8 ms·

But that's rather my point: if you're living just in the larger metro areas, you're choosing to insulate yourself from the rampant discrimination and bigotry th

But that's rather my point: if you're living just in the larger metro areas, you're choosing to insulate yourself from the rampant discrimination and bigotry that, numerically, forms the bulk of the electorate and shape the cultural mindset. To be clear, that's not a bad thing that people make that choice; I would, were in that position. If Texas voters will finally vote in someone who is more like Ann Richards than Greg Abbott, I will believe the mindset is changing. Statewide votes for Governor, Lite Gov, Comptroller, and so on are not gerrymandered so a vote in San Antonio counts just as much as a vote in Midland. (To your first question, I have not lived in Texas for over a decade, but I am the only member of my family who does not so I have pretty close connections to this day.)

bradj 6y ago
I think you’ll find that that is true of all southern metros. Atlanta is different from Calhoun, Birmingham from Anniston, Huntsville from Madison, etc. It’s not that people are choosing to insulate - the metros are where the jobs are. Those metros have been changed by the influx of people, and if there were jobs the suburbs you would see the electorate change there as well.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  That's true for California, Washington, Oregon, New York, and Illinois as well. The big cities in every state are going to be culturally and economically different from the countryside. The only exceptions are affluent tourism-oriented rural areas like Napa.
sdljfjafsd 6y ago
Is that really any different from any other state, including California? Rural vs urban culture are completely different in every state in America. As Californians we still insulate ourselves from rural culture. The only difference in California those counties don't form the bulk of the electorate while in Texas they do. We still have the same problem: a cultural divide between rural and urban.
- scsilver 6y ago
  Yeas it's different. I'r invite you to drive through the rural west America, through arizona, nevada, wyoming and colorado. Even the rural areas of california have so many people. You will also noticr that the californians are almost all wearing masks even in the rural areas.
  - njarboe 6y ago
    Rural California north of Sacramento is similar to those places and a lot of no mask wearing also. It is a large portion of the state. Check out a map to get a good feel. Texas is big, but California is not far behind.
  - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    Where the hell are you driving 1 hour out the bay and you're in no mask land?
- nemo 6y ago
  I live in TX. I am very, very careful when I'm out in the sticks since the shitkickers are dangerous. I also lived in CA and even in the sticks out in central CA there's just nothing like the scale of xenophobic belligerence in rural TX (or the rest of the Bible Belt).
  - unethical_ban 6y ago
    Careful how? Do you typically "stand out" as in being overtly gay, or wearing anti-relgious clothing? I'm a white man and I suppose I would be a bit wary if I had a huge Bernie sticker on my car, I otherwise don't feel unsafe in the middle of nowhere TX. I just don't like that they're all rah rah GOP.
    - dvtrn 6y ago
      Careful how? Do you typically "stand out" as in being overtly gay, or wearing anti-relgious clothing? My own (black) experience in West Texas (Ft. Bliss), "Careful" meant driving across state to see family in Houston and absolutely not stopping in certain counties, not even to piss or stretch my legs. After getting stopped, pulled over and ordered out of my vehicle while an officer stood back at his car several times and interrogated about "where are you going" "where are you supposed to be" "who do you know in this town" and "where did you steal the car from" (all separate experiences) while doing nothing but trying to take holiday leave. So... that kind of careful for some of us. edit, before anyone even makes the attempt: - I was not driving erratically - I had no bumper stickers on my car signaling political viewpoints - I was not wearing any 'curious' clothing other than a shirt and jeans - I had functioning turn signals and brake lights - I was driving a legally purchased, registered and insured vehicle at the speed limit (or +5mph) consistent with how I drive literally every day
Retric 6y ago
Turnout says far less about political views than you might think. Voter suppression is a common and effective tool used to keep a political party in power even as they loose popular support. All it takes is realizing changing X rule like a deadline will help or hurt your party and then voting based on that rule. Eventually this can fail, which oddly enough tends to flip states so they can quickly go from solidly party A to solidly party B.
- abawany 6y ago
  https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/08/texas-ken-paxton-election-georgia/ https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/08/texas-ken-paxton-ele... Having satisfactorily worked hard to make voting as difficult as possible in Texas, he wants to use the state's limited funds to sue other states that dared to improve their democracy. This is the government of Texas.
  - gwright 6y ago
    I would find it much more interesting if you were to engage on the legal argument being made rather than this sort of perfunctory dismissal. Are you stating that as long as public officials are "daring to improve their democracy" that they are free to ignore Constitutional requirements that the legislature has plenary authority to proscribe the manor of selecting electors? Note: Setting aside the likelihood that any of the alleged unconstitutional actions resulted in a different electoral outcome, isn't it important that election law is established through the Constitutionally proscribed legislative process and not via executive and/or bureaucratic actions independent of the legislature?
    - Frondo 6y ago
      What legal argument? Texas has no standing to sue Pennsylvania over what is an internal matter to Pennsylvania. Let's not pretend that this absurd lawsuit has any merit -- it's one in a long line of losing lawsuits (what are they up to, 50 out of 51 lost now?) by the current president to overturn an election result he didn't like.
beaner 6y ago
I think you might be dismissing that even in suburban California, things are much closer to suburban Texas. California may seem like it's 100% different, but that's mostly because people only know San Francisco, LA, and the other coastal cities. CA has its other parts, too.
- notnap 6y ago
  San Diego, Newport Beach and other "Beach" cities had trump boat rallies throughout this year. Just saying
JPKab 6y ago
"If Texas voters will finally vote in someone who is more like Ann Richards than Greg Abbott, I will believe the mindset is changing." I think the problem with this is that it rests on a fundamental assumption that someone's primary motivation for voting Republican is bigotry. Polls by the Pew Foundation do not bear this out. Non-college educated Democrats and Republicans have equally wrong knowledge about what people on the other side of the spectrum believe. College educated Republicans match their numbers. The outliers are college educated Democrats. They, by far, have the most distorted view of what right wing people ACTUALLY believe. It goes both ways of course, with conservatives dramatically underestimating the patriotism of liberals, etc. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/democrats-republicans-political-beliefs-national-survey-poll https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/democr... When I lived in Arkansas, the voters simultaneously voted for a Republican governor and state house, AND a ballot initiative to significantly raise the state minimum wage, as well as a ballot initiative for medical marijuana. The GOP politicians were all against these measures, but the voters approved them by large majorities. The point I'm making is that the politicians on both sides aren't in step with the electorate, even if they are chosen by the electorate. People are voting for the lesser of two evils a lot more than we give them credit for.
- mtanski 6y ago
  Politicians are not in step with the general electorate, they are instep with party elites and primary votes. The primaries tend to select most "ideologically" aligned candidates and by the time you're in the general election the politicians on both sides are far away from the median voter.
TMWNN 6y ago
>But that's rather my point: if you're living just in the larger metro areas, you're choosing to insulate yourself from the rampant discrimination and bigotry that, numerically, forms the bulk of the electorate and shape the cultural mindset. Put on a "Make America Great Again" hat and walk through downtown Chicago, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or Cambridge before or after election day 2016 (or 2020). Now, put on a "I'm With Her" or "Biden/Harris 2020" shirt and walk through Provo, Fort Worth, or Pensacola before or after election day. In which scenario are you more like to be yelled at and/or physically attacked?
rayiner 6y ago
> If Texas voters will finally vote in someone who is more like Ann Richards than Greg Abbott If they’d only stop being bigoted and vote Democrat Texas would be a livable place!

