Greg Abbott has announced, with the confidence of a man who has never once been held accountable for the weather, the grid, the cruelty, or the highway-level carnage of his own governance, that he will run for governor of Texas again. Texans did not ask for this. Texans did not pray for this. Texans did not whisper into the wind hoping that the man who personally turned the state into an obstacle course of avoidable disasters would return for a sequel. Yet here he is, marching toward another campaign like a landlord bragging about raising the rent on a building he never cared to maintain.
It is difficult to describe the emotional reaction across Texas without violating federal guidelines for chemical agents. The air took on that familiar post freeze tension. The kind where you are not sure if the hum you hear is the sound of the grid failing or the sound of your soul attempting to exit your body. The governor wants another term. He wants more time. He wants more chances. The rest of us want FEMA for the spirit.
Start with the record because satire thrives on receipts. This is a man who has presided over a state that floods in the morning, burns in the afternoon, and loses power every time God inhales. A man who, when presented with the option to modernize the grid, looked at the suggestion with the enthusiasm of a taxidermy enthusiast learning the specimen is still alive. A man who championed deregulation, ignored warnings, then told Texans during a deadly winter blackout that somehow this was the price of freedom. There is something uniquely sociopathic about insisting that dead families are the cost of liberty while you warm yourself under full electrical power.
His handling of natural disasters has been so catastrophic that meteorologists whisper his name like it is a curse. Floods drown Houstonians, and Abbott responds by holding a press conference that says nothing, doing nothing, and then later bragging about resilience while residents bail water out of their living rooms with cereal bowls. Wildfires rage and he appears in front of microphones to thank first responders for doing work that his policies made harder. Extreme heat kills vulnerable Texans and he signs a bill that prevents cities from requiring water breaks for outdoor workers. Then he acts surprised when bodies start stacking under the sun like evidence.
But cruelty has always been his organizing philosophy. When it comes to LGBTQ Texans, Abbott governs like he is auditioning for a paranoid anthology series. He has targeted trans kids with a fixation that borders on pathology. He weaponized child protective services to investigate parents who sought gender affirming care for their own children. He tried to turn family support into a criminal act. He framed trans healthcare as abuse while ignoring the actual abuse that festers in state systems under his watch. He has spent more energy attacking a teenager’s pronouns than attacking the companies price gouging Texans at the pump.
His record on LGBTQ rights reads like a hate group’s vision board. He has backed bills that erase, restrict, or roll back protections. He has aligned himself with lawmakers who think drag queens are a threat but gun violence is an unfortunate side effect of freedom. He has stoked a culture war so relentlessly that LGBTQ Texans now live in a state where safety is more fragile than the grid. Pride events require exit plans. Queer kids carry fear like an accessory. Parents legal proof their lives like they expect a raid. And Abbott stands before cameras pretending he is defending families when all he is defending is his right to decide whose family counts.
There is a reason satire slips into rage when talking about him. He makes governance feel like punishment. The border theatrics alone are enough to power a thousand therapy groups. Abbott has wasted billions deploying razor wire, floating death trap buoys, militarizing state police, and bulldozing asylum protections all so he can pose next to equipment like a sheriff in a dystopian reenactment fair. He has bused migrants to Democratic cities in the middle of the night purely for spite while tweeting about it like it is a carnival game. He has managed to turn refugee desperation into a partisan art exhibit. And every time there is pushback, he claims victory.
His economic priorities reveal the same contempt for human life. He loves tax cuts for corporations. He loves money for contractors. He loves the idea of Texas as a business fantasyland. What he does not love is the idea of Texans having functioning schools, hospitals, or wages. Teachers beg for resources and he blames “indoctrination.” Hospitals buckle under staffing shortages and he attacks public health measures. Rents rise and he glares at local governments as if they invented inflation to spite him personally. He has built an entire brand out of doing less for everyone and expecting applause for calling it leadership.
He blocked gun reforms even as mass shootings turned the state into a trauma map. He shortened the timeline for purchasing weapons. He expanded permitless carry while funerals still smelled of flowers. He greeted school shootings with platitudes and press briefings designed to waste both time and oxygen. Then he pivoted to blaming mental health despite stripping funding from mental health services. He is a circular logic generator with a drawl.
And then there is his pandemic record, which historians will one day study the way disaster engineers study collapsed bridges. He fought mask mandates. He fought vaccine mandates. He fought local governments who tried to limit spread. He fought schools trying to keep children alive. He fought businesses trying to protect workers. He fought doctors begging for resources. He fought every entity in the state except the virus itself. Texans died. Abbott bragged about freedom.
So now he wants another term. He wants voters to forget the power outages, the water crises, the pandemic mismanagement, the cruelty toward trans kids, the disregard for workers, the border theater, the book bans, the extremist alliances, and the statewide erosion of dignity. He wants Texans to imagine him as a steady hand. But steady hands do not drop a state on its face every time the temperature fluctuates. Steady hands do not criminalize healthcare. Steady hands do not treat disaster like branding.
There is something insulting about the whole performance. Abbott appears before cameras with his well practiced half squint, speaking in the tone of a man convinced that Texans should congratulate him for setting the house on fire and then filing paperwork about it. His supporters cheer because they have decided that cruelty is strength. His donors applaud because deregulation is profitable. His party embraces him because power matters more than people. And the rest of the state braces for another cycle of rhetoric stitched together from talking points, lawsuits, and disasters.
He announces his reelection like a man announcing a new season of a show no one watches willingly but everyone must live inside. He says Texas is thriving. He says Texas is strong. He says the future is bright. Meanwhile hospitals close, rural communities lose maternity wards, seniors sit in homes without heat during freezes, LGBTQ Texans plan escape routes, teachers flee classrooms, renters drown in inflated markets, public transit remains a rumor, and prisons operate like human warehouses. If this is thriving, one dreads to imagine what decline looks like.
Texans are tired. Not normal tired. The kind of tired that accumulates when every crisis becomes a political stunt. When a governor responds to suffering by issuing statements that mean nothing. When each natural disaster becomes a test of whether the grid will survive or if Texans will wake up on the news. When public safety becomes a talking point instead of a priority. When the governor is so occupied with punishing imaginary enemies that he cannot be bothered to protect actual citizens.
His reelection bid forces Texans into a familiar posture. Disbelief. Fury. Grim humor as survival. People joke about stocking up on candles. On bottled water. On battery packs. On defiance. But behind the jokes there is a heavy truth. Texans deserve better. They deserve leaders who understand that resilience is not a substitute for policy. They deserve empathy instead of performance. They deserve a government that does not weaponize cruelty and call it principle.
Greg Abbott will spend this campaign pretending he is the defender of liberty, the protector of Texas, the guardian of something sacred. The reality is simpler. He governs like someone who resents the people he serves. He governs like someone who wants credit for surviving self inflicted wounds. He governs like someone who believes leadership is measured in press releases rather than lives improved.
His announcement is not inspiring. It is not energizing. It is not a new chapter. It is a threat. One that Texans have heard before and hoped never to hear again.
But satire knows how to close the loop. When someone shows you who they are, believe them. When someone shows you who they are repeatedly during floods, freezes, fires, pandemics, blackouts, and culture wars, believe them faster. Abbott has shown Texans exactly who he is. He is the governor who watches the state burn, freeze, drown, and fracture and calls it success.
And now he wants six more years to finish the job.