America's Future is Texas
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/10/americas-future-is-texasI did a search for the article but it did not come up as being previously posted. Mea culpa if it has.
Wow - this absolutely the adage of All Politics is Local. These people need to stopped in try to spread the cancer that is the modern GOP throughout the land. Holding Medical Licensure hostage for a bathroom bill.
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Ive lived in Texas for most of my life, and Ive come to appreciate what the state symbolizes, both to people who live here and to those who view it from afar. Texans see themselves as a distillation of the best qualities of America: friendly, confident, hardworking, patriotic, neurosis-free. Outsiders see us as the nations id, a place where rambunctious and disavowed impulses run wild. Texans, it is thought, mindlessly celebrate individualism, and view government as a kind of kryptonite that weakens the entrepreneurial muscles. Were reputed to be braggarts; careless with money and our personal lives; a little gullible, but dangerous if crossed; insecure, but obsessed with power and prestige.
Texans, however, are hardly monolithic. The state is as politically divided as the rest of the nation. One can drive across it and be in two different states at the same time: FM Texas and AM Texas. FM Texas is the silky voice of city dwellers, the kingdom of NPR. It is progressive, blue, reasonable, secular, and smugalmost like California. AM Texas speaks to the suburbs and the rural areas: Trumpland. Its endless bluster and endless ads. Paranoia and piety are the main items on the menu.
Texas has been growing at a stupefying rate for decades. The only state with more residents is California, and the number of Texans is projected to double by 2050, to 54.4 million, almost as many people as in California and New York combined. Three Texas citiesHouston, Dallas, and San Antonioare already among the top ten most populous in the country. The eleventh largest is Austin, the capital, where I live. For the past five years, it has been one of the fastest-growing large cities in America; it now has nearly a million people, dwarfing the college town I fell in love with almost forty years ago. Because Texas represents so much of modern Americathe South, the West, the plains, the border, the Latino community, the divide between rural areas and citieswhat happens here tends to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation. Illinois and New Jersey may be more corrupt, and Kansas and Louisiana more out of whack, but they dont bear the responsibility of being the future.
Ive always had a fascination with Texass outsized politics. In 2000, I wrote a play that was set in the states House of Representatives. The protagonist, Sonny Lamb, was a rancher from West Texas who represented House District 74, which, in real life, stretches across thirty-seven thousand square miles. (Thats larger than Indiana.) While I was doing research for the play, I met in Austin with Pete Laney, a Democrat and a cotton farmer from Hale County, who, at the time, was the speaker of the House. Laney was known as a scrupulously fair and honest leader who inspired a bipartisan spirit among the members. The grateful representatives called him Dicknose.
Hestia
(3,818 posts)type of politician - Freedum Caucus (aka teabagger party).
Gothmog
(145,554 posts)Hotze made me vote in the GOP primary in 2000. He ran a judge against a female republican judge who I knew and tried a case before on the platform that females should not be in position of power over males. It was hard but in those days in Harris County the GOP primary determined who would win the judge races. We did not start winning judicial races until 2008
Harris County has a sane and competent GOP county judge (who is the CEO of the county govt and not a judicial official) and Hotze is going to primary this person
MrScorpio
(73,631 posts)Been there, done that.
Gothmog
(145,554 posts)We will turn this state blue.
awesomerwb1
(4,268 posts)plan accordingly? Or do they simply hope the Latinos and out of staters help make Texas blue in the future?
Edit*: Scares the crap out of me to think Texas will have so many congressmen/women in the future.
Careless with my money, nailed me right there. Course I was born 40 miles from the Louisiana border and so I guess the old Cajun saying, "Spend it all" comes into play. Daddy, granpappy and great grand pappy all buried in the same neck of the woods. I was a Young Republican in college until I realized what snakes and snobs they were (even at that age!) Remained in the Peoples Republic of Austin till the traffic got horrendous (17 years ago), then moved back to the woods. (South of the Republic in a red area) We work hard for the Democratic party making thousands of signs each year, we encourage the youth to become politically aware and active. Some of us call ourselves 'radical democrats'. Being on the inside, I can tell you for sure that our area has more Democat voters every year. We are indeed sliding toward purple. As the Republicans keep constantly shooting themselves in the foot, I expect that slide will become a slipping toward blue even faster as time goes by. Keep da faith mon! Peaceout.
Gothmog
(145,554 posts)I know Mrs. T and Gene Wu who are mentioned in this article. This is a really great article on Texas politics.
MasonDreams
(756 posts)BlueTexasMan
(165 posts)MasonDreams
(756 posts)reference to the Thelma and Louise movie. I actually dream about the next great Democrat coming out of Texas. An Ann Richards with a little Molly Ivins mixed in.