Texas wrote the blueprint on authoritarianism—Trump just has to follow it
For anyone wondering what the second Donald Trump administration will look like in practice, look no further than the Lone Star State. Under Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, Texas has already perfected the art of using all levers of government to force unpopular policies on its citizens.
Take, for example, imposing religion upon schoolchildren. Well, just theone religion. In November, the Texas State Board of Education voted to approve a new elementary school curriculum that the Texas Observer politely characterized as “Bible-infused.” How Bible-infused, exactly? When first-graders learn about the Liberty Bell, they’ll also learn that “God told Moses about the laws he wanted his people to follow.” Fifth-graders studying Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” will be challenged to consider “how the disciples may have felt upon hearing Jesus telling them about his betrayal and death.”
Republicans are quick to tell critics that schools don’t have to adopt the curriculum, but they get an extra $60 per pupil if they do. Since Texas fails to adequately fund schools and districts keep having to tighten their belts by cutting staff, eliminating services, and reducing department budgets, that $60 per pupil is desperately needed.
At least Texas hasn’t followed the lead of Oklahoma in that state’s quest to require a Trump Bible in every classroom.
Notably, to get this change through, Abbott had to engage in some trickery. Members of the school board are elected, and earlier this year, Aicha Davis, a Democrat who was on the board, won a Texas House seat. Voters in her district elected another Democrat, Tiffany Clark, to fill the seat. But rather than seat Clark, Abbott handpicked a Republican, Leslie Recine, to fill the seat until the end of the year. Recine was the deciding vote in favor of the curriculum.
Abbott has also tied the fortunes of Texas public schools to the legislation’s embrace of vouchers, functionally starving education funding until the state legislature agrees to enact a school voucher program. Requiring federal tax dollars to be shifted from public schools to private ones—especially religious schools—is a key goal of Project 2025, and Trump’s pick for the Department of Education, the comically-underqualified Linda McMahon, is a big fan.
It’s not just the Texas GOP’s approach to education that Trump will subject the rest of the country to. Trump has made very clear that he plans to use the full weight of the federal government to attack companies he doesn’t like or he thinks are too “woke.” Expect Kash Patel to use the FBI to make good on his threat to “come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens” and Brendan Carr to use the FCC to attack broadcasters.
Ken Paxton has been a trailblazer in weaponizing state government to engage in these sorts of attacks. In 2023, he opened an investigation into Media Matters for reporting—correctly!—that ads from major companies were running alongside white nationalist and antisemitic posts since Elon Musk bought Twitter and turned it into X. That isn’t the only time Paxton has decided to use his power to do Musk’s bidding.
Last month, Paxton announced an investigation into what he’s calling a “possible conspiracy” by companies to boycott “certain social media platforms.” You get one guess which social media platform Paxton is concerned about. Indeed, Paxton’s inquiry is identical to Musk’s lawsuit earlier this year accusing the Global Alliance for Responsible Media of violating antitrust laws by working with brands who pulled their advertising from X once Musk started turning it into a Nazi bar. Musk’s lawsuit already wiped out GARM, a nonprofit that didn’t have the resources to continue to fight X in court, but Paxton is still going after them.
Texas has also led the way in finding innovative ways to attack reproductive health rights, which Trump is sure to go after. Back before the Supreme Court threw out Roe v. Wade, Texas passed SB8, which gave private citizens the right to sue anyone who aided or abetted an abortion—and get at least $10,000 in damages if they won. This allowed the state to sidestep the fact that abortion was still legal, as it could say that it was neither banning abortion nor taking any government action to stop someone from having one.
SB8 was the brainchild of Texas attorney Jonathan Mitchell, a rabidly anti-choice lawyer who also represented Trump in his lawsuit against Colorado after that state kicked him off the 2024 ballot. Mitchell is also a key proponent of using the Comstock Act to make it a crime to ship abortion pills—regardless of whether those pills were destined for a state where abortion is legal. This would result in a de facto abortion ban, as medication abortions account for 63% of all abortions, and states without bans could not have pills shipped to them legally. Mitchell has even bragged that if the Comstock Act were used in this way, Republicans wouldn’t even need a federal ban.
Project 2025’s authors are fans of the idea, and incoming V President JD Vance loves the idea so much that he already asked the Department of Justice to use the Act to crack down on the mailing of abortion pills—way back in January 2023.
It’s a perfectly Trumpian approach. It allows the administration to insist that they have not banned abortion while managing to do it anyway—exactly what Texas managed with SB8. It’s a smug, cynical approach to governing, one which Texas has perfected, and Trump now has another four years to hone.