In an unbelievably crowded field, the title of “Most Wretched Republican Bootlicker” is ultimately impossible to determine. But on Tuesday morning, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made a strong case for himself when he filed a nuisance lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue, falsely accusing the companies of concealing a link between Tylenol and autism.
The word “baseless” doesn’t begin to describe the value of the lawsuit. Both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and American Academy of Pediatrics have affirmed there is no significant link between using this common painkiller during pregnancy and having an autistic child. On the contrary, there could be significant risks if women were to forgo a doctor’s advice to use the drug for pain or fever.
MAGA Republicans, especially Paxton, have a long history of loathing both science and women, so they have no conscientious objections to a lawsuit that hurts women in the name of lying about medicine. Still, at first glance, Paxton’s move is surprising as political strategy.
In September, when President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. initially blamed autism on pregnant women who take Tylenol, the backlash was widespread and fierce. Nearly 60% of Americans said they disapproved of Kennedy’s management of HHS. The underlying misogyny of Trump and Kennedy’s position was also hard to miss. Even many politically disengaged people were angry at Trump falsely blaming autism on mothers who, in his eyes, failed to “tough it out.” It was just another reminder of the callous disregard Trump and Republicans have for women’s basic rights to safety.
Even by MAGA standards, Paxton has high levels of radiant misogyny, but it’s confusing why he would want to touch this hot stove. The likeliest answer is also the most painfully stupid one: Paxton is beclowning himself in hopes of wooing Trump to endorse his primary challenge against incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn.
Even by MAGA standards, Paxton has high levels of radiant misogyny, but it’s confusing why he would want to touch this hot stove. The likeliest answer is also the most painfully stupid one: Paxton is beclowning himself in hopes of wooing Trump to endorse his primary challenge against incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn.
Polls indicate the race is a dead heat. Earlier this year, Paxton held a strong lead over Cornyn, who has lost popularity with the GOP’s far-right flank over his occasional willingness to criticize Trump, as well as his support of laws to keep mentally unwell people from owning guns. But the attorney general’s polls have steadily slipped for months due to revelations about his affairs, ongoing corruption scandals and general odiousness. Many in the party have worried that, if Paxton secures the nomination, he will lose to a Democrat.
In response, Paxton has become comically thirsty for Trump’s endorsement, signaling there’s no limit to how low he will debase himself to get that tiny thumbs up. As CNN reported in August, Paxton has taken to booking trips to Trump-owned golf courses when the president is rumored to be there, hoping to cross paths on the links with the Great Orange Hope. His campaign has also been running ads for the Texas race in Palm Beach, Florida, hoping Trump will catch one during his obsessive cable news watching. The president, for his part, appears to enjoy toying with Paxton, telling reporters in August, “they all want the endorsement.” But gosh, he just doesn’t know when “I’ll make up my mind.”
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By filing this frivolous lawsuit, Paxton is flattering Trump’s notoriously fragile ego. In the weeks since Trump and Kennedy first uttered the Tylenol lie with great fanfare during a strange press conference, the president has been bitter about the pushback he has received from women and doctors. During a recent Cabinet meeting — which was merely an occasion for high-ranking government officials to publicly kiss Trump’s feet — Kennedy made a point to grouse about how terrible women were for questioning the president’s immeasurable medical wisdom. Pregnant women who disbelieve Trump’s lies, he insisted, suffer from a “pathology” he called “Trump derangment syndrome.” (No such “syndrome” exists, but the social pathology of sexist men calling outspoken women “crazy” has long been well-documented.)
Trump, who periodically takes to Truth Social to yell at women with all-caps diatribes for taking Tylenol, did it again on Sunday. “DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON,” he instructed women. He also admonished them to reject medical advice on vaccination schedules, recommending a Trump-preferred schedule instead that just so happens to involve a lot more time spent going to and from the doctor’s office. But what’s giving up even more of your limited time as a working mother if it’s done to prove your unquestioning belief that Trump knows better than actual experts?
The once-innocuous pain medication has become a symbol for misogynists of how women are evil, disobedient harlots. It’s also a personal fixation for a narcissist like Trump, who has clearly not recovered from being told, by women no less, that he is not the smartest man who ever lived. (Unsurprisingly, this is happening at the same time Trump is publicly freaking out over his deep — and justified — fear that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is smarter than he is.)
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All this makes the timing of Paxton’s lawsuit interesting. The legal filing has a slapped-together quality to it, including a plethora of irrelevant Wikipedia-style details, like why the drug is called “Tylenol,” to fill out the page length and make the complaint seem more substantive than it is. It reads very much like something Paxton hastily assembled, perhaps even after seeing Trump’s Sunday Truth Social post, in hopes of getting the president’s attention — not out of any confidence that he will win in court.
The whole thing is yet another reminder that Paxton is corrupt on a level that even alienates some Texas Republicans. Even if this case gets thrown out quickly, it will cost Texas taxpayers substantial amounts of money in litigation — none of which will go to making life better for Texans. To the contrary, it will just make things worse by sowing more doubt and mistrust of legitimate medicine, and causing pregnant women to take unnecessary health risks. This lawsuit is nothing more than expensive public show of flattery towards Trump, paid for by a state that underfunds the education, transportation, and health needs of every day Texans.
If somehow Paxton does make it to the Senate, we can expect more of the same: Treating the public’s trust as a piggybank financing his personal ambitions. No wonder he thinks he should win Trump’s endorsement.
