Blueprint for the end of democracy

June 20, 2022 7:42 AM

With the caveat that none of the platform is officially binding, it's still worth noting just how radical the official plank of the Texas Republican Party is. [NYT gift link] You can find the full platform here [pdf], some of the hightlights (lowlights?) below the fold.

Starting with the blatant declaration that Biden's election was a "fraud," the document embraces the far fringes of GOP thinking including the following: declaration that life begins at fertilization, declaration that all LGBTQ people "abnormal", elimination of all federal welfare, elimination of the federal income tax (repeal 16th Amendment), elimination of property taxes, removal of popular vote for senators (repeal 17th Amendment), repeal of birth citizenship (alter 14th Amendment), return to school prayer and "Judeo-Christian" origins, elimination of nearly all gun controls, opposition to any environmental legislation that "obstructs legitimate business interests", repeal of minimum wage, elimination mandatory sick/maternity leave, weaken labor unions with national "right to work" act, weaken teaching of evolution & climate change by classifying them as "theories subject to change."

And much, much, more.

posted by CheeseDigestsAll (50 comments total)

The Texas GOP's new party platform also called for full repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
posted by DreamerFi at 7:47 AM on June 20, 2022 [12 favorites]

Reeks of desperation. Dangerous.
posted by sammyo at 7:49 AM on June 20, 2022

Desperation? It reeks of emboldened strength. There are no consequences, so they don't have to hide anymore. (See also Michael Flynn flashing a white power sign last week.) Who's going to stop them?
posted by Gadarene at 7:56 AM on June 20, 2022 [65 favorites]

Surely this.
posted by Ickster at 7:57 AM on June 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

The Texas GOP's new party platform also called for full repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I had to check the pdf to make sure you weren't joking. How did the Times article not mention that as well? I mean, not that SCOTUS didn't already gut it, but...

Also noticed this in there:
34. State Electoral College: The State Legislature shall cause to be enacted a State Constitutional Amendment creating an electoral college consisting of electors selected by the popular votes cast within each individual state senatorial district, who shall then elect all statewide office holders.

Has any state adopted such a system? Because to me, this sounds like a way to apply the same chicanery to the state offices that they tried to do with the presidency. And probably gets Republicans some additional safety because it, too, might tend to effectively give extra weight to more rural districts.
posted by Room 101 at 7:57 AM on June 20, 2022 [5 favorites]

If you're telling people that an election was stolen, you're telling them to rise up. You are telling people to take up arms and defend democracy. It is absolutely astonishing to me that people are allowed to make this claim without being challenged to either show evidence, retract their statements, or face legal consequences. If I sell some sucker a car by claiming that it runs, and it turns out it doesn't, I'm not allowed to have done that and I'm in trouble. But apparently you can say this stuff that can only end in fire and blood, without getting asked for a scrap of proof, either by your supporters, or even by the opposition. I don't want to be one of these guys who says "you know whose fault it is that the Republicans are doing all this stuff? The DEMOCRATS." But nobody can meaningfully oppose this stuff on a national scale except the democrats, and they're either doing nothing, or they're doing something that looks an awful lot like nothing.

Refute what they're saying. Challenge them to produce evidence. Fight like hell to stop this. Anybody?
posted by Sing Or Swim at 8:20 AM on June 20, 2022 [30 favorites]

The platform of the Texas GOP has been mailed from Crazytown for a long time, and reflects the moment when it was drafted.

I've got the 2010 platform on my hard drive, and it includes gems like "We support an immediate and orderly transition to a system of private pensions based on the concept of individual retirement accounts, and gradually phasing out the Social Security tax." ... "We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such."

That said, this platform is straight out of Bat Country.
posted by adamrice at 8:20 AM on June 20, 2022 [9 favorites]

It's very batshit and that's not encouraging. But luckily, the only real purposes of party platforms, and especially state party platforms are

1: To give committed party loyalists something to fight viciously over
2: To give Thad Kousser and Gerald Gamm data on where ideas started and how they propagated
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:27 AM on June 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

I didn't see this one listed above, but make no mistake that it too is rooted in racism and a flagrant disregard for life.

• Ensuring “freedom to travel” by opposing Biden’s Clean Energy Plan and “California-style, anti-driver policies,” including efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.
posted by TheKaijuCommuter at 8:46 AM on June 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

Desperation? It reeks of emboldened strength.

So realistically, it's a little of both.

