'Texas is a mess!' GOP strategist cackles at Ted Cruz's terror

Systemic Error Podcast · Aug 11, 2026 · 3m

Texas Isn’t a Joke. The GOP Just Keeps Treating It Like One.The Actual Power ProblemTed Cruz was not warning Republicans about a vibe shift. He was acknowledging a basic fact of power: the Texas Republican machine is so brittle that Ken Paxton, with all his scandal and baggage, can still be treated as a serious Senate contender. Greg Abbott sits at the top of that apparatus. Cruz is inside it. Paxton is one of its products. This is not a rogue individual story. It is a story about a party that has normalized damage as long as the donor class, the judges, and the officeholders stay…