Whether you tried to peacefully enjoy some college football this weekend – and as predicted there were too many ads for terrible candidates to avoid – or you tried your best to be sports-free, you probably couldn’t make it to Monday without hearing about this:
For those just now becoming familiar with Bo French’s gutter racism, here’s something we wrote in July about his frequent promotion of white supremacist and fascist conspiracy theories – and the general GOP silence. (Link below). Now, Cornyn and some others are calling him out.
— Robert Downen (@RobertDownen_) 4:57 PM – 13 September 2026
This cursed tweet and a million reactions to it were all over whatever form of social media you torment yourself with. As noted, some Republicans did condemn him in various ways, while others were notably absent or thoroughly bad-faithed. French of course basked in the attention because that’s who he is.
We don’t have the time to wallow through all that right now. There are two points of interest here, beyond the obvious. One is that this has also brought a lot of attention to Rep. Jon Rosenthal, as most of the repliers and quote-tweeters that I saw indicated their support for his candidacy, as well they should. Rosenthal had just gotten a nice interview with Inside Climate News:
Jon Rosenthal, a Democratic state representative from Houston, is facing off against Bo French, a far-right Republican culture warrior from Fort Worth, for a seat on the commission that regulates the oil and gas industry in Texas.
In an interview with Inside Climate News during a campaign visit to El Paso this month, Rosenthal shared his vision for the oil and gas regulatory agency and responded to French’s inflammatory attacks.
The Railroad Commission of Texas no longer regulates the state’s railroads and instead oversees the vast oil and gas industry, including pipelines, drilling permits, waste disposal and new programs like carbon capture and storage.
Rosenthal worked as a mechanical engineer in the oil and gas industry for 25 years. Following Donald Trump’s 2016 election, he ran for state representative and flipped a seat that had been held by Republicans for more than two decades. Rosenthal has served on the Energy Resources Committee throughout his nearly eight years in the Texas House.
French, the Republican nominee, stepped down as Tarrant County GOP chair to run for commissioner, defeating incumbent Jim Wright in the May 2026 primary run-off. He was raised in Midland in the heart of the gas- and oil-rich Permian Basin, and his family has oil and gas holdings. French spent his career as a trader and more recently in politics. His social media is filled with calls to deport 100 million people and ban “Sharia law” in Texas.
Rosenthal, the only Jewish member of the Texas House, told Inside Climate News he is compelled to speak out against “bigotry and discrimination” and unite with Texans of all backgrounds.
Inside Climate News reached out to French for comment on Rosenthal’s criticism of what he called anti-semitism and Islamophobia in French’s campaign materials. French did not respond.
The Railroad Commission’s three members, all Republicans, serve staggered six year terms. Wayne Christian and Chairman Christi Craddick’s terms run through 2028 and 2030, respectively. The general election race to fill Wright’s seat between Rosenthal and French is on Nov. 3.
You can also of course listen to my interview with Rep. Rosenthal. Note that this story published on September 11, two days before this particular French tweet. You could have published it basically any time and had something recent and vile that he had said to refer to.
To reiterate a point that’s now been made many times: That Bo French tweet about UT was actually quite tame compared to the stuff he casually tweets a few times a week.
For example:
— Robert Downen (@RobertDownen_) 1:22 PM – 14 September 2026
The other point is how this derails other messages that Republicans would like to push while putting them all on the spot. Here’s the editorial page take, which praises the Republicans who did say something and then turned to the rest of them:
That’s a good start. Here’s the next step: Republicans need to tell their voters not to support French for railroad commissioner. This wasn’t an isolated incident. French has a long history of racism and it isn’t going to stop unless voters make sure he loses.
If George H.W. Bush could endorse Democratic candidate Edwin Edwards against former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke in the race for Louisiana governor, then today’s Republicans should be bold enough to at least tell their base to skip over French’s name. Republicans don’t even have to go as far as Hawk Dunlap, who lost in the GOP primary against French and endorsed the Democratic candidate Jon Rosenthal. Just say no to Bo.
