The GOP’s tent is too big if Bo French fits under it

The University of Texas at Austin football team pulled off a historic comeback Saturday night against the top-ranked Ohio State squad. The Longhorns, piloted by the latest quarterbacking savant of the Manning family, overcame a 20-point deficit in the final quarter, sending their burnt-orange-clad fans into a frenzy. The scene was pure Americana.But to some on the nationalist Right, it was just more proof of America’s cultural suicide.Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas railroad commissioner, shared a picture of one particular student section composed mainly of young men appearing to be of Indian descent. About 20 in all, these youths waved the classic “Hook ’em Horns” hand symbol and rejoiced along with the rest of the stadium at the comeback. The caption for French’s post said: “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.” To many, myself included, the picture seemed innocuous, even uplifting. Here was a group of men celebrating American culture in its most concentrated form: Texas football.It would be hard to find clearer proof of assimilation into American culture, I thought. So I tweeted the thought, then put my phone down for an hour to pitch Wiffle balls to my son in the backyard.When I picked it back up, my post had been viewed 150,000 times and drawn hundreds of replies — few of them about immigration levels, H-1B abuse, or the pace of assimilation. Most just hurled hideous race hatred at the boys in the photo.“Another piece of s*** journalist promoting white replacement,” wrote one person. “Americans are White people. America is a White country,” wrote another. Another piece of shit journalist promoting white replacement Fuck you— Jamie Wilson (@Jamie80wilson) September 14, 2026 I also received more than a few serious-sounding death threats. One responder wanted journalists like me to be “liquidated,” another wanted me “hanging from a lamppost,” while many others accused me of being a “traitor.” All for the high crime of saying that a picture of young men enjoying Texas football seemed like a good example of assimilation.Some of the nationalist Right’s highest-profile figures also championed French’s post. Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of the Federalist, wrote, “Bo French is awesome,” and that Republicans who opposed the post were “anti-American losers” who were “hell-bent on looting America on behalf of foreigners.”Jack Posobiec, nationalist influencer and frequent headliner for Turning Point USA events, spent his entire Sunday lashing out at French’s critics.“The cuckservatives are crying, screaming, vomiting all over themselves over Bo’s tweet,” he wrote. “Get in the hotel chair.”By “get in the hotel chair,” Posobiec insinuated that if you are white and not appalled by the sight of Longhorns fans of Indian descent, you derive pleasure from racial humiliation.It was all a terrible shame because beneath the rot is a debate well worth having: Our immigration system remains in desperate need of strategic and moral clarity. As the Trump era wanes, the conservative movement is still arguing over whether national identity is rooted in shared heritage or a shared creed. And with 2028 fast approaching, the time to arrive at a compelling consensus is running out. The outlines of an answer are already visible. Here at the Washington Examiner, we ran a symposium on the question featuring thinkers from both the creedalist and heritage camps. The 25 essays seemed to point in the same direction: creed or heritage is a false choice. The ideas found in the Declaration of Independence didn’t drop out of the sky, but grew out of a particular people’s inheritance. The creed came from the culture, and the culture now needs the creed to hold it together. The failed project of multiculturalism, in which countless cultures live in proximity with nothing to bind them together, was rejected by writers across the conservative spectrum.There are still arguments to be had around the edges, about whether the creedalist camp still tends to underplay the incompatibility of American ideals with certain foreign cultures, or whether the heritage camp too often veers recklessly into blood-and-soil nationalism, where no amount of assimilation is enough to make one a true American.But if the argument brought to the general electorate in 2028 includes the crass identitarianism of French and his supporters, this debate will quickly become academic. The Democratic Party, now run openly by socialists, will sweep the elections and comprehensively dismantle Trump’s gains on immigration and border security.Taken to their extremes, both the creedalist and heritage camps become morally and politically untenable. But the excesses of the heritage camp are deadlier. To be wrong about how certain ideas travel, as the creedalists surely are, is a dangerous folly — America today suffers the consequences of decades of thinking that all cultures are compatible with American values.But the heritage extreme involves judgments about what people intrinsically are. It’s a short step from privileging heritage to racialism — an inverse of the identitarianism of the woke-era Left, which “sees race” and scoffs at colorblindness. It looks at the 20 kids in the football stadium and tells them that Americanness could never be for them, no matter what they do.The political consequences of failing to draw and enforce clear boundaries on the issue of national identity are likely to arrive before 2028. French is running statewide in a cycle where Republicans are already defending a Senate seat against the most media-savvy Democrat Texas has produced in years.MAGAWORLD SPLITS OVER BO FRENCH’S RACE BAITING POSTSome Texas Republican leaders, including Sen. John Cornyn and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, pushed back against French’s post and the ensuing explosion of outright racism. But they lack clout with the heritage camp and won’t move anyone. One person well situated to call balls and strikes on the issue is Vice President JD Vance, who waded deeply into the matter in a July 2025 speech at the Claremont Institute, taking a hard heritage position.Until someone of stature draws a clear line, it’s fair for Democrats to say that open racists are welcome under the GOP tent. And a party that won’t draw it doesn’t deserve to win.