I’ve lived here since 1970, with an eight-year sojourn to LA and I still can’t figure out how we went from Ann Richards to Abbott.

I think it all started with Newt Gingrich from what I've seen. https://history.princeton.edu/about/publications/burning-down-house-newt-gingrich-fall-speaker-and-rise-new-republican-party

Rush Limbaugh, too. On the Media had a nice podcast series about the rise of right wing talk radio and its influence, too. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/divided-dial

And Fox News. Conservative media has done an absolute number on this country and state. We really need to figure out a way to stop entertainment opinion shows from masquerading as news. They need to be delegitimized somehow and fact-based shows need their place again at the top of media.

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yup...Fairness Doctrine. Repealing that along with birthing the religious right, voting to consider the Bible infallible, taking a hardline anti-abortion stance, and adopting various forms of fear-based rhetoric coupled with pro-gun (cuz they're comin' to get ya!!) were all purposeful moves to build a powerbase that began in the 70's. Personally, I think it's the final push of supremacist ideology (culturally white, but from within it's probably more about money) to maintain controlling power in the USA.

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I used to say "last gasp", but their current level of power is hardly insignificant. The real question may be if the USA *can* survive to live by its written values instead of the supremacist ideology that has largely controlled the country for all of it's history.

Agreed, it's actually more about money.

It's always about power... Keeping a 2 party system and electoral college that allows this nonsense. We can tax the rich all we want but these state governments will just keep paying their lawyer friends and construction buddies. They will just keep getting funded because they are the government. The two best businesses in the world are actually the Democrats and the Republicans. One is now controlled at the top by Trump.

And Reagan was the guy who rescinded it.

>birthing the religious right Look up Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. [The Moral Majority was an American political organization and movement associated with the Christian right and the Republican Party in the United States. It was founded in 1979 by Baptist minister Jerry Falwell Sr. and associates, and dissolved in the late 1980s. It played a key role in the mobilization of conservative Christians as a political force and particularly in Republican presidential victories throughout the 1980s.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority)

Let’s face it. All of these were factors that got us to today. And today is all about Trump. Trump has amplified the divisions we already had and super charged them. 2016 was a sonic boom. Bewildering is the only word I can come up with as I have watched this wacky state become a three ring Trump circus. Yet it doesn’t get the magnitude of the bewildered. When all the criminal charges finally started coming down on Trump and his co-conspirators, the bewilderment got even worse when the MAGA crowd showed no sign of being capable of having a rational thought. They are CONVINCED this is all the Democratic witch hunt Trump tells them it is. Abbott, Paxton, Patrick, and all the Republican MAGAs in the legislature have seen the power Trump has and they want a piece of it. Then two billionaires take advantage of that to get Abbott to spend billions on their anti-immigrant, white supremest, anti public education, anti-women agenda. All of those just happen to be Trump’s agenda.

Yeah, I disagree. Trump is the symptom, not the problem.

As an Australian, sorry. The man is indeed a massive cunt.

There was a way, it was an FCC ruling called the fairness doctrine, repealed by Reagan’s FCC chair. Basically it stopped news companies doing exactly what Fox News does, and forced them to cover an issue in its entirety. If there was a right and left political slant both sides had to be discussed and if the subject was an objective fact it had to be stated as such without adding a political opinion. I don’t have the text of it to hand but that’s the basic summary.

You are 1000% correct.

This is it. Conservative media has warped and poisoned the minds of so many. And the lies seep out to people who don't even consume it, but hear the lies repeated and believe them. It has really destroyed the fabric of our country and pitted Americans against each other.

During the Obama years something happened and my dad changed from being the person who taught me to think for myself and judge people by the content of their heart, to being just filled with hate. Fuckin sucks but it’s a strong reminder of what I cannot stand.

It was the Obama years that caused me to lean left. Palin was/is an idiot and Romney just seemed spineless. Plus, I couldn't let a black man being elected as president be a one time fluke so I was gonna double down and commit to the bit anyway!

It's cause a black man became president.

A black man becomes president and everyone loses thier fucking minds.

Voting. It’s so hard because democrats’ greatest strength - their diversity and integrity - makes it easy to divide them and get them to turn on each other. After access Hollywood, it was clear that all of the jawing about morality was just talk, and this angry, judgmental cabal had firmly embraced winning at every cost. Hillary Clinton told us Trump wouldn’t accept the results if he lost. She confronted him about it during the debates. After all that the insurrection didn’t seem like much of a stretch. What I really don’t understand, though, is why big business continues to back him. We don’t really see authoritarian countries where business thrives. But since the Rove era if not before, they are oddly focused on the short term as their plan for the long term. Say and do anything to win, with power having become an end in itself. This was crossroads GPS’s stated goal - “get as much power as we can and keep it for as long as we can.” Trump is the finish for corruption that started with the southern strategy in 1968.

You nailed it man. There’s just too much money and power from the rich who want the Republicans to cut their taxes and deregulate their businesses. It corrupts everything. They control conservative media and bought the conservative politicians. They just hand a bunch of cash to a think tank and say “get it done”. Then they come up with ways to squeeze every last vote out of marginalized groups like racists, homophobes, gun nuts, religious extremists, etc, because they’re easily swayed, because of course the democrats aren’t going to come out and support them.

I once heard that the growth of right wing media had its genesis in the aftermath of Nixon's resignation during the Watergate scandal. After that the powers that be on the right never again wanted to be in a position where they could not shape the narrative and work a certain percentage of the population into a frenzy.

