America’s Future Is Texas | Hacker News Reader

America’s Future Is Texas

newyorker.com

36 pointspeterkshultz17 comments

>For more than a century, Texas was under Democratic rule. The state was always culturally conservative, religious, and militaristic, but a strain of pragmatism kept it from being fully swept up in racism and right-wing ideology.

Before the Democratic Party and Republican Party swapped platforms in the 60s and 70s, the Democrats were the super racist ones.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas#Politics:

>In the 1870s, white Democrats wrested power back in the state legislature from the biracial coalition at the end of Reconstruction. In the early 20th century, the legislature passed bills to impose poll taxes, followed by white primaries; these measures effectively disfranchised most blacks, poor whites and Mexican Americans. In the 1890s, 100,000 blacks voted in the state; by 1906, only 5,000 could vote. As a result, the Democratic Party dominated Texas politics from the turn of the century, imposing racial segregation and white supremacy.

That sure sounds like "fully swept up in racism and right-wing ideology" to me.

I'm glad someone else picked up on this. That line is completely misinformed and is in fact almost propaganda.

People like Ralph Yarborough or even Lloyd Bentsen would never be elected statewide in Texas today.

It's not quite so clear cut as that. Democrats before 1960 were racist, but not right wing. They represented rural/agrarian interests, which historically were left-wing.

  Before the Democratic Party and Republican Party swapped platforms in the 60s and 70s, the super racists voted Democrat.

Dan Patrick as fundamentalist Christian, LOL when I was a little guy I recall him being referred to by the other men in the party as a skirt chaser, which of course I had to request an explanation of.

(Source: I grew up in Harris County republican politics)

Many fundamentalist Christians seem to have been caught in their hypocrisy, whether it be embezzling, chasing women, or (seemingly more often) chasing men.

I recommend Caro's books on LBJ. Numerous stories about blatant corruption in Texas politics.

This is an incredibly long, but well written piece.

Took almost an hour to read but was worth it. What I don't understand here is why this kind of disproportionately conservative grid lock, and cultural baiting is the future of American poltics?

It looked like Texas was unique in the ability for conservatives to hold sway in what the author leads us to understand is a diverse state.

"a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues"

No divisiveness there. I saved an hour.

The entire history of Texas including the founders (separatists from Mexico) were crackpots and ideologues. I mean you really should read about the characters involved in the origins of this state. The stories are ridiculous. You could drop a rock into the crazy political well of Texas and never hear it hit the bottom.

I love the downvotes. Keep 'em comin. Go read a book about Texas history.

Texas is heavily gerrymandered, and even many of the Democrats who do run for or hold office are relatively conservative compared to some parts of the country.

It's not just gerrymandering. Voter turnout for minorities, particularly Hispanics, is very low.

This is partially because Republicans have succeeded at passing many voter suppression laws in Texas. It has some of the country's worst.

A sincere attempt giving all Americans a vote would allow voting by mail, automatically register anyone with a driver's license, extend early voting, and make election day a national holiday.

An exceptionally well written piece on Texas and politics. Fairly reported and even. Well done.

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