Texas: Once Again the Harbinger of the Horrors of American Finance Capital. ~~ dmorista

~~written by dmorista ~

Texas: Once Again the Harbinger of the Horrors of American Finance Capital

Texas is often thought of as the leading U.S. State for its extremist Right-wing political regime, and its notorious actions and power.  But the position of the far-right in ruling Texas is based on a population base that is, largely, shifting against that regime remaining in power without some very hardline actions (that the current regime is clearly willing to undertake).  

The changing demographics of Texas are shown in Table 1 below

          Table 1: Population of Texas by Ethnic Group, 2010 - 2020

(Source: “People of color make up 95% of Texas’ population growth, and cities and suburbs are booming, 2020 census shows”, Aug 12, 2021, Alexa Ura, Jason Kao, Carla Astudillo & Chris Essig, Texas Tribune, at < https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/12/texas-2020-census/ >)

The exact figures for the ethnic / racial groups are fuzzy; mostly due to people reporting that they belong to more than one ethnic or racial group.  The Census Bureau reports estimates for 2021 of 41.2% for Non-Hispanic Whites, and 39.7% for Hispanics (of all races) in Texas. (See, “QuickFacts, Texas”, “Population Estimates, July 1, 2021”,  n .d., anon, Census Bureau, at < https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/TX# >)  

But there is absolutely no doubt that the percentage of Hispanics in the Texas population is growing rapidly.  In general that is bad news for the far-right Republican regime, but the exact ramifications remain to be seen.   Another major change is the increase in the proportion of the Texas population that resides in cities or in suburban counties surrounding the cities.  Texas has 254 counties.  Of that number 140 lost population between 2010 and 2020, 111 gained population, and 3 remained the same.

Map 1: Population Changes in Texas Counties from 2010 to 2020

(Source: “People of color make up 95% of Texas’ population growth, and cities and suburbs are booming, 2020 census shows”, Aug 12, 2021, Alexa Ura, Jason Kao, Carla Astudillo & Chris Essig, Texas Tribune, at < https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/12/texas-2020-census/ >)

Texas has some of the most extremely Gerrymandered congressional and state legislature districts in the U.S. and some of the most stringent voter suppression laws as well.  The situation in Texas is, of course, particular to that state.  But the reality is that the Republican far-right faces similar changes in all of its once safe base of Southern and Southwestern States.  While the exact details vary somewhat, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Arizona have all become places where once impregnable or nearly impregnable Republican majorities are no longer completely safe.  The policies pursued by the Republican Party steered large numbers of people to migrate to the sunbelt states. Those migrants included people from the North and Northeast who were less right-wing and, more importantly, large numbers of foreign migrants.  The hardline xenophobic stance of many Republican functionaries has pushed the majority of of those migrants away from the Republican Party.

Of course the far-right is fully aware of the electoral problems they face, that is the reason for the hundreds of voter suppression and election fraud initiatives they are pushing in the various State Legislatures they control.

The Debacles Resulting from Extreme Right Control of Texas

Texas has now suffered through several disasters caused largely by right-wing policies.  At least 58 people died as a result of the electrical power failures in February of 2021.  Many thousands, who had enrolled in the deceptive wholesale power accounts, had to pay bills in the $10,000 - $20,000 range for a few days of power after the Texas Power Grid collapsed.  Many of them, who had allowed access to their accounts for automatic bill payment, found they had been cleaned out by the unregulated power companies. (See, “Steep Electric Bills Come Due for Texans Who Had Power During Storm”, Feb. 21, 2021, Giulia McDonnell et al, New York Times).  Wide areas of the state were without clean water or food for several days as other services, that depend on electricity, were also disrupted. Tens of thousands had their homes damaged and their possessions ruined when frozen pipes burst. (See, “Texans Feeling 'Cursed' as Disaster and Hardship Pummel State”, Feb. 23, 2021, Jack Healy, New York Times)  Reactionary demagogues made wild claims, such as that the failure had been caused by windmills that froze up (indeed many windmills that had not been built to withstand the cold failed, along with most of the Coal fired power plants, Natural Gas fired power plants, and even some nuclear power plants.  Meanwhile properly weather-proofed windmills in Canada, some of the northern states, and Siberia continued to function).  (See, “Rick Perry Blames Frozen Turbines for Texas Outages—He Made the State a Wind Powerhouse”, Feb 18, 2021, Brendan Cole, Newsweek, at < https://www.newsweek.com/texas-power-cuts-rick-perry-federal-government-renewables-1570117 >)  Former Texas Governor, and Secretary of Energy in the Trump Regime,  Rick Perry also wrote (from a warm snug office in Washington D.C.) that: “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business, … ”. (See, “Rick Perry Suggests Texans Voluntarily Go Without Heat to Fend Off Scourge of Socialism”, Feb 18, 2021, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, at < https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/rick-perry-texas-power-outage >)  And the loathsome Ted Cruz was observed boarding a flight for CanCun Mexico, along with his family, during the storm and power outage and had to return to the U.S. to save face.

