Why Texas is Deep In My Heart. Mimi Swartz, New York Times.
Still, these are the kinds of events that cause people from places like Massachusetts, Manhattan and California, not to mention England, France and Sweden, to ask us: "How can you stand to live in Texas?" Their tone usually suggests that any explanation that doesn't involve our incarceration here is indefensible.
I call bullshit.
Because over the past several years I've traveled all over this pebble, have met many people of all political stripes, have shared beers with them, dined with them had laughs and some fairly decent rows over Arsenal and which fooball league is better.
Not once have had EVER had anyone ask me "How can you stand to live in Texas?" In fact, this is pretty much how the conversation goes....
Not-From-Texas Person: "So, where are you from?"
Me: "Houston, Texas"
Not-From-Texas Person: "Oh, OK, so how's the weather there now? Hot?"
Me: "Oh yeah, and humid."
(Back to discussing whatever we were discussing)
And that's it.
My argument would be that if you're hanging out with the type of people who would ask "How can you stand to live in Texas?" then the problem is that you're choosing to hang out with some pretty pathetic people.
It's not Texas, it's you. (and your choice of dinner companions.) Or, viewed from another angle, why do you let this get under your skin in such a manner anyway?
Yes, it's true, Texas has had some colorful, potentially lawbreaking, elected officials come down the pipe lately. Some have been bat-shit crazy, some incompetent and some, as in the case of Miller, more of a clown show than anything else. But, are the actions of any of them worse than those of Rahm Emanuel? Are the actions of Paxton worse than those of Anthony Weiner? Did the Beacon Hill scandals cause people to ask "How can you stand to live in Massachusetts?" (Want to go International? Look up the history of political scandals in the United Kingdom France and Sweden. Or, better yet, how about the Panama Papers for some additional light reading? The fact is political scandal is not held by Texas as a monopoly. Neither are mass runs to the fainting couches by left-wing elites, but Texas seems to be a leader when it comes to that.
But why?
Because there's very little effect that any of this is going to have on the day to day life of the Caucasian Statist/Progressive. Sid Miller providing "amnesty" to cupcakes isn't going to cause much of a stir in River Oaks, because the gourmet cupcake industry was over (in the rest of the country) about two to three years ago. There's a show on Food Network for Chrissakes so you know that it's done and dusted as a culinary movement. So what if a GOP candidate thinks that Obama was a gay prostitute when he was younger? Most progressives think that Dick Cheney eats little children. Again, does it personally impact your life?
As a matter of fact, given the anger and generally unpleasant disposition of Caucasian progressives of a certain age I think you'd be happy that there are Republicans here doing things of which you can disapprove vocally. Makes it all the easier to partake in that most progressive tradition of cognitive dissonance.
In fact, as with most of the "real life" experiences that come from the Texas Lock-Step Political Media these days I'd be surprised if anyone were actually asking the questions the author is attempting (poorly) to answer here. This is shame-porn for those whose ideas aren't winning over a healthy slice of the electorate in a state that's doing pretty well financially. A fairly weak attempt to explain why you have lost to a group of people who have effectively insulated themselves from the deleterious effects of their policy on those less-fortunate than them.
None of this is to suggest that the actions by Sid Miller, Ken Paxton or Mary Lou Bruner (of Mineola) deserve to be defended, nor should the inability of the State GOP to stop any of them from winning the nomination and, at least in two cases, being elected to the offices themselves be downplayed. If the parties have a primary job, it's recruiting and advancing qualified candidates to the ballot for voters to then make an informed choice. Ideally speaking that is. The rest is just logistics and glad-handing.
The Texas GOP is just as, if not more, delinquent in its duties than is the National GOP. It's just another example of a party that is no longer serving much purpose other than to prop up party loyalists and the lampreys that are surviving off of the carcass. Something that should provide hope to Texas Democrats, were that their party was functional at all.
The mistake being made by the TLSPM is assuming that people in Texas, overall, want change. And that by attempting to shame them into it they can help craft a better State for which they can then sit on the veranda (Patio is soooo 90's) and sip bottomless mimosas while the poor and destitute line up (out of eyesight of course) to receive a seemingly never-ending supply of taxpayer largesse, paid for by those one-step higher on the income ladder.
"How can you stand to live in Texas?"
One way is by not making up shit answers to problems that don't have much bearing on our day-to-day lives. The other is by choosing not to give a damn where people who live in states where the economy is suffering, the cities are crumbling and the politicians seem hell-bent on making it worse, think.
