What does it mean to be a Texas Republican? This year saw the state GOP tear itself apart over that question. The impeachment and subsequent acquittal of Attorney General Ken Paxton and a protracted fight over school vouchers—a program that would let parents use taxpayer dollars to subsidize their children’s private education—exposed schisms in the party that controls all three branches of the state government. The GOP has broken into warring factions—pro- and anti-Paxton, pro- and anti-voucher—all claiming to represent True Conservatism. The “pro-Paxton” wing accuses its rivals of being Republicans in name only (RINOs) with the ferocity of the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee denouncing communist infiltrators, real and imagined, in the 1950s. Conventional wisdom holds that this civil war is roughly divided between…
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