The hard fact in Texas is that demographic shifts are coming, and they're coming pretty hard: Texas is a fast-growing state with a ton of migration into it from other US areas, and the biggest of these is the flow into Texas from California. Most of that increase in population is happening specifically in the cities, not in the rural areas, and what's worse from the GOP point of view is that it's imbalancing the delicate web of gerrymandering and voter suppression that cements their unilateral hold on the state.

The GOP is, therefore, in a pretty nasty pinch. They're still popular enough to maintain their stranglehold on the state, but they're also frightened. Beto's Senatorial campaign came far, far too close for their comfort, and there have been a number of high-profile progressive candidates out of Texas in the past five years. On a national level, if the GOP loses Texas it can kiss any changes of winning the Presidency goodbye; on a state level, Texas is an invaluable stronghold for pioneering and piloting regressive conservative policies and for generating narratives about business outcomes and strengthened economies.

And Texas is, inexorably, pushing itself more and more aggressively into play. The municipal governments of Austin, Houston, El Paso, and even DFW and San Antonio, mostly progressive or at least Dem, frequently conflict with the comfortable iron grip the GOP holds at the state level--which creates high-profile clashes that draw national attention and produce narratives that both sides scramble to spin as quickly as possible.

The Texas GOP is fucking terrified. That does not mean they think loss is inevitable, and it certainly does not mean that they aren't going to be as vicious as possible to retain power while they have it. In fact, because "owning the libs" and drumming up frenzies of fear and hate among their base is a comfortably predictable way for the state GOP to build support, the factions that rely on it are hitting that button harder and harder while they have access to it.

There actually is conflict within the GOP over whether or not maintained dominance in Texas should prioritize "owning the libs" social-conservative punishment tactics or whether it should prioritize the more socially-palatable "fiscal conservativism and big business" narratives of the past. Famously, long-time Texan Speaker of the House Joe Strauss deliberately sank his position over the 2017 bathroom bill because he was concerned about economic consequences from other states. There is definite fear from the wings of the Texan GOP that are primarily concerned with economic growth and, bluntly, profit-driven corruption that the social-conservative-punishment-oriented factions will completely fuck up the money streams, and I think that will be the lines the party eventually crumples on. The bad news is that the "own the libs" faction has more or less triumphed, at least in the short term, and that the best you're going to do is pick off the "fiscal conservative" branches with economic sanctions, boycotts, and internal pressure from corporations facing employee protests.

They're very frightened, and they are going to hurt a lot of Texan citizens before they lose power--if they do. It will take a lot of support both within and outside of Texas to make that happen. But they are, in fact, both frightened and also absolutely willing to take some risky, deeply damaging moves in a bid to retain power. The GOP should not be underestimated in this: fear is not necessarily weakness.
posted by sciatrix at 8:54 AM on June 20, 2022 [97 favorites]

Also in the flagrant disregard for life category: repealing the Endangered Species Act.

This shitshow is one of the most incoherent written-by-committee documents I've ever read.

How can you be opposed to all business regulation, and also oppose casino expansion?

How is Drag Queen Story Hour 'adult entertainment' in #106, but 'predatory sexual behavior' in #208?

How is calling pornography a public health hazard both #149 and #151?

How can you be opposed to any sex education in public schools, and also mandate that students 'witness a live ultrasound' and 'view the Miracle of Life type video'?
posted by box at 8:58 AM on June 20, 2022 [10 favorites]

This is untenable. (We know what rude beast has slouched to Houston.)
posted by Going To Maine at 9:09 AM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

How can you ....

Oh, consistency is not its strong point. I mean, they want to repeal income taxes and property taxes but still have a list of thing the government needs to do. Funding comes from fairyland, apparently.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:13 AM on June 20, 2022 [9 favorites]

But luckily,

NO

you cannot hold this from any distance or angle, you cannot squint, to try and tell yourself there is any 'luckily' about this
posted by elkevelvet at 9:16 AM on June 20, 2022 [15 favorites]

The hard fact in Texas is that demographic shifts are coming, and they're coming pretty hard: Texas is a fast-growing state with a ton of migration into it from other US areas, and the biggest of these is the flow into Texas from California.

People always say this, but I find the evidence pretty weak. First, Texas used to be a moderate democratic state, so they don't need to import Democrats. It's been a long time in years since Texas had a Democratic governor, but they've only had 3 different governors since, so not that many.