Just a few months ago the Texas State Legislature passed a law, that Governor Greg Abbot enthusiastically signed that turned over enforcement of their 6-week fetal heartbeat abortion law to vigilantes.  Conceived of as a clever way to avoid problems with state enforcement the vicious law pushed the American Legal framework to a new low.  Tens of thousands of Texas Women, with the means to leave the state, did so for abortion services.  The poor women are already reverting to the horrific and dangerous back alley abortions, carrying unwanted children to term, often without health care or health insurance..  The overall death toll is not yet known, but it will be considerable.  This is all occurring in the state with the highest rate of uninsured people in the U.S. and during a regime of an ultra reactionary governor and legislature that turned down the federal subsidy to extend Medicaid to many of the poor.

The Uvalde Massacre 

The recent killing of 21 people by a heavily armed, and armored, 18 year old in Uvalde is just the latest Texas Mass Killing.  In 2016 a gunman shot and killed 5 police officers and wounded 9 more in Dallas, in 2017 a gunman shot and killed 25 people at a Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, in 2018 a 17-year old High School student shot and killed 10 people and wounded 13 in Santa Fe High School, near Houston, in 2019 a shooter killed 23 people at an El Paso area Walmart, and another shooter killed 7 people along the streets of Midland and Odessa, and now this.  The response throughout the entire Abbot Regime has been to go to the massacre site for a photo op and some crocodile tears, then pontificate a bit on the floor of the Legislature, and wait until the furor dies down and then do EXACTLY NOTHING.  In fact gun laws were loosened up even further earlier this year when the Texas Legislature passed, and Abbot signed a bill allowing public carrying of guns without even a permit. (See, “This time, Gov. Greg Abbott has few suggestions on how the state might prevent future mass shootings”, May 25, 2022, Zach Despart, Texas Tribune, at < https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/uvalde-texas-shooting-greg-abbott-response/

 >: “Analysis: Grief. Horror. Inaction. Texas mass shootings follow a numbing script”, May 24, 2022, Matthew Watkins, Texas Tribune, at < https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/24/texas-mass-shooting-uvalde/ >)

The crew of reactionary Texas politicians issued just the sort of statements one would expect.  The disgusting Ted Cruz offered some of the usual “our prayers are with you” B.S., but the real Cruz came out during a grilling by reporters at a vigil where he said “If you want to stop violent crime, the proposals the Democrats have, none of them would have stopped this.”  In Washington Cruz said that Democrats “try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work, it’s not effective, it doesn’t prevent crime.” (it is worth noting that Cruz has taken more than $442,000 from the gun lobby, a figure that would be much higher if other spending on his behalf by gun lobbyists was included).  Always emphasizing that evil individuals commit these acts he issued a statement that said “Democrats would love nothing more than to shift the blame and stoke anti-gun sentiment, and create a national gun registry in the process,”.  It is also worth noting, that like many well-off people Cruz's daughters are enrolled in an exclusive prep school that has extensive security arrangements.  Like many Republican officials in Texas and elsewhere Cruz said the solution was to “harden” schools turning them into fortresses guarded by armed guards and gun-toting teachers. (See, "Ted Cruz angrily quits interview after being confronted about gun control”, May 26, 2022, Martin Pengelly, The Guardian, at < https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/26/ted-cruz-angrily-quits-interview-gun-control >: "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz receives sharp backlash for comments in wake of Uvalde school shooting”, May 26, 2022, Shirin Ali, The Hill, at < https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3502973-texas-sen-ted-cruz-receives-sharp-backlash-for-comments-in-wake-of-uvalde-school-shooting/ >)

Beto O'Rourke challenged Abbot and a retinue of High Republican Poobahs on a stage at a public meeting in Uvalde after the massacre.  O'Rourke, who is a Democratic candidate for Governor, was harshly and aggressively rebuked by all the Republicans on the stage.  "U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz told him, 'Sit down and don't play this stunt.' Patrick told O'Rourke he was 'out of line and an embarrassment.' And Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin gave the most colorful response:

“ 'I can’t believe that you’re a sick son of a bitch that would come to a deal like this to make a political issue', McLaughlin said.”  (See, "Beto O’Rourke confronts Texas Gov. Greg Abbott at Uvalde press conference: 'This is on you' ”, May 25, 2022, Patrick Svitek, Texas Tribune, at < https://www.texastribune.org/2022/05/25/beto-orourke-greg-abbott-uvalde-shooting/ >) 

Of course the NRA is holding its annual convention this weekend, starting this afternoon, in Houston, Texas.  Greg Abbot bowed out of giving the keynote speech yesterday.  But the inimitable Ted Cruz will be there along with many other Republican notables.  The parents of Uvalde are now left to grieve, many of them over the remains of children so mangled by the AR-15 military bullets that they had to be identified using DNA technology.  Parents were unable to even recognize the bodies of their beloved children.  The attendees at the NRA convention are so jaded that this does not faze them, they offer the standard anodyne “hearts and prayers” B.S. and move on to the real event. Which is, The celebration of Death Culture with the most evil political organization in the U.S., and that is really saying something.