Texas really should serve as the primo example of a thoroughly UnAmerican state, a first-place spot that has been occupied until now by Florida. Granted, Florida won’t give up its win without a fight, and DeSantis’ success in turning Florida into a quasi-fascist state is impressive in a horrifying sort of way. But Texas is a worthy competitor.
We’ve all seen the death and destruction that accompanied the recent floods, and while Trump’s inept administration contributed significantly to the tragedy, the refusal to provide adequate warning mechanisms was a state and local decision. That bit of bad governance shouldn’t have come as a surprise; the administration of Governor Abbott–an administration that includes the state’s slimy Attorney General Ken Paxton and a GOP-dominated legislature–has diligently followed the MAGA (and Florida) playbook.
A few examples:
As enthusiastic participants in MAGA’s war on education, Texas has passed laws restricting expressive conduct on public campuses—banning protests and reassigning governance authority from faculty to politically appointed boards.
In its zealous war on immigration, Operation Lone Star has used razor wire and troop deployments, and engaged in mass busing of migrants to so-called “sanctuary cities.” The state also created state-level crimes for illegal entry and empower state judges to deport migrants–measures even the very conservative Fifth Circuit ruled unconstitutional.
Texas has enthusiastically fought the culture war: banning abortion, banning gender-affirming treatment for minors, and threatening medical professionals with license revocation.
Texas Republicans have eliminated Diversity, Equity & Inclusion efforts wherever possible, and removed such offices from public universities.
The state passed a law restricting content moderation on social media (an effort that has been temporarily blocked).
Because cities have a tendency to vote Blue, Texas passed what has been dubbed a “Death Star” law, restricting the powers of municipal governments to pass progressive policies. (A Travis County judge struck it down as unconstitutional interference in local self-governance.)
The Texas GOP’s Christian Nationalists won passage of a senate bill 10 requiring display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.
Given the fact that many of these efforts have been stymied by courts noting their inconsistency with that pesky constitution, Abbott is emulating Trump; The Houston Chronicle recently accused Abbott of judicial appointments intended to reshape the Texas Supreme Court in his image.
It isn’t just the Texas Supreme Court. The Lever recently published an expose of a new kind of “court packing” in the great state of Texas.
On Sept. 1, Texas is slated to open its new business courts, a brand-new legal system backed by Big Oil — and several of the court’s main judges have in the past represented fossil fuel companies as lawyers, The Lever has found.
The judges were hand-picked over the last two months by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a major recipient of oil industry cash — and many can be quickly replaced if they hand down decisions he opposes, a judicial design that he championed.
The courts consist of 11 regional business courts and a new statewide court of appeals to hear appellate litigation, which are expected to have immediate impacts on environmental cases in the state. As Public Health Watch, an independent investigative news organization, reported last month, a suite of cases involving state environmental authorities will now be transferred from a generally liberal appeals court to the state’s new Fifteenth Court of Appeals, created to oversee the business courts.
There, these cases will be decided by a panel of conservative judges historically friendly to industry — particularly oil and gas interests, a powerful force in Texas.
As a leader of the state’s Public Citizen organization put it, Abbot has created a “boutique court for corporations where he, not the voters, gets to pick the judges.” The article goes into some detail about the judges who have been appointed–details unlikely to comfort litigants who might be hoping for dispassionate judicial conduct.
For the past several years, pundits have predicted a revolt by Texas voters sufficient to turn the state purple, if not Blue. Extreme gerrymandering has forestalled that revolt, if indeed it was imminent, and as I posted a few days ago, Abbott has now called for a mid-cycle redistricting–a move urged by Trump as a means to maintain GOP control of the House of Representatives.
Political experts are dubious about the tactic. As Politico has explained,
The thoroughness of Texas’ gerrymander during the last round of redistricting in 2021 leaves no room for Republicans to grow their 25-member majority among the state’s 38 seats in the House of Representatives. Any alteration of the map will only hurt the GOP’s sitting incumbents and comes with a risk of backfiring.
We can only hope.
You have to love Republican Governors who clamor about home rule when it comes to the Federal Government, and then try to take control of municipalities. They can’t help themselves – ignorance and hypocrisy.
Texas, at least, has some elected representatives that represent the blue team, but I can’t imagine how far away they are allowed to act without the oligarchy’s approval. At least Trump is worrying about the 2026 elections, which means we may have an election.
I saw where Indiana’s Governor is attempting to take over Downtown Indianapolis because of the gun violence recently. He’s blaming local leaders, but not the police force. His ire is the Mayor. I thought “people killed people,” not guns. How is the Governor going to control people when the local police can’t control them?
Indiana’s Governor also controls the university system, which is why Hoosier schools are losing ground. Why would any international student want to attend a college in a red state?
As for being the worst Red State, I think Mississippi and Indiana probably tie for the top spot. At least, Texas has some Democrats and turns a profit like Florida. Indiana is 100% dependent on the federal government, which will present a problem as Trump’s OBBB begins to impact our rural country. However, I would not want to live in Texas when Trump’s new rules in favor of polluters roll out. Indiana’s mercury clouds will be bad enough but Texas will be much worse!