In the last election, Texas had more than Democrats than New York per this tweet from Randall Munroe. Same tweet, California had more Republicans than Texas, but more importantly has lots of economic refugees of the middle and lower classes, who in my opinion aren't that happy with CA policies. So CA is most likely exporting Republicans to other states or at best the rate is pretty equal between the political parties.

More likely is that Texas is exporting Democrats from rural to urban areas as per Rice University, " Out of the state's 254 counties, 140 shrank in population, 111 grew and three stayed the same from 2010 to 2020. " which is why so many are pushing against urban interests and will actually moderately strengthen Republican hold of the state for the next decade or two.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:27 AM on June 20, 2022 [14 favorites]

Just let them fucking secede already. It's a win/win for the other 49 as far as I can see it.

#Texit
posted by JoeZydeco at 9:34 AM on June 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

Texas geography and political boundaries are wild and mystifying. Loving County Texas near El Paso and directly abutting New Mexico has 64 residents and is 677 square miles in size. In contrast, the city proper of Houston is only 671 square miles and has a population north of 2 million.
posted by mmascolino at 9:36 AM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

What, no return of slavery?
posted by Bee'sWing at 9:38 AM on June 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

Democrats should make every Republican publicly disavow that platform or point out that they tacitly support it.
posted by Gelatin at 9:40 AM on June 20, 2022 [13 favorites]

They should indeed.
posted by Gadarene at 9:41 AM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Just let them fucking secede already. It's a win/win for the other 49 as far as I can see it

In all seriousness, that is unconstitutional so there would be a war. I don’t want anyone to die for Texas. (Also, sciatrix’s points above are well taken.)
posted by Going To Maine at 9:42 AM on June 20, 2022 [6 favorites]

People always say this, but I find the evidence pretty weak. First, Texas used to be a moderate democratic state, so they don't need to import Democrats. It's been a long time in years since Texas had a Democratic governor, but they've only had 3 different governors since, so not that many.

Unless those people were "Dixiecrats" that switched over to the Republican party because they're explicitly racist and were only voting Democratic, like much of the South did for a long time, because the Republicans were the party of Lincoln.

In the last election, Texas had more than Democrats than New York per this tweet from Randall Munroe. Same tweet, California had more Republicans than Texas, but more importantly has lots of economic refugees of the middle and lower classes, who in my opinion aren't that happy with CA policies. So CA is most likely exporting Republicans to other states or at best the rate is pretty equal between the political parties

Numbers may have changed recently, but California had 10 million more people than Texas, which is larger than the population of 40 states.
posted by LionIndex at 9:45 AM on June 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

In all seriousness, that is unconstitutional so there would be a war. I don’t want anyone to die for Texas. (Also, sciatrix’s points above are well taken.)

Not to mention, you'd be condemning a couple million American citizens -- many of whom don't agree at all with the Texas Republican Party -- to that party's tender mercies without the benefit of the Bill of Rights. No, thanks.

As a resident of Indiana, can we not with the "let's have red states secede" nonsense?
posted by Gelatin at 9:53 AM on June 20, 2022 [51 favorites]

Constitution lays put that a state and the federal government have to agree on splitting a state. There's technically no language that the whole of the old state has to be represented in the end results of the split.

Pull a Marbury v Madison level creative interpretation of the limits of power, offer the Texas GOP a landlocked rump state with the cities and the coast remaining as "Texas".

They'll obviously say no (unless they're that stupid) and folks can wave it in their face that they had their chance and blew it.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:01 AM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

. I mean, they want to repeal income taxes and property taxes but still have a list of thing the government needs to do. Funding comes from fairyland, apparently.

It'll come from leasing prisioners to newly unregulated businesses.
posted by Mitheral at 10:23 AM on June 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

Just let them fucking secede already

That's in the platform, too; there's a call for a vote on Texas Independence (P. 32, line 2180, #224, sandwiched between "repeal of all limits on campaign contributions" and "passage of a constitutional amendment that gives the Texas Attorney General concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute election fraud along with the county District Attorneys"). There's also the No. 1 Resolution*, "rejecting the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election." As per user interogative mood and others, that is insurrectionist cant.

Outlandish idea:
1. Trump floated the idea of selling/trading Puerto Rico; sell Texas back to Mexico
2. Retain exclusive oil and gas lease rights for 20 years
3. Re-position CBP, Homeland Security, et al to new northern divider
4.
5. Profit???

I said it was outlandish. It's just that Texas has been calling the shots (this country and our turns of phrase! smdh) for decades now, and 99.7% of the population is the worse for it. Efforts at de-escalation reliably cause further frothing. What would unnerving enough, simply as the idea that the federal-level government could have options as well, that it could do any bit of good/trigger (see??) state-level extremists' loss of power?

