This tweet, with its accompanying photograph, went viral this weekend. With any luck at all, it will cost Bo French the election for Texas Railroad Commissioner. Even Karl Rove, Ted Cruz, and other Texas Republicans were offended, though others were reluctant even to pretend they were. French has a long history of racist remarks, but he won the primary election for the post and has the support of the oil and gas industry. He's borne down on this tweet, mocking his critics.
Liberals too scolded French for his bigotry. Most of what I saw was in the "Oh, how can you say such awful things?" mode, which is fair enough, but there was little if any attempt to go beyond that and dismantle the assumptions that underlay French's tweet, which was something of a dogwhistle but obvious enough. Take this Houston public-media call-in show. The hosts spend twelve minutes being indignant, but I expect more and better from public media. (Not that I get it.) French would prefer that there be no non-white students, or residents for that matter, in Texas. From his responses to criticism, I gather that he assumes (or knows that his backers assume) that Indians and other foreigners are crowding out "American" (i.e., white) kids for admission to the University of Texas.
Politico reported, though:
Two of the students in the photo told the Dallas Morning News that they’re U.S. citizens. Most UT students are Texans — state law requires that 90% of each freshman class come from in-state — and there is no evidence that the students in the photo French posted are foreigners.
The Texas Tribune was helpful:
French said UT was “filled with foreign nationals” and argued that the school has prioritized foreign students and workers. However, under state law, 90% of UT freshmen must be in-state residents, while the remaining 10% are international students or out-of-state students. International students comprised about 4% of undergraduates in the 2025-26 school year.
UT offers automatic admission to all in-state residents in the top 5% of their high school graduating class. Under state law, 75% of UT’s freshman class must be admitted under this policy. The remaining students are admitted through a holistic process that considers factors such as grade point average, extracurriculars and personal essays.
French doesn't care about facts, of course, and I don't think most liberals do either. But they should at least pretend to. I watched a YouTube video today on American slavery by Jamelle Bouie, in which he acknowledged a bit sheepishly that many people on all sides of American political debates don't really care much about facts, but said that it's still good to be armed with them when you encounter bad claims and arguments. I agree.
Remember Kash Patel's locker-room celebration with the US hockey team in May? I do, but I'd forgotten that "In 2019, an event at a Houston stadium headlined by Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi drew over 50,000 attendees. French’s comments could alienate those same voters, said Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican consultant in Austin." Republican elites are quite cozy with right-wing Hindus of the sort that currently run India. That's not why Bo French wants to run them out of Texas, of course. Racists pretend to care that immigrants won't "assimilate." The kids in that photo sure as hell have assimilated.