The Ten Commandments are not on display inside the Capitol Building in Austin, Texas. The display is outside behind the building. However, the Texas Legislature passed a law requiring schools to display The Ten Commandments inside schools. That resonates with what I remember about certain politicians while attending segregated schools in Texas. “Don’t do what I do … just do what I say.”
Gosh, I guess the ten commandments aren’t working in the churches, so they have to be part of the indoctrination of children and the nose thumbing at the separation of church and state. Typical Abbott. Typical Republican. Typical right-wing church loonies.
But this all started with the terrible defeat of Ann Richards and the posting of governor Dummy, George W. Bush. Then, the totally corrupt and compromised Rick Perry served several terms as governor. All the while Republicans fiddled with the electoral system and gerrymandered the state. Now the evil and cruel Greg Abbott wants to kiss Trump’s ass and gerrymander some more.
What’s really sad is that the voters that Republicans pick keep voting against their own best interests. But, in their “defense”, they are schooled from the day they hit the ground to NEVER vote for a Democrat. And there we are.
Look for more disasters and political idiocy to come from Texas. They are working very hard to lower the bar so that it resides in the muck of Republican incompetence.
Hearing the news about how potentially ineffective the “re-gerrymandering” will be is pretty good news. It seems obvious now that the state was already gerrymandered to the hilt, so I was worried Texas was going to pull off the promise to “add 5 seats”.
Whatever happened to Texas succeeding from the Union? Gee, I was cheering that on.
I have cousins in Texas, and they have a cousin in Florida, me. It’s race to the bottom, and whoever wins, looses the most.
In a previous post about Sheila’s two part series focus on Texas, I discussed the tragedy at Camp Mystic on the Guadalupe. I mentioned the last remaining young campers may never be found. I was wrong. The last three girls reported missing were found sleeping underneath an overturned boat near a bank on the river. The girls survived ten days in the wilderness using the boat as shelter and supported themselves with minimal food and water. The resilience of these girls is nothing short of amazing. They have been treated at a nearby hospital for malnutrition and exposure. Their stories will be amazing to hear. Thanks be to God!
ONE HUNDRED THIRTY FOUR DEAD! “Floods happen, it was an act of God!” That’s what the right tells us. Although a flood is a natural disaster, I seem to recall the sirens in Indy as far back as the mid fifties. At the time we did the duck and cover routines. Today, the sirens are used to warn of tornado development. Republicans in Texas claim the citizens won’t pay for a new system. How many people, especially children, have to die to make a warning system worth the money?
Democrats need to remember this!
theres oklahoma also. mullins battlefield and a education system that went christian viral by its legislature. we west coast truckers refered to texas as, go east to you smell it and south til ya step in it..
Athletes know about muscle memory.
Everyone learns it at about one year old by learning to walk, until it happens without conscious thought. We practice until it happens without thought.
There is also a cognitive analogy. We have and make first impressions. That can even be grounds to determine the rest of our lives. We have and make a good impression on someone, we date, the next thing we know, we are both old and have wonderful families who go through the same process with similar results.
Or not.
There is a political analogy, too. A philosophy, a party, or a candidate makes a favorable first impression, so we are led to pay more attention to it, and the next thing you know, we are checking a box to vote for it.
Donald Trump is now our woat (worst of all time) President, not by accident but because he started campaigning in 2011 with his birther claims, which garnered significant media attention and laid the groundwork for his eventual presidential run.
Fourteen years is a monumental campaign, but even before that, he masterminded The Apprentice and made a certain impression on people.
Entertainment is a pandemic in contemporary life among safe and comfortable people because we are bored with reality. When we are bored, we have to escape via entertainment, from active games to passive watching, and there are consequences to that, both now and in the future.
Red states are keeping afloat economically through the black magic of fossil fuels or retirement tourism due to what was favorable weather.
Just like the consequences of being stuck too long in any relationship, people are having second thoughts about first impressions and Red will lead going downhill fast and Blue will return to pull off an Abe Lincoln.
Civil War 2.0 but can we keep it civil this time?
Actually, it wasn’t Trump who invented “The Apprentice”. It was a couple of TV producers – who recently published a mea culpa apologetic book and movie.
The cultists in the red states and elsewhere will NOT change their attitudes because it will reflect on their own laziness and willful ignorance. Only intellectually enlightened (different from educated) people will do the head slap and work toward saving our democracy from the criminal enterprise now in power.
Take Howard Lutnick … Please. And dispose of him.
I always wonder about the Ten Commandments displays. If they are numbered, they favor a particular branch of religion. Jews, Catholics, and Protestants use different numbering systems based on the incorrect translation of “hadibrot”, literally “sayings”, as “commandments”. Since the first “saying” is “I am the lord your god.”, Christians have had to slice the other nine “sayings” into ten “commandments” using different methods.
Not that the courts would care any longer.