Who really controls Greg Abbott?

Greg Abbott is stressed. After 3 terms as Texas guv, the Republican had every factor to think the workplace was his as long as he desired it. Abbott is now seeing his Democratic challenger , state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, get annoyingly close to him in the surveysUnexpectedly, the guv needs to bear in mind unfavorable press, something he’s lost practice at in the decade-plus he’s remained in workplace. Abbott prevented a current project stop from Donald Trump, lest he be seen in the area of the undesirable president or Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general of the United States who seems dealing with an uphill struggle in his own Senate race versus state Rep. James Talarico. The guv is so worried about his re-election potential customers that he just recently reversed his position on information centers, which have actually grown significantly undesirable, and is now requiring moratoriums and limitations on their building. One concern Abbott hasn’t budged on is his full-blown war on public education.

Schools in Texas are extremely underfunded, with hundreds needing to decrease trainees to 4 days a week. This is quite by Abbott’s style. As Jessica Grose of the New York Times described on Oct. 7, the guv signed into law a coupon program whose whole function is paying moms and dads to take kids out of school and put them into uncontrolled “options”– such as independent schools or homeschooling– that have no genuine requirements to provide kids a real education. Considering that regional school financing is connected to trainee head count, this has actually developed a backdoor method to funnel cash out of already-struggling public schools.

Seeing the guv cook up fancy plans to siphon cash from precious regional organizations into uncontrolled spiritual programs and homeschooling is infuriating individuals, a lot so that some long-lasting Republican leaders are revealing they will be electing a Democrat for the very first time ever.

Even in deeply conservative rural and suburbs, Abbott’s policy is undesirable; a June 2026 University of Texas/Texas Politics Project survey discovered that just 33% of Texans authorize of his efficiency on education. As Grose notes, public schools are the heart of numerous Texas neighborhoods, specifically when it pertains to high school football. (As a native Texan, I can confirm that the “Friday Night Lights” way of life is genuine.) Seeing the guv cook up fancy plans to siphon cash from cherished regional organizations into uncontrolled spiritual programs and homeschooling is infuriating individuals, a lot so that some long-lasting Republican leaders are revealing they will be electing a Democrat for the very first time ever. It assists that Hinojosa, whose entryway into holding workplace was being on the Austin school board, has actually made conserving Texas schools the focal point of her project.

Thinking about education is the concern that could sink Abbott, it raises the concern: Why not pull back? He moved equipments on information. When it comes to this policy, which is weakening and might even begin closing cherished regional schools, the guv will not budge. To the contrary, he has actually burned a great deal of bridges within the GOP in his war on public schools, backing main challengers of anti-voucher Republicans in the legislature up until he ‘d slanted the scales to get this done.

Cash is the likeliest response. As Grose notes, Abbott’s war on education is backed by 3 effective Texas billionaires– and significant conservative donors– Tim Dunn and a set of bros, Farris and Dan Wilks. The trio made their fortunes in oil. Their single-minded hatred of public schools is rooted in evangelical Christianity.

“If you ever question why state laws and policies are more extreme than the majority of Texans would choose, the response has a lot to do with Dunn and his checkbook,” Russell Gold composed in Texas Monthly in 2024. The very same holds true of the Filks bros, who share Dunn’s dream of turning Texas into a reactionary Christian theocracy.

When not tossing cash at Republican political leaders happy to back their Christian nationalist program, both Dunn and Farris Wilks preach from the pulpit, pressing spiritual views that are far ideal of even most evangelicals. Wilks led the Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day Church in Eastland County for 31 years, a parish where females are obviously prohibited to speak in church. In 2010, he provided a preaching where he stated “our nation passed away” when Barack Obama was chosen. “I do think we reside in a country that will begin to throw up a few of its individuals out,” he stated of LGBTQ individuals the list below year. Wilks has actually likewise preached that all gay individuals live a “predatorial way of life” and “desire your kids.”

Dunn has actually backed efforts to reword the Constitution to make it more amendable to his Christian nationalist views, which apparently consists of the belief that just conservative Christians must be qualified to hold workplace. Like Wilks, he has actually zeroed in on public schools as the fantastic opponent that needs to be ruinedTheir primary weapon has actually been moneying main challengers versus any Republican who opposes them, which has actually produced a state of worry within the celebration. Couple of attempt cross them– consisting of Abbott.

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Through his Midland Bible Church, Dunn established Midland Classical Academy, which uses a peek of his favored curriculum: anti-science Biblical literalism that will leave kids unprepared for living and working as grownups in the real life. The school teaches “the authority of God over every location of life” and structure education along a historic timeline “from the garden to Mesopotamia, from Greece and Rome to the Reformation and beyond.” The extreme adult participation needed by the academy sounds incompatible with permitting moms to have tasks beyond the home.

Abbott’s war on education isn’t simply monetary or minimal to K-12. Republicans”have actually developed stringent state controls on what can be taught, looked into, and even talked about” in universities, reports The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer. The University of Texas at Austin has actually been strong-armed into removing majors in “Africana research studies, Mexican American and Latino research studies, females’s and gender research studies, and race and migration research studies.” Government teachers have actually been prohibited from going over the history of bigotry or the battle for queer rights. The censorship has actually grown so extreme that a person approach teacher was informed to get rid of Plato’s “the Republic” since the ancient Greek theorist discusses homosexuality.

Abbott himself does not check out as a Christian fundamentalist like Dunn or Wilks. While the guv strikes his minimum Republican allocation of God talk, he has actually likewise handled to avert a credibility as a wild evangelical, in spite of his assistance for abortion restrictions and for requiring the Ten Commandments into class. Part of it is his affect, which feels more old-school Republican than Bible-waving preacher. As a Catholic, Abbott has actually likewise handled to keep a discrete range from the evangelicals who are the foundation of the Christian nationalist motion.

Whatever his individual beliefs, Abbott has actually emerged as one of the GOP’s a lot of faithful soldiers in a motion to turn America into a reactionary Christian country. His benefactors have actually singled out public education as the most significant barrier to an illiberal theocratic program– and with great factor. Education is power. It’s not simply that kids who discover to check out and believe seriously typically leave conservative religious beliefs, though that is a huge worry driving the war on public schools. It’s likewise that education empowers most of Americans who do not sign up for fundamentalist Christianity.

If Wilks, Dunn and other reactionary billionaires can break public schools, leaving the only alternatives as spiritual education or none at all, they will turn America into a hellscape. Modern individuals require education to hold down decent-paying tasks, and civic involvement depends upon the capability to check out, compose and factor. A population without the advantages provided by public education would mainly be left intellectually, economically and spiritually impoverished– and much easier to manage.