bradj 6y ago

I think you’ll find that that is true of all southern metros. Atlanta is different from Calhoun, Birmingham from Anniston, Huntsville from Madison, etc. It’s not that people are choosing to insulate - the metros are where the jobs are. Those metros have been changed by the influx of people, and if there were jobs the suburbs you would see the electorate change there as well.

Apocryphon 6y ago
That's true for California, Washington, Oregon, New York, and Illinois as well. The big cities in every state are going to be culturally and economically different from the countryside. The only exceptions are affluent tourism-oriented rural areas like Napa.

sdljfjafsd 6y ago

Is that really any different from any other state, including California? Rural vs urban culture are completely different in every state in America. As Californians we still insulate ourselves from rural culture. The only difference in California those counties don't form the bulk of the electorate while in Texas they do. We still have the same problem: a cultural divide between rural and urban.

scsilver 6y ago
Yeas it's different. I'r invite you to drive through the rural west America, through arizona, nevada, wyoming and colorado. Even the rural areas of california have so many people. You will also noticr that the californians are almost all wearing masks even in the rural areas.
- njarboe 6y ago
  Rural California north of Sacramento is similar to those places and a lot of no mask wearing also. It is a large portion of the state. Check out a map to get a good feel. Texas is big, but California is not far behind.
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  Where the hell are you driving 1 hour out the bay and you're in no mask land?
nemo 6y ago
I live in TX. I am very, very careful when I'm out in the sticks since the shitkickers are dangerous. I also lived in CA and even in the sticks out in central CA there's just nothing like the scale of xenophobic belligerence in rural TX (or the rest of the Bible Belt).
- unethical_ban 6y ago
  Careful how? Do you typically "stand out" as in being overtly gay, or wearing anti-relgious clothing? I'm a white man and I suppose I would be a bit wary if I had a huge Bernie sticker on my car, I otherwise don't feel unsafe in the middle of nowhere TX. I just don't like that they're all rah rah GOP.
  - dvtrn 6y ago
    Careful how? Do you typically "stand out" as in being overtly gay, or wearing anti-relgious clothing? My own (black) experience in West Texas (Ft. Bliss), "Careful" meant driving across state to see family in Houston and absolutely not stopping in certain counties, not even to piss or stretch my legs. After getting stopped, pulled over and ordered out of my vehicle while an officer stood back at his car several times and interrogated about "where are you going" "where are you supposed to be" "who do you know in this town" and "where did you steal the car from" (all separate experiences) while doing nothing but trying to take holiday leave. So... that kind of careful for some of us. edit, before anyone even makes the attempt: - I was not driving erratically - I had no bumper stickers on my car signaling political viewpoints - I was not wearing any 'curious' clothing other than a shirt and jeans - I had functioning turn signals and brake lights - I was driving a legally purchased, registered and insured vehicle at the speed limit (or +5mph) consistent with how I drive literally every day

