Subheading: Raids on homes of Latino activists shockingly turn out to be a half-baked idea rife with intolerance and corruption 

Partha Kulkarni | Mercury Staff 

Some people vote one way and others vote another way. That is an inevitable fact in our socio-cultural climate.  Personally, I am not nor do I aim to be interested in sectioning an extraneous block of my time so that I can toil to cast my vote towards one of either two sanctimonious, bitter, thumb-twiddling politicians. Not that I mind those who do that. After all, what do I care what people do for themselves by themselves? I certainly do not need to kick the door of these people’s houses down and search through their clothes and seize their belongings under the guise of “election fraud,” even if Ken Paxton, the McCarthy-esque Attorney General of Texas, does. 

Yes, Paxton launched an investigation from his Tammany Hall-esque Election Integrity Unit,which was created to contest the 2020 election. This is the same Paxton who had a corruption probe against him over claims of him abusing his power to benefit Nate Paul, an Austin-based real estate developer who made false statements to mortgage lenders. This is the same Paxton who was indicted on felony charges over recruiting investors to Servergy and not telling them he was paid to do so — yikes. And yes, this is the same Paxton who has been yelling to the heavens about the loss of integrity in our elections. If only he took a look around. 

Now, Paxton has been working his magic on a referral from Audrey Gossett Louis, the District Attorney of San Antonio, who is facing allegations of jury tampering, which later culminated in raids on disproportionately Latino households, one of which included Lydia Martinez, a willful, weathered 87-year old member of the League of United Latin American Citizens from San Antonio. 

According to an article published by CBS News, Martinez woke up on the morning of Tuesday, Aug. 26, ready for another day, when suddenly there was a knock on her door. She opened the door and, lo and behold, there were nine officers clad in heavy armor, assault rifles and a dreaded search warrant. They questioned her for three hours over voter registration, later seizing her phone, computer, registration forms, even her personal calendar. Her crime? She wanted to help seniors and veterans with voting. How dare she! She absolutely deserved to have her front door broken down and her quaint domicile torn to shreds.  

The wheel’s started to turn, though, and Paxton is now the target of a biting, ironic bit of intimidation. In fact, LULAC formally requested our very own U.S. Justice Department whip up a civil rights investigation into these raids. Though it seems sweet and satisfying that Paxton’s 20-buck-a-trick witch hunts are coming back to hunt him, it is not the first time he has gone through this ordeal even if we want it to be the last.  

Paxton has been accused of intimidation before these raids. Not only did he try to access medical records of trans children at Seattle Children’s Hospital, a violation of HIPPA, but he also threatened physicians with felony persecutions and $100,000 fines if they performed an abortion on Kate Cox, whose fetus had a rare chromosomal condition which would have, best case scenario, resulted in death shortly after birth. Let’s assume for a second that the individuals Paxton had raided are supposedly part of a cabal to lure in millions of illegal immigrants and tarnish an already tarnished national election; if that’s the case, who is going to believe Paxton after he crudely cried wolf so many times? 

Paxton’s style of charged intimidation does not just manifest itself in the national or state elections, but in the municipality as well. Remember what happened to the protestors at UTD’s pro-Palestine protests, students and professors alike. We had snipers, tear gas and a litany of riot-ready law enforcement officers throwing down and hog-tying handcuffs on a crowd of 20-year-olds with Free Palestine flags.  

So, what do we do about Ken Paxton? First, let us forget about partisan politics for just a second. Admittedly, it will be quite difficult considering this story is about a stalwart Republican politician intimidating Latino voters who generally vote Democrat, but bear with me. Ultimately, this is just one of endless stories about uncivil disagreement. Goddamn it, we just cannot get along! Paxton is abusing this in his own right, but too many of us, the everyday collegiate squares, are also practicing our own form of this, too. There is a potential Paxton inside every single one of us. 

What do I mean by that? Paxton, at the baseline, is raging a war against people of a different ideology because it conflicts with his and he uses what’s in his power to put them down. As Attorney General, he has got a spoonful under his belt: police, connections, bastardization of the law, etc. We do not have police or legislative brouhaha at our fingertips, but we have a powerful alternative: our words. Social media, cancel culture, call-out culture and other such derivatives are, I believe, quite malleable towards that same sense of political vitriol we see with Paxton, even if it ultimately comes from a place of good. You cannot call someone the n-word and then proceed to blow up a women’s rights rally; that’s a crime which has to be atoned for and should rightfully be called out. Now, and this is where partisan politics come back into play, what happens when that crime is a student expressing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy or support for abortion? Are these people still criminals? Must we exclude them from our friend groups and remove their Instagram connections? Must we shout and humiliate them in a classroom setting? Must we forgo the art of free speech, differing opinions and pragmatism in lieu of a vengeful fury and misunderstanding with a shoddy aim towards a cloudy idea of social justice and betterment, not entirely unlike how Paxton has mobilized a calculated police force unto Democratic-leaning voter registration workers with a shoddy aim towards a cloudy idea of election integrity and safety? 

Why can we not accept who we really are: people? We go to work, we have families, we have hobbies, love, hate, fear, desire, but we also have different opinions from each other. I believe that the majority of people can agree that we, as Americans, have grown too politically polarized, but I do not believe that we have properly acted on this polarization. I’m a believer in the power of the individual and I believe you, the free-thinking collegiate square, can do something about it. 

For one, don’t be so quick to pass judgment on someone: the art of taking a breather, so to speak. Really attempt to understand where the other side is coming from and make an honest, respectful, informed opinion based on those facts. Who knows? They might even change your mind! Secondly, read. Read about the issues which plague our country today and try to look for the commonalities amongst multiple sources. If everybody did their best to practice those two points, the societal change that will come from that is greater than whatever any do-nothing, red-tape, navel-gazing presidential or gubernatorial candidate can promise in their campaign. Do not underestimate or waste what you are capable of, even in the tiptoe, mundane, cookie-cutter, white-collar, Bible Belt suburb we call Richardson.