* P.40: We believe that the 2020 election violated Article 1 and 2 of the US Constitution, that various secretaries of state illegally circumvented their state legislatures in conducting their elections in multiple ways, including by allowing ballots to be received after November 3, 2020.We believe that substantial election fraud in key metropolitan areas significantly affected the results in five key states in favor of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

We reject the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and we hold that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States. We strongly urge all Republicans to work to ensure election integrity and to show up to vote in November of 2022, bring your friends and family, volunteer for your local Republicans, and overwhelm any possible fraud.

FWIW, the Texas GOP's second resolution rejects all gun control:
Whereas those under 21 are most likely to be victims of violent crime and thus most likely to need to defend themselves.
Whereas “red flag laws” violate one’s right to due process and are a pre-crime punishment of people not adjudicated guilty.
Whereas waiting periods on gun purchases harm those who need to acquire the means of self defense in emergencies such as riots.
Whereas all gun control is a violation of the Second Amendment and our God given rights.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:43 AM on June 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

If I'm touchy about the Texas conversation, it's due to the historic links between Calgary and Houston via the energy sector. Prior to that, Alberta experienced a wave of US American settlers (ranchers) taking advantage of some of the last big land opportunities in N. America. Households have polled "comparatively US" historically, in terms of attitudes toward gov't, guns, etc.

The louder elements around here (Freedom Convoy, Wexit, anti-reproductive rights, anti-LGBQT2S+) look a lot like what I'm reading about in Texas. We are all in for a fight.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:52 AM on June 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

As a Texan in a big city I'm just curious how, after some series of legislative miracles occur and Texas secedes peacefully from the US, the new government of the Republic of Texas expects to stop every major population center from seceding? Why wouldn't a city like, say, Houston simply ignore President Abbott and his tinpot decrees? How are they going to get compliance from most of the population ostensibly within their stupid fantasy country? They have no army, no money, no nothing.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 11:05 AM on June 20, 2022 [8 favorites]

But luckily, the only real purposes of party platforms

The TX GOP has been taken over by an extremist insurgency, like much of the national GOP. This is a declaration of intent.

Texas used to be a moderate democratic state

So did Georgia, and it followed the same trajectory as Texas (Democratic at the state level until the 90's, but Republican in most national elections since 1968 (with the exception of Jimmy Carter for both states and Bill Clinton in GA in 1992). Those "moderate Democrats" were mostly Dixiecrats who kept voting Democratic in state races because of inertia and because it took the Republicans decades to build their local party machinery in what had been a one-party state since the end of Reconstruction.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 11:08 AM on June 20, 2022 [14 favorites]

Just let them fucking secede already. It's a win/win for the other 49 as far as I can see it.

Everyone's a leftist until they have the opportunity to slam on the South and the marginalized people who live there.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:26 AM on June 20, 2022 [20 favorites]

Everyone's a leftist until they have the opportunity to slam on the South and the marginalized people who live there

I lived in the South for two decades, and I can tell you that the problem with the South is white people. We should've executed Confederates in 1865; instead, it was decided that reconciliation between white people was more important. Even now, the Democratic Party keeps fecklessly chasing after white voters to the point of throwing other constituencies under the bus in a sort of self-destructive appeasement (cf. H. Clinton re "superpredators", or more recently saying trans rights are a distraction).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 11:38 AM on June 20, 2022 [16 favorites]

Texas used to be a moderate democratic state

So did Georgia

Hi from Georgia. Without our 16 electoral votes, President Biden's victory would have been a lot narrower. Without Senators Warnock and Ossoff, Mitch McConnell would be running the Senate right now. Without Reps Bishop, Johnson, Williams, McBath, Bordeaux, and Scott, there would be a lot fewer voices for Civil Rights, social justice, gun control, and the plight of poor rural farmers in our Congress.

And we did all that while y'all sit in your mostly wealthy white communities judging while knowing nothing about us instead of helping us fight against massive voter suppression. You're welcome.

If you're horrified by what's going on in Texas, how about you donate to help fight it instead of more inane jokes about succession:
MOVE Texas (voting rights)
Mi Familia Vota Texas (voting rights)
Texas Equal Access Fund (abortion fund)
Equality Texas (LGBTQ rights)
posted by hydropsyche at 12:13 PM on June 20, 2022 [70 favorites]

Mod note: One deleted, please avoid making the discussion about yourself.
posted by loup (staff) at 1:01 PM on June 20, 2022 [2 favorites]

The hard fact in Texas is that demographic shifts are coming, and they're coming pretty hard: Texas is a fast-growing state with a ton of migration into it from other US areas, and the biggest of these is the flow into Texas from California.

