Don’t mess with Texas! People around the world are familiar with that slogan. They know it’s an expression tied to the Lone Star State’s long history of defying outside interference and cherishing the days when cowboys herded cattle on the open range.

“Don’t Fence Me In” remains a popular song among Texans of a certain age. So what’s with those Texas politicians who in blind political loyalty to a Republican president won’t stand up against his plan to build a wall on the Mexican border that will require Texans to give up their property rights?

Yes, we’re talking about Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, who accompanied President Donald Trump for a photo op Thursday in McAllen to promote the flawed wall idea. “When we see politicians go on TV and say the border’s secure and there is no crisis, they are ignoring reality,” Cruz said.

Too bad he and Cornyn weren’t taking advantage of their time with Trump to persuade him to end the government shutdown he has orchestrated to get Democrats — and some moderate Republicans — to bow to his wishes. Conservatives who accused President Barack Obama of acting like a king are ignoring Trump’s abuse of power to get his way on the wall.

At least some Republicans representing border districts are speaking up. Rep. Mac Thornberry, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said he opposes an emergency declaration to build the wall. Rep. Will Hurd, whose district includes 820 miles along the border, has repeatedly spoken out against the wall.

We’re waiting for Cornyn to join their ranks.

“Some people want to just talk about walls or barriers, but of course unless there are people there when people come over the barrier or through it or under it, that’s not going to work, and really technology is the force multiplier here,” he said last year.

Even recently Cornyn noted that “the idea of a wall is somewhat off-putting to a lot of people.”

A lot of those people are Texans.

Trump’s assertion that a border wall is needed to keep criminals out was disputed by El Paso Mayor Dee Margo, who told a CNN interviewer, “This is the safest city in the United States. We have families on both sides, commerce takes place on both sides. We have 50,000 employed because of our relationship with Mexico.”

Cruz and Cornyn aren’t expressing the same outrage over Trump’s need to acquire private land to build his border wall as they did when the Obama administration tried to take Texans’ property in the Red River Valley that the federal Bureau of Land Management said rightly belonged to the public.

Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that the BLM “end this unconscionable land grab.” Cruz and Cornyn introduced a bill in Congress to stop the BLM. Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an amicus brief that said “the borders of any state are a fundamental expression of its sovereignty.” The brief was related to lawsuits settled in 2017.

Why isn’t Paxton screaming about state “sovereignty” now? Why isn’t he standing up for Eloisa Cavazos, whose land alongside the Rio Grande sits on the route a border wall would take. Cavazos says he won’t sell his property to the government. “You could give me a trillion dollars and I wouldn’t take it,” he said. “It’s not about money.”

If Cavazos remains defiant, his land could be taken by the Trump administration invoking eminent domain authority. Where will Cruz, Cornyn, Abbott and Paxton stand if that happens? With Texans? Or with a president who insists on building a wall even where it wouldn’t improve border security?

There is already fencing in the heaviest traveled areas along the border. More border patrol personnel, improved communications equipment and drones would likely provide a much better deterrent to illegal border crossing than any wall. Yet Trump insists on a wall, while paying lip service to other security measures that would be effective.

It is an obsession that, if Trump gets his way, threatens to leave Houston less safe in the face of the next hurricane. The White House has started planning on issuing a national emergency to justify redirecting money from the Army Corps of Engineers to fund the big, beautiful border wall, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

This potentially includes $4.5 billion not yet spent on projects on Texas.

Houston can’t seem to get all the federal funds necessary to build the Ike Dike, a third reservoir and the totality of flood prevention infrastructure our sprawling region needs to build a true resilience. Local taxpayers have been compelled to dip into our own pockets with a billion-dollar county bond to jumpstart the funding. Now Trump’s scheme might mean we get even less for Harvey recovery. Maybe we should have asked Mexico to help us pay for it.

Cornyn put up an impressive legislative fight to deliver recovery dollars after Harvey and it would be an utter insult to the state of Texas — and his efforts — if those funds are directed to a wall.

How many times must it be said: The border is not a crisis. Harvey was a crisis. But Trump couldn’t care less about whether our city survives the next hurricane season, whether the oil and gas infrastructure at the Port of Houston is ready for a worst case scenario. He just cares about his political ego. Houston can drown. Federal employees can go without their paychecks. But for Trump, the show must go on.

It’s time for the theatrics to stop and for Texas politicians to stop playing roles on Trump’s stage. He’s been a reality show actor for so long he doesn’t know when to end. Cruz, Cornyn, Abbott and Paxton can help him. So could Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who skipped the first day of the legislative session to visit the White House.

Trump says Patrick offered Texas’ help to build the wall. If he did, he betrayed all those Texans who built this state on a foundation of standing with each other.

“Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may,” Sam Houston once said.

Apparently an exception has been made for Trump.