Monday, November 09, 2020

The Lone Star Leftist Wrangle

It's been awhile, and my bookmarks have really piled up.  Still holding my Latinx vote post for a few takes from the experts, though you'll find some teasers below.  Before turning to the data, analysis, and opinions about the Texas election over the past week, here's a look at how the coronavirus is devastating west Texas, El Paso specifically.


Houston ranks third on the list of US cities with the most people who are suffering financially as a result of the impacts of COVID-19.  And SocraticGadfly provided updates on coronavirus-related store boycotts and semi-boycotts.

By now you must be familiar with the outcome, most of the results and backstories, and probably several of the opinions about what happened in Texas last Tuesday.  A lot of people got it very wrong, but none more so than the little old lady at the beauty shop.  She's really slipping, y'all.

I have been sitting on some secret internal data of the people who have voted early and I will tell you that it will be close in Texas but nationally, it’s gonna be a landslide. No reason to take a nap today – James Carville and I say we’ll know by 10:30. And, this “Trump movement” will last about as long as the Tea Party did.

I am not so sure that Trumpism is going away.


(A contrarian sidebar to Nick's toon: 'Sanity' I guess I can roll with, as long as they keep him dosed on Aricept; 'Decency'?  Not so much given Tara Reade, all of his votes for wars, the '94 crime bill, palling around with Strom Thurmond and the other segregationists in the Senate, etc.)

There was lots of celebrating and dancing in the streets after Biden was declared the victor on Saturday, but the opposition forces rallied as well.  In North Texas and in Lumberton, to name two.


Rick Casey observed that Texans of both major party persuasions turned out to the polls in droves to keep the status quo, and that fact glaringly exposed our divisions.  Bonddad posted his postmortem; David Collins wryly -- or perhaps ruefully -- blogged that his campaign lost again to the undervote; Kuff had his same old same old, and Peter Holley at Texas Monthly met a few of the people who voted after midnight in Harris County.

Here's a few maps.


As promised, a few words about the brown vote in Tejas.  As a lead-in, one of the things I will attempt to do in my forthcoming post is break down the unhelpful usage of 'Hispanic', 'Latino/a' 'Latinx' (as I have been employing) to describe a group of people that are far too diverse to be lumped together.  Here are some observations about that.


If you're a gringo like me and follow Diaz or listen to his KPFT radio program, you understand this.  If you identify as one in the list below, you know this.


It's not like all of us white people vote the same, after all.  In fact, Black people are the only racial demo that bloc-votes, and that is because of a shared experience.


Much more on this topic to come in this space.  A bit more for today:


DosCentavos gives us his take on the Texas Latino vote and how Dems missed an important issue in South Texas.


As I'm running long here again, I'll save the Texas Lege news -- including Speaker-to-be Dade Phelan and AG Ken Paxton's latest flare-up -- and move toward the finish line with a few CJ, social justice, and environmental pieces, closing on the light side.

Grits for Breakfast evaluated the state of criminal justice reform after the election. The Austin Chronicle reported that the state's first hemp harvest in 80 years is in, describing the outlook for farmers in terms of both regulation and the market.

Lew Moorman for the San Antonio Report worries about the cost side of inequality.  (I am not sure that Moorman's "how are we going pay for all this" premise is the proper question, and if the GOP maintains control of the US Senate after the Georgia runoffs in December, then any deficit spending the Biden administration may have hoped to do will be moot anyway.)


Another coal-fired electricity plant closed in East Texas, and residents of Williamson County take action against the state's rock mining industry as the deleterious environmental effects become apparent.  And the Laredo Morning Times says the Texas oil and gas industry is very pleased with the outcome in the Texas Railroad Commissioner's race.

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