I visited Houston for the first time in March and, while I'll cop to having some ignorant and mostly baseless preconceptions of Texas going in, one of the things that struck me forcibly was its diversity^*. If I were a white supremacist and the largest, most influential city in my state had looked like Houston, I'd be anxious too.

* Also that its bus network is an order of magnitude better than DC's in many respects - probably of less relevance here.
posted by ryanshepard at 2:19 PM on June 20, 2022 [8 favorites]

one of the things that struck me forcibly was its diversity

I read somewhere (that I cannot find) that Houston had more to offer foodies than any other city in America, because it is the most diverse city in America. And it's true: if there is a kind of food for which you hanker, you can find it in Houston.
posted by nushustu at 3:12 PM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

The most recent season of Top Chef was based in Houston and explicitly highlighted the region's cultural and culinary diversity.
posted by mmascolino at 4:07 PM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

I should hope there's good eating: Houston is the fourth largest city in the country. (As of last year, DFW may be the fourth most-populous metro area.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:15 PM on June 20, 2022

I can slam Texas for the many, many, many ways it is trying to kill me. Heat waves. Freezing storms that take out the power for 38 hours. Climate change induced hurricanes and super flooding. Traffic and pollution, bad road maintenance. Not to mention being transgender in what is rapidly becoming one of the least friendly states. How long till they pass bounty bills targeting anyone who provides any medical treatment at all to me?
posted by Jacen at 5:34 PM on June 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

If Texas did secede and Texans were forced to pick a citizenship, could you imagine the white hot righteous indignation coming out of white Texans being treated as non-resident aliens?

"You come from a poor country? We have a large number of visitors from your country? Oh you have family in the US? We consider you a high risk for overstaying. We won't be admitting you to the United States of America."
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 6:06 PM on June 20, 2022 [3 favorites]

Out of curiosity: broadly speaking, how are solar panels viewed in rural texas? Do folks use them as a hedge against power outages, or are they viewed as "lefty nonsense?"

I know that is a broad question about a generalizion, but I was wondering because one of my relatives is considering moving to Texas.

(Context: this article makes me wonder if panels would make them a target for violence)
posted by ®@ at 6:31 PM on June 20, 2022

If you're horrified by what's going on in Texas, how about you donate to help fight it instead of more inane jokes about succession:

It’s also just misinformed. People have it in their head that it’s 1860 and the dividing lines are easily seen, but there’s no such thing these days.

An election truther is currently running for governor of Pennsylvania. Are we writing off Pennsylvania now, or telling it to secede?
posted by rhymedirective at 6:47 PM on June 20, 2022 [4 favorites]

In some ways rural Texas is fairly advanced when it comes to renewables; you have clumps of solar panels around the place to power small machinery (e.g. an electric gate to a ranch or a deer feeder), you have preppers who want to be as self-sufficient as possible & so add panels to their house, and then all over the place you have these titanic wind turbines dominating the skyline. I think the turbines get the most pushback because of their visibility and noise, but they're also a major industry in the area and tons of people have jobs working on them so they can't be too hated.

It's still a creepy place in other ways, e.g. you're driving down a farm road as night is falling and you keep passing Ted Cruz signs and every other car on the road is a F250 pickup.
posted by Balna Watya at 7:03 PM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Genuinely a bit surprised they didn't manage to work in a reference or two about Herr Trumpski being 'stabbed in the back.'
posted by los pantalones del muerte at 7:22 PM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

I live in San Antonio, in a neighborhood that has a high percentage of a conservative faction of Judiasm. When it was a little cooler, I would often see them walking to the education center and/or temple nearby. The men all wear yarmulkes and have long beards, the women all wear skirts. It's fine.

A few weeks ago some person or persons left nazi messages in ziploc baggies weighted down by pebbles in the neighborhood. So that's horrible.

