US Rep. Ronny Jackson speaks in Amarillo ahead of elections

Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, was the featured speaker at a Conservative Patriots 4Texas meet the candidates event held Tuesday night at the Arena of Life Church in Amarillo.

Appearing at the event were local Republican candidates Blair Schaeffer, who is running for Potter County Commissioner, and incumbent Potter County Justice of the Peace Robert Taylor. Both briefly addressed the crowd of about 100 people about why they should cast their ballot for them. Also speaking at the event was local businessperson Tom Warren, a write-in candidate for Potter County Judge.

Jackson, who is running for his second term against Democratic nominee Kathleen Brown of Wichita Falls, spoke for well over an hour about the need to elect more Republicans in Congress to push their agenda in legislation.

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In his speech, Jackson stated that the country has been in steady decline since former President Donald Trump was voted out of office, and that the Democratic Party has been taken over by six members of Congress known as “The Squad,” whom he labeled as communists.

Jackson's reference to the squad includes six Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri.

“They voted 100% of the time with Nancy Pelosi, who voted to go with the squad told her to,” Jackson said. “A small minority controls everything in the Democratic party. They are not socialists. They skipped socialism and went straight to communism. Nancy Pelosi carries the water for them.”

While the group of six did vote overwhelmingly for Democratic bills in Congress, as a group, only two Democrats voted less along party lines than these six Democrats, according to fivethirtyeight.com.

Jackson spoke at length about the issues at the border with undocumented immigrants flooding the country, stating that the country is setting itself up with another 9/11 with the people who are coming across the border. He said that hospitals along the border are being overrun, affecting U.S. residents’ ability to get health care in a timely manner.

Diverting the conversation to foreign policy, Jackson opined that the world does not respect the United States with Biden as president, and he blamed him for the withdrawal from Afghanistan that had previously been negotiated under Trump. Jackson also said that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump was still president and anticipated a conflict with China over Taiwan before Biden leaves office.

Citing the U.S. and the world’s reliance on Taiwan for computer chips, Jackson speculated that this would have a disastrous impact on the worldwide economy.

Purging conservative military members, Jackson said, had been an aim of the Democratic party under former President Barack Obama to instill woke ideologies in their place. He even cited the COVID-19 vaccine mandate as another example of trying to eliminate conservative military members. The COVID-19 vaccine now joins 16 other shots that the military has required for the readiness of its forces. According to the U.S. Army, as of June 21, it has separated 1,037 soldiers for refusing the lawful order to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

‘They are really trying to take over the military, and we have to stop that,“ Jackson said.

Jackson said he felt that many independents and people registered as Democrats would not vote for Democrats in the upcoming midterms, which will ensure gains for the Republican party in the midterms, leading to taking the House and possibly the Senate.

Other topics brought up by Jackson during his speech were the war on the oil industry by the Democrats, the need to get rid of the teacher’s union and their protections.

Following his speech, Jackson gave his ideas on how to solve immigration issues at the border.

“We should go back to the Remain in Mexico policy and take away the incentives for people to come to this country,” Jackson said. "We need to start building relationships with the countries that these people are coming from. We need to make sure they are helping on their end by withholding resources to these countries to get their cooperation.”

Jackson emphasized that the wall needs to be finished to be able to reduce avenues of entry into the United States.

One bipartisan issue that Jackson agreed with that had been spoken about by Beto O’Rourke during his recent gubernatorial campaign stop was a reformed and robust work visa program for needed workers in agriculture and industry, which is short on staffing.

“If you get rid of the immigrant workers around here, many of the farms could not function in the area; our economy cannot exist without them,“ Jackson said. “We have to have a good work visa program, but we need to know who is here in the country.”

Asked about his comments on the teacher’s union, Jackson said that they should not have a special status with the amount of damage that they have done to the country.

"Because of teacher’s unions, we were pushing mask mandates and shutting down schools,” Jackson said. “The teacher’s unions want parents not to have a say in their kids' education. They are very authoritarian. They are pushing this horrible CRT and woke gender confusion ideology. I want to get rid of the teacher’s union.”

Jackson said he would focus on three areas once he was reelected: national defense, agriculture and health care. He said he would have specific legislation on those areas that he would be releasing in the future.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Ronny Jackson speaks in Amarillo ahead of Election Day 2022