The Texas GOP is at war with itself. The outcome could signal the national party’s future.
Three weeks later, The Texas Tribune photographed Stickland and other officials connected to the Wilks-Dunn network meeting with Fuentes, the Nazi sympathizer, at Stickland’s offices in North Texas, giving Phelan and other more moderate Republicans ammunition to fire back. Texas GOP Chairman Matt Rinaldi, who’s among those calling for Phelan’s ouster, was photographed at the same location but has denied meeting with Fuentes.
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But a review of social media posts and recorded comments by officials in the Defend Texas Liberty orbit reveals a deeper embrace of white nationalist rhetoric and ideas. Chris Russo, the president of Texans for Strong Borders, a Defend Texas Liberty-funded anti-immigrant activist group, was photographed chauffeuring Fuentes to the meeting with Stickland.
Texans for Strong Borders didn’t respond to requests to interview Russo. On Wednesday, the Tribune, quoting two of Russo’s associates, reported that Russo has used anonymous social media accounts to praise Fuentes and rail against immigration, feminists, the LGBTQ community and Black people.
Texans for Strong Borders hasn’t hidden its views. The anti-immigration group’s public social media feeds are littered with posts espousing foundational white nationalist positions, including the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which falsely claims white people are being replaced in America through mass immigration as part of an elaborate plot by powerful elites. Extremism experts warn that the belief has inspired violence against people of color, including when a gunman killed 22 people at a WalMart in El Paso, Texas, in 2019 and last year when a shooter targeting Black people killed 10 at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
In a video posted this summer to Texans for Strong Borders’ TikTok account, Ella Maulding — an online influencer who has publicly praised Fuentes as “the greatest civil rights leader in history” — rejected the idea of America as a melting pot, arguing it was founded as “a sovereign Christian nation” meant to serve “a people of distinct culture, history and identity.”
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