It must be nice to go through life blissfully unaware when teens make you the extremely well-deserving butt of their extremely rad joke. Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is one of those lucky few who have absolutely no sense of self.
Speaking at a Tea Party (yeah, they still exist) event in a Fort Worth suburb this week, Patrick—a shameless self promoter, as well as a virulent transphobe and xenophobe—was eager to bring on stage 17-year-old high school student Caleb Brock, who, Patrick explained “brought me a painting.”
Beaming, Patrick unveiled Brock’s art to the applauding crowd, seemingly entirely unaware that the painting featured the phrase “ABOLISH ICE” in big, block, capital letters. Here’s a closer look at Patrick’s killer new art, thanks to The Young Turks’ Ken Klippenstein, who interviewed Brock on Wednesday.
“I went in and pretended to be a huge fan of Dan Patrick, showed it to some Tea Party people with name badges, and talked to his security, then some lady who I assume had a place on his staff,” Brock told The Young Turks, which makes his prank all the more impressive considering his extremely obvious troll job allegedly went through multiple rounds of vetting before Patrick unveiled it to the crowd.
“Dan Patrick and any official who refuses to speak out against ICE’s injustices are complicit in these crimes,” Brock added.
Just last month, Patrick insisted that the existence of a border wall in the city of El Paso meant “that violence, of decapitating people, of hanging people from bridges, of cutting off their heads in pool halls and down the street...would be here in El Paso.” And last spring, Patrick defended the Trump administrations policy of separating undocumented children from their families.
We’ve reached out to Patrick’s office for comment on the painting and to determine its current whereabouts, and will update this post if they respond.
In the meantime, allow me to impart on you this final piece of wisdom: Always assume random teens are trying desperately to dunk on you. Sure, it’ll make you paranoid, but honestly, it’ll make your life so much easier in the long run.