But then also: two days ago I saw one of these Jewish men in a yarmulke driving a pickup truck with a bumper sticker that said LET'S GO BRANDON. So, y'know, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Basically? Texas is a land of contrasts. Illinois has had nazis since at least The Blues Brothers and nobody is calling for Chicago to be cut off from the US.
posted by nushustu at 7:52 PM on June 20, 2022 [7 favorites]

eas, and the biggest of these is the flow into Texas from California

I wonder how much the insane cost of living in big major cities will end up turning red states purple or even blue (assuming the GOP doesn't
successfully implement voting apartheid). I was told, back in 2010, that between 2000-2010, around 10k Black residents were displaced from DC, and I always assumed that was a big reason as to why VA has trended bluer. (Though I'm happy to be corrected on all of those assertions if they are not correct.)
posted by pelvicsorcery at 9:16 PM on June 20, 2022

It’s also just misinformed. People have it in their head that it’s 1860 and the dividing lines are easily seen, but there’s no such thing these days.

1836. Texas has been a continental-level embarrassment since before 1836. (The first time they seceded for the "right" to own and breed Black people for their profit, raping and murdering them for their pleasure). I'm reminded of this every time I see the state flag, the so-called "flag of the texas republic" which celebrates the event.
posted by mikelieman at 5:15 AM on June 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

The Texas GOP also refused to allow the Log Cabin Republicans (which represents LGBTQ Republicans) to have a booth at their convention. That sparked condemnation from Donald Trump Jr. When DT Jr. is calling you intolerant, you're not in a good place.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 6:34 AM on June 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Re: the influx into Texas from CA being composed of primarily right vs left-leaning Californians, the thing to look at as Texas develops major tech booms--Austin has an ENORMOUS tech industry--is that as corporations move into the state they drag their workers with them. Do I believe that technocrats like Elon Musk are meaningfully less of a threat in terms of legislation for working people than the big oil billionaires already in the state? Absolutely not. Do I think that dragging highly educated tech workers into Texas from California at mass scale is going to distort the electoral politics of the state? Well, yeah.

Texas' population centers include some of the largest cities in the country as it is, and the thing about gerrymandering as a form of minority rule is that if the majority you're trying to dilute out of power gets large enough, it swamps the gerrymandered districts all at once--because the idea behind gerrymandering is to maintain relatively thin majorities of Republican votes in as many areas as humanly possible, and then concentrate thick blue districts into which you sweep as many purely blue voters as possible. If you unexpectedly change demographics on the map, as for example if urban sprawl consumes a formerly rural stronghold or if rural Democrats --and they do exist in Texas--put some effort into meaningfully courting rural voters, you can surge through a gerrymandered district.

It's also worth noting that historically Texas Democrats have by no means always been Dixiecrats. Look at Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards. As in Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi, there is a dogged and very hard-bitten tradition of Texan progressives trying to hold the line in the face of essential abandonment by Democratic party lines and especially abandonment by the progressive wings of the party. If you invest in them, you get paid back. If you don't--and fuck you, Beto, for getting tempted away by a national run, you moron--you.... don't.

We stand together or we hang apart. The essential question of Texas for progressives is and always has been about resources and solidarity. Do we want to play a long game or a short one? Do we want to listen to trans Texans and say "shit, can we levy pressure to make you safe," or do we want to try to sweep the problem under the rug by putting the impetus on vulnerable folks to uproot their lives and physically move?

Do you want to take the fight for solidarity down south, or do you want to wait until straggling refugees get up north to you and suddenly you find out that half your community doesn't think those people are worth supporting either? I mean, large scale, that was what happened during the Great Migration as a consequence of the failures of Reconstruction: marginalized black people, abandoned by northern allies before they could establish long term security against racist whites, had to instead pack up their lives and move north at the cost of their own resources and family connections. At which point you suddenly get whole new reactionary waves. And the cost of fixing that always gets borne by the most vulnerable people we have. We should be able to learn from that to do better.

Can the left play a long game, or is it always going to be seduced by alternating the comforting cynicism of despair with sudden bursts of purely short term optimism?
posted by sciatrix at 8:02 AM on June 21, 2022 [19 favorites]

Yes, the 2022 Texas GOP platform is extreme. But little of it is new. (Texas Monthly, posted yesterday)

The platform-drafting process at the Texas Republican convention is a sort of day-care program for the grassroots. For many right-wingers, this is the highlight of their year. Texans who get their news from Facebook threads and chain emails gather together, load up a document with their complaints, pass it, and then elected officials throw it in the trash.

posted by box at 12:22 PM on June 21, 2022 [3 favorites]

100% trying to move out of Texas, and probably the country if the stars aligned. I absolutely already consider myself a refugee in the making.
posted by Jacen at 10:21 PM on June 21, 2022 [1 favorite]