Would Texas go blue?

One of the more fun things to do when thinking about politics is to read the other side.  I just finished Big, Hot, Cheap, and Right by Erica Grieder, who has written for Economist, NY Times, New Republic and other lib papers.  She is now with Texas Monthly, consults with Media Matters and Daily Kooks, I mean Daily Kos.  But she is a pretty good reporter and a fair observer.  Much of her analysis of Texas is correct.  The book bills itself as “what can we Dems can learn from Texas?” but what it turns into is “How do we get power back?”

Like Oklahoma, Texas has a heritage of oil and cattle, the people are conservative by nature, and each state is growing faster than neighbors (each has diverse population).  I think Grieder is native Texan and long time Dem.  She attributes the conservatism and limited government to the fact that Tejas had little support from government in it’s past, either from Mexico City or Washington or Austin. So instead of the Great God Government solving everything, people were left to their own devices—churches, neighbors, and businesses. (just an accident, she asserts)  But lo and behold, this has led to lower regulation and taxation in general and the economy flourishes.  Oil and gas industry however is heavily controlled by the Texas Railroad Commission, hence was not able to rape the land and the poor people.  She notes that Texans are thought corrupt, callous, racist, theocratic, stupid, belligerent and above all dangerous by the rest of the country.  See this is where it starts getting humorous.  If it was still a Dem state, would she be saying these things?  Words like theocracy amaze me when they come out of liberal mouths. A theocracy is a government run by priests who present themselves as the sole source of a god’s wisdom. So who would that be? Rick Perry? Lyndon Johnson? But libs use this term to mean anytime the R’s react with legislation to the latest fad in pop culture, like trying to reign in bathroom identity choice. 

She prescribes Dems do the following—boost education spending, promote gay civil rights, get better politicians. 

Left out is Liberty.  The Anglo Texians who came to the state had that strong belief in liberty—that one should be allowed to follow the inner voice and conscience.  Grieder wastes all of 4 pages on the “vestigial tradition” of religious faith.  She thinks Max Lucado a shallow thinker.  The Texians dumped religion, according to her, but what most historians say is that Mexico would only allow Catholic settlers, so the Anglos hid their Protestantism.  And in the face of Goliad and Alamo massacres, they doubled down on faith and determination.  The author thus misses that primary ingredient of why Texans want limited government and don’t like control of their lives.  They learned to rely on friends, neighbors, local businessmen, and charities during hard times and are self-reliant as possible and wary of Washington.  Same with Okies.  The tribe, the neighbors the church bails them out often, not government.  If anything, government is the vile dog that forced the Trail of Tears, gave the reservations, then took them away.  The good guy was the man in town who had a job he needed filled and sent home groceries for the family.

Despite 100 years of Dems, the Texas constitution of 1876 and the populist Oklahoma constitution of 1907 restrict a lot of government taxation and central planning. Hence the government footprint is small.  Because the citizens are used to limited government, they like it that way out of force of habit, Grieder says.  Hmm.  Maybe it was planned that way.  And of course both states were Dem for many years because that was the farmer party of the 19^th century, the party of hope in the Depression.  And with fewer resources, that means that Big State School will have a hard time getting votes.  This, however, she says is what Dems should try for, because in the future, a poor education means a poor people.  Yep.  But here is how the R’s will thwart this.  School Choice.  This still allows the low budgets, but will give superior results.

She also laments meanness and guns.  Hmm.  Perhaps we call this manliness and asserting rights.  Which will appeal more to the coming Hispanics with their macho and femininity.

She does point out well the economic advantage of industries getting various stimulations when in need, as a key to Texas growth.  What this points out to me is that the partnership of business conservatives and constitutional conservatives must be kept alive with some compromise in the Republican party.  This was Reagan’s genius.

Much of the fault of Texas Dems declining is self-inflicted according to Grieder.  Crappy leadership, in other words.  But just what Robespierre or Mussolini is needed is not specified. When a national party shuns issues and calls the other guys stupid and racist, this doesn’t leave much room for an intellectual giant or even an Adlai Stevenson.   The big hope of Texas Dems is the tsunami of Hispanics that have come into the state.  But here, she also notes that R’s have been clever to appeal to the conservatism and family values of the Latinos.  Well, of course, this is exactly why so many R’s ar nervous about Trump and his treatment of minorities. 

Security from Islamic terror is completely left out of the prescription for Dem success.  R’s see the answer as strong defense and homeland security.  They should be capable of drilling a hole in the wishy-washy Dems on this issue.

So it is quite possible that D’s may take over Texas or even OK in the future but not if the R’s play their cards right.