Republicans had the opportunity to shut him down in their primary, much like how Texas Democrats rejected the antisemitic Maureen Galindo in the primary for the 35th Congressional District. Gov. Greg Abbott campaigned for the incumbent, Jim Wright. But Republicans still failed. Now the fight against French’s bigotry has made it to the general ballot.
You could say this is one of those “do right and risk consequences” moments that Sam Houston once described, but the reality is that the policy consequences for Republicans are quite minimal. Even if Rosenthal wins, Republicans will still have a two-vote majority on the three-member Railroad Commission. Conservatives will still largely get their way no matter what. And Rosenthal will bring the useful perspective of an experienced oil and gas engineer.
The bar for political courage here is very, very low. And yet many Republican candidates we’ve met during endorsement screenings have failed to meet it. Perhaps this moment will convince them to finally speak up.
If they don’t, Republicans risk the consequence of having to answer questions about why they elected an unrepentant racist to office. And the risk for all of us is that we’ll have a railroad commissioner who, as Gov. Greg Abbott said during the primary, “doesn’t know anything about oil and gas” and would “wreck” the industry. That we’ll have a man in power who doesn’t want Texas to win if he doesn’t like the color of the fans’ skin.
Since then, Abbott has endorsed French. So has Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who once said French engaged in “[a]ntisemitism and religious bigotry.” For those wondering, Attorney General Ken Paxton backed French in the GOP primary.
The Longhorns put up a hard fight to win on Saturday. Republicans’ battle against the racists in their own party should be an easy one — but with the way things are going, don’t be surprised if they choke.
Robert Downen made the same point about this race being more or less meaningless to the Republicans, versus having to deal with this guy as an elected official. But of course they’ve known about him for a long time and taken minimal action to try and stop him. And there’s also a the bigger picture here, which is being held aloft by many very dirty hands:
Watching Republican legislators condemning anti-immigrant sentiment while having voted for every anti-immigrant bill that came to the floor of the Texas House for at least the last decade is the shot of irony I needed today #txlege
— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 12:23 PM – 13 September 2026
When the racism is embedded in a proposed law, Republicans around here vote for it
When the racism is in a tweet during a tough midterm, they condemn it.
Not that hard to understand.— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 12:32 PM – 13 September 2026
Lone Star Left brings a longer list of receipts. The Observer notes that a non-trivial number of elected Republicans (and other prominent figures) proudly stood with French. This is where we are. As repulsive as it all is, I’m glad it was made clear to as many people as possible.
UPDATE: One other feature from social media was journalists asking people who were in that picture to contact them and talk about their experience. Here’s two of them talking to the DMN.
Dhairya Gupta and his friends arrived at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Saturday wearing orange, hoping for an upset.
The Longhorns squeaked out a victory against top-ranked Ohio State with a thrilling fourth-quarter comeback. The camera cut to Gupta and his friends after the go-ahead touchdown. Gupta, his arms outstretched to the sky as he flashed the “Hook ‘em” sign with both hands, grinned for all to see. To his right was Rahul Kodali, a friend since the first day of freshman year, his face frozen in apparent disbelief. Kodali lost his voice that night. Gupta went home to watch the highlights.
Saturday was a blast.
Then came Sunday morning.
A man Gupta had never heard of, Bo French, was trending on X after singling out a photo of Gupta, Kodali and other Texas students celebrating. French said the photo, largely depicting men with brown skin, illustrated a problem at the university.
“It was just us having some enjoyment,” Gupta, 21, said in a phone interview Sunday. “And now it’s just people being blatantly racist toward us.”
[…]
While Gupta and Kodali are of South Asian descent, both said they are U.S. citizens. Gupta is an immigrant from India who moved to the U.S. when he was about 5 years old and gained citizenship in his childhood, he said. Kodali, his friend, was born in Syracuse, New York. His family moved to the Dallas area when he was a toddler. He graduated from Flower Mound High School in Denton County and receives in-state tuition.
