Former Democratic presidential contender Beto O’Rourke called Texas Republicans a “death cult” because of the party’s response to the coronavirus.
The former congressman acknowledged that Gov. Greg Abbott has implemented statewide coronavirus orders, including a mandate requiring the use of masks, but he expressed outrage over how the Republican would not allow municipal governments to implement their own stay-at-home orders as new coronavirus cases spike in the state.
“This is one of the most craven, callous failures of leadership that I’ve ever witnessed in my life. We don’t have a Gov. Cuomo here, which we desperately need. Someone who’s going to be guided by the facts and the science and the truth and whose sole mission is going to be saving the lives of those that he is elected to serve,” O’Rourke said on MSNBC on Tuesday.
“Instead, we have a governor who perhaps is looking at the 2022 Republican primary for the office that he now holds, trying to fend off our lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who on Fox News said there are more important things than living. In other words, let’s get on with the dying. … This is a death cult, the Texas GOP. Only they want you to do the dying. And that’s exactly what is happening in Texas right now,” he added.
O’Rourke compared Abbott’s leadership to that of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, calling the Texas governor a “failure.” He noted that hospitals in parts of the state are approaching capacity.
Texas has the fourth most confirmed COVID-19 cases in the nation, but when broken down per 100,000 residents, Texas has 1,218 cases per 100,000 residents and 15 deaths per 100,000 residents. New York, which has 2,089 confirmed cases per 100,000 residents and 169 deaths per 100,000 residents, was just surpassed by California for most confirmed virus cases.
