and Wilks’ political community by chance revealed unedited podcast audio in which they mocked Gov. Greg Abbott’s use of a wheelchair. The 2 have been reprimanded amid bipartisan outrage, and have since discovered new jobs — as vice chair and normal counsel for the Tarrant County GOP.
