Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is heartsick and afraid. He’s scared for his six grandchildren, who may grow up in a country that rejects its greatness in exchange for wokeness and anti-whiteness. Critical race theory and the New York Times’ 1619 Project “not only hurts my heart,” Patrick has said, but also “scares the hell out of me.”
In a call this March with Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the 71-year-old politician announced that “critical race theory and 1619, and all that BS is nonsense and will destroy our nation,” vowing to “not let this seep into Texas.”
Patrick doesn’t like change. His sense of identity and his political power—along with that of the Texas GOP—are bound up with mainstream mythologies of the United States and Texas. In Patrick’s world, people and institutions challenging those narratives seek to destroy that power.
