During the 2020 Democrat Party’s primary, Francis “Beto” O’Rourke made a lot of bold statements that was supposed to excite the Democrat voting base, but like many politicians, the wannabe from El Paso wholly misjudged the attitudes within the party and ended up watching his star fade very, very quickly.

O’Rourke’s campaign ended with a whimper and not many people cared. Keep in mind that this was after he had failed to win Ted Cruz’s senate seat in a very high-profile and very expensive race.

One of the bold statements that O’Rourke made during his attempt at the White House was the famously dumb vow of “hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15,” a phrase which even Democrat lawmakers wish he hadn’t said, knowing fully that it wouldn’t play well for the majority of the country. He wasn’t wrong, Democrats want to do exactly that, but they’d rather not frame it that way. They want a more nuanced and gentle approach to tyranny.

But now O’Rourke is running in Texas again, this time for the governorship, against Greg Abbott. Currently, Abbott maintains a double-digit lead over O’Rourke at 11 percent in a state that still maintains a strong shade of red despite the relentless interstate immigration from failed blue states to the figurative and literal greener grass of Texas.

With the popularly red state now in his aspirations again, O’Rourke seems to have put away the hardline leftist he was on the national stage and has reassumed his more moderate persona of the Texas Democrat politician. As reported by The Reload, O’Rourke doesn’t want to take guns from people. In fact, he’s now a Second Amendment defender:

“I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone,” O’Rourke told supporters during a campaign stop in Tyler, Texas on Tuesday. “What I want to make sure that we do is defend the Second Amendment.”

Can the real Beto please stand up?

Voters on both sides of the aisle have to wonder who O’Rourke really is at this point. Is he the radical leftist looking to strip people of their firearms, even to the point where he’s willing to send law enforcement door to door to confiscate the legal guns of citizens like he said he was when on the national stage? Is he the moderate Democrat who wants to defend people’s rights to own firearms and doesn’t want to take anyone’s guns at all?

Which is it?

If you had to assign him to one side, the true O’Rourke is more like the one you saw on the national stage, but if we’re wanting to be wholly accurate, the real O’Rourke…is whoever you need him to be.

One of the reasons O’Rourke failed in the 2020 primaries is because he seemed more like a puppet echoing whatever talking points he thought were going to get him elected than an actual person with real principles that he wanted to stand by.

He is the definition of a political chameleon, shifting his colors with whatever environment he’s in. If it means he gets to be in power in Texas, then O’Rourke is the level-headed moderate who sees and respects the points made by both sides of the aisle. If it means he gets to be in power over the rest of the nation, then O’Rourke is the hardline Democrat who will go to war against those dastardly Republicans and all they stand for, and he’ll violate the Constitution to get it done if he has to.

If you’re a Republican, you’re already not convinced by O’Rourke’s shift in attitudes toward guns. Once you lay down an impassioned phrase about seizing legal guns from people and using force to do so if necessary, you’ve pretty much lost the right and quite a few independents.

But it’s the Democrats who have to deal with the split personality of O’Rourke. Many will be mad he’s no longer the anti-gun zealot and moderates aren’t going to forget what he said on the national stage. He had enough of an uphill battle against Abbott, but now he has to climb his way back into the trust of Democrat voters in Texas as well.

One thing we all know for sure, however, is that O’Rourke is a disingenuous person who lacks the necessary charm and finesses to weasel his way out of this situation he’s put himself in.

It’s probably time for O’Rourke to move on from politics. Maybe he can get a job at CNN? I’ve heard they’re hiring.