“Whether or not we are immigrants, that doesn’t change anything,” Kodali, 21, said. “I’ve been an American my entire life.”
[…]
Gupta, a senior and computer science major, picked UT because he believed it was a great school with a thriving athletics department located in a major city that keeps growing. He met Kodali his first day of school as a freshman, and they bonded over their love of the English soccer team Chelsea.
Gupta enjoyed the diversity of the student body.
“Texas is broad enough that you really get to meet people of all different types,” he said. “I’ve gotten opportunities here that I wouldn’t necessarily get elsewhere.”
In the last few years, that kind of diversity has been attacked. And throughout the 2026 campaign, French has been at the forefront of those attacks as he’s repeatedly spoken out against diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Gupta said racism has risen within the last 10 years — since President Donald Trump’s first campaign in 2016. He’s seen blanket racist statements before, he said, but he had difficulty describing racism being “directly applied to us.”
“I’d never seen this in lower-level elections, and then seeing this happen right now, just from an innocent moment at a football game at the state’s university, I just thought it was surprising that people are going out of their way to be racist on that,” he said.
He also became concerned when he realized French is seeking elected office, which gives him a platform.
“They have people voting for them, and they’re not scared to say this kind of thing,” Gupta said. “It’s becoming to the point where this kind of racism just isn’t looked down upon as much as it used to be — or it feels like that.”
Kodali, who is also a senior and computer science major, took issue with some posts seeming to defend him and other students as assimilating into American culture by attending a UT football game and wearing cowboy hats or cowboys boots.
“I’m going to the games because I like the team,” he said. “I’m not doing it for this old noble cause.”
Asked if there’s anything either would like to say to French if they met him, Kodali said there’s nothing he could say “that could knock a dent in a person that talks like that.”
Gupta said he would tell French that being an immigrant doesn’t mean UT’s culture will shift one way or another.
“We have a different color in our skin, we might speak different languages, but at the end of the day, all of us are still going to the same university,” Gupta said. “We’re still standing behind the same team.”
Gupta also spoke to the Houston Chronicle, and I’m sure others will have their say as well. (He and a couple of others also spoke to the Trib.) I’m with Kodali on not having anything to say to Bo French. There’s no point, and he doesn’t deserve whatever grace one may have in trying to reach him.
UPDATE: Holy cow.
Karl Rove, former adviser to President George W. Bush and longtime Texas GOP political consultant, said he will vote for Jon Rosenthal, a Houston Democrat running to serve the Texas Railroad Commission, after Republican Bo French posted racist comments on Sunday about South Asian students at the University of Texas at Austin.
Rove made the comments at a members-only lunch event at the Headliners Club in Austin, where he called French a “bigot,” according to three attendees to whom The Texas Tribune has granted anonymity to discuss the conversation.
Rove said he has only ever voted for one Democratic candidate, Texas Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock, who was up for reelection in 1994.
I need to go check and see if rivers are running uphill. Apparently, Rove is now teaching grad students at the UT school of public affairs. Never ever thought I’d say these words, but I hope a lot of Republicans listen to what Karl Rove is saying here.
The contrast between the decency and youthful exuberance of Kodali and Gupta with the racism and fear of French is really stark.
The less open bigots try to cover themselves by saying “We’re OK with LEGAL immigration “ and “we’re fine with immigrants as long as they assimilate “. These students checked both those boxes. What can be more Texan than college football game day? Also it’s not just UT that’s not lily white enough to please the likes of French. Let him see a UH game.
“This cursed tweet and a million reactions to it were all over whatever form of social media you torment yourself with.”…. IS THE SENTENCE OF THE DAY. TY, Kuff.
What has Rove said about Paxton?
That would explain the pigs I saw flying past my office window!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9NMt42il4Q