The Third Attack Against Texas Democrats In The Past Twelve Months

     The most infamous politically-motivated attack in the increasingly-infamous state of Texas is the attack that occurred just a week before the 2020 presidential election, when a group of cars and trucks filled with Trump supporters tried to run the Biden-Harris campaign bus off the road, forcing Biden to cancel his last two stops in the state. Local authorities initially refused to intervene while the Texas GOP and the entire Trump family officially praised this felony act of reckless endangerment. The Biden campaign played their cards right, suing the Trump supporters under the 1871 KKK Act designed to prevent political violence by gangs while the FBI investigates. 

     In November 2020, the Travis County Democratic Party's headquarters, which are located in the major metropolitan area of Austin, were vandalized, windows smashed and exterior walls sprayed with graffiti. It was this attack that caused local party leaders to install cameras in the building, and it was these cameras that captured the events of September 29th, 2021. 

     A white man in a grey hoodie and shorts, face draped in American flag bandanas, can be seen suspiciously walking past and paying attention to the building around two in the morning. Over the course of about ten minutes, he smashes in the front window with a rock, walks to a spot out of the camera's view, retrieves a bottle with a rag sticking out of it (based on what happens next, a Molotov cocktail), and throws the incendiary device through the area of smashed glass he has created. The idiot nearly burns himself in the process, and the cocktail shoots embers and starts a relatively-small fire. Neighbors, surely suspicious at the sounds of breaking glass and flames, respond with fire extinguishers soon after the man flees and are able to put out the flames before they engulf the building.

     That's not the end of the story. The Austin Police Department, which quickly and professionally responded, says that a note was left that made clear that this was not the first attack against Democrats in Texas and would not be the last, essentially saying Democrats could have California and New York but not Texas. Local authorities say the municipal offices were also vandalized around the same time; because Austin is a city, it leans Democratic, and the municipal buildings there may also have been in the suspect's range. The FBI is investigating this arson as a politically-motivated attack, but the suspect has not yet been identified. 

     We are not afraid. We are not backing down. We cannot and will not let terrorists dictate who has a say in public policy, especially the kind of deranged dystopian story Texas is being made into by the GOP. Texas is a few legislative seats and a governor away from turning blue. It's time to double down on these efforts and show these domestic terrorists that they will never win.