Retric 6y ago

Turnout says far less about political views than you might think. Voter suppression is a common and effective tool used to keep a political party in power even as they loose popular support. All it takes is realizing changing X rule like a deadline will help or hurt your party and then voting based on that rule. Eventually this can fail, which oddly enough tends to flip states so they can quickly go from solidly party A to solidly party B.

abawany 6y ago
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/08/texas-ken-paxton-election-georgia/ https://www.texastribune.org/2020/12/08/texas-ken-paxton-ele... Having satisfactorily worked hard to make voting as difficult as possible in Texas, he wants to use the state's limited funds to sue other states that dared to improve their democracy. This is the government of Texas.
- gwright 6y ago
  I would find it much more interesting if you were to engage on the legal argument being made rather than this sort of perfunctory dismissal. Are you stating that as long as public officials are "daring to improve their democracy" that they are free to ignore Constitutional requirements that the legislature has plenary authority to proscribe the manor of selecting electors? Note: Setting aside the likelihood that any of the alleged unconstitutional actions resulted in a different electoral outcome, isn't it important that election law is established through the Constitutionally proscribed legislative process and not via executive and/or bureaucratic actions independent of the legislature?
  - Frondo 6y ago
    What legal argument? Texas has no standing to sue Pennsylvania over what is an internal matter to Pennsylvania. Let's not pretend that this absurd lawsuit has any merit -- it's one in a long line of losing lawsuits (what are they up to, 50 out of 51 lost now?) by the current president to overturn an election result he didn't like.

beaner 6y ago

I think you might be dismissing that even in suburban California, things are much closer to suburban Texas. California may seem like it's 100% different, but that's mostly because people only know San Francisco, LA, and the other coastal cities. CA has its other parts, too.

notnap 6y ago
San Diego, Newport Beach and other "Beach" cities had trump boat rallies throughout this year. Just saying

JPKab 6y ago

"If Texas voters will finally vote in someone who is more like Ann Richards than Greg Abbott, I will believe the mindset is changing." I think the problem with this is that it rests on a fundamental assumption that someone's primary motivation for voting Republican is bigotry. Polls by the Pew Foundation do not bear this out. Non-college educated Democrats and Republicans have equally wrong knowledge about what people on the other side of the spectrum believe. College educated Republicans match their numbers. The outliers are college educated Democrats. They, by far, have the most distorted view of what right wing people ACTUALLY believe. It goes both ways of course, with conservatives dramatically underestimating the patriotism of liberals, etc. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/democrats-republicans-political-beliefs-national-survey-poll https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/21/democr... When I lived in Arkansas, the voters simultaneously voted for a Republican governor and state house, AND a ballot initiative to significantly raise the state minimum wage, as well as a ballot initiative for medical marijuana. The GOP politicians were all against these measures, but the voters approved them by large majorities. The point I'm making is that the politicians on both sides aren't in step with the electorate, even if they are chosen by the electorate. People are voting for the lesser of two evils a lot more than we give them credit for.

mtanski 6y ago
Politicians are not in step with the general electorate, they are instep with party elites and primary votes. The primaries tend to select most "ideologically" aligned candidates and by the time you're in the general election the politicians on both sides are far away from the median voter.

TMWNN 6y ago

>But that's rather my point: if you're living just in the larger metro areas, you're choosing to insulate yourself from the rampant discrimination and bigotry that, numerically, forms the bulk of the electorate and shape the cultural mindset. Put on a "Make America Great Again" hat and walk through downtown Chicago, San Francisco, Ann Arbor, or Cambridge before or after election day 2016 (or 2020). Now, put on a "I'm With Her" or "Biden/Harris 2020" shirt and walk through Provo, Fort Worth, or Pensacola before or after election day. In which scenario are you more like to be yelled at and/or physically attacked?

rayiner 6y ago

> If Texas voters will finally vote in someone who is more like Ann Richards than Greg Abbott If they’d only stop being bigoted and vote Democrat Texas would be a livable place!