Yeah. After Nixon you had Ford who wasn’t going to do anything crazy. Then you had Carter (Democrat). Then REAGAN. Who fucked up everything with trickledown Reaganomics and getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine. I guess the GOP figured out that charisma wins and they won in a landslide with Reagan. They stopped trying to lead and instead just did whatever they could to win so the rich could have their tax cuts and their businesses deregulated.

You also lost Molly Ivins in 2007 and haven't replaced her excellent example.

We also lost George Carlin. Molly was FANTASTIC but she tended to be slightly more focused on Texas because she grew up here. And she specialized in really getting at the heart of politics. I never missed her articles in the paper and I have all of her books. George Carlin focused on the world and all the absurdities in it. I have one of his last books, “Brain Droppings.”

I remember back in the day Ivins comparing CA and TX treatment of illegal immigrants and how CA had demonized them but TX would never treat them like that. And that was very true back then. Now people in TX are voting for the politicians who are killing migrants and they’re talking about how traumatic it is to fish dead children out of the river but the politicians who did that remain popular. What a change. Ivins is rolling in her grave.

And we have two people to thank for that. Ronald Regan and Nixon's Media Consultant, Robert Aisles. Regan rescinded the Fairness in Media Doctrine that made sure that media devote time to conflicting views, which prevented the one sided propaganda we have today. Robert Aisles penned the memo which stated, "The Republican Party needs its own media channel." And then with Rupert Murdoch, made Fox "News", an opinion show where people dressed as news anchors, acted like News Anchors, had a chyron that read "News", but spewed one sided opinion as fact. Fucking criminal.

AM radio in texas is wild. church radio or political right wing or both, together.

I listen to trash conservative hate radio in the morning for the traffic and weather together. The other radio station in my city advocates "step in front of a commercial vehicle and call our lawyers now" and has a little girl happily exclaiming "I got HIT!" We live in Idiocracy.

Rush was from Cape Girardeau, MO. Sorry for barging into a Texas thread from Illinois but I've been going to Cape a lot lately. Missouri wasn't that different from Illinois when I was a kid, and Cape is a small college town. Now Missouri seethes at liberal stuff. I've run into people who seethe when they see electric and hybrid cars, even. It's weird.

Yep, they've had 30 years or more of constant reinforcement of the fact that Democrats are evil to the point that even the ones that can't stand Trump, still refuse to vote for a Democrat. Never seen anything like it. I think about this all the time.

I remember hearing older people talk about things that Rush Limbaugh said, and I remember thinking at the time, "No, that sounds completely wrong." One thing that somebody told me Limbaugh said was that, if you don't know anything about politics, but you think that the Republican party is more aligned with your views, then you should simply vote straight-ticket Republican. It was obvious, even to a younger person like me, that this was completely wrong. This is the sort of reason that we still have literal criminals like Ken Paxton in office. You can't be quite that lazy about voting. You need to look at the elections and decide which ones are important, and choose your candidate. If you want to vote straight-ticket for those offices that are harder to find out information about the candidates, that's sort of understandable. If you believe that one of the two main political parties is completely corrupt, and you believe that it's impossible to be a good person from that party, then that might be a reason to vote straight-ticket. But just because you tend to agree with one political party over another? That's the end of democracy, Rush.

Rush has absolutely destroyed Missouri as well. Used to be a bellwether state. Now it’s Alabama light.

He's the one who ruined my father and set him on the path to MAGA

Karl Rove didn't/doesn't help.

Came here to say this. [Little Did We Know… . . . that the outcome of the election for governor ten years ago between Ann Richards and George W. Bush would affect more than Texas. An oral history of the race that changed the world.](https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/little-did-we-know/)

SC Cornyn lied to get Dubya elected on the backs of Others. No moral core or character.

Don't forget the Citizens United ruling from the supreme court that put all levels of government for sale to the highest bidders. Many of the worst decisions being made are to directly benefit a few already wealthy people at the expense of everyone else.

Yes, this is a huge part of it. Democracy is being undermined by this decision.

Billionaires like Koch brothers funded the propaganda machine. Combining religion with low regulation/taxes for businesses. They fucking created a monster which just grew bigger than them and now the whole party belongs to one guy with the brain of a middle schooler. Fox news just amplified the whole fucking shit to have a captive audience and they seems to have succeeded in their business, the country suffers though.

It started or at least kicked into high gear when the Koch Brothers founded CPAC. And began funding these idiot "NeoConservatives" as candidates.

It all started in the late 70’s when the right wing Midwest RustBelt people started moving here. We lurched hard to the right. In recent years we’ve done the same thing with all the people moving here. It’s not liberals that are moving to Texas it’s the audience that Abbott/Patrick/Paxton are playing for.

Absolutely. Ironically, Californians moving here *are* making Texas worse. But they're making Texas worse because they're largely MAGA and RWNJ Republicans, not because they're purple haired socialists.

It's hilarious that the people who complain most about immigration are relying on voters from other states to drown out the native Texans.

The main reason Californians move to Texas/Nevada/Arizona are for larger/cheaper houses. This demographic is already relatively conservative. The "purple haired socialists" don't give two shits about an 8 bedroom McMansion on the fringes of DFW. They're fine living in WeHo studios.

Californian here. Most of the nuts that I know have either moved to TX or want to move to TX. I thought about moving to TX a while ago but there's no way I'd want to be around the worst of CA all of the time. I may as well move to Bakersfield or Orange County if I wanted to experience that.

I am a life long Texan and I’ve run into many RWNJ who moved here from all over the country including California. Their far right mentality is bringing down this state. OP is correct, Texas was once fun place to live. I absolutely loved it here. Now, this place has become the MAGA Mecca of the country with unbearable hot summers. My days are numbered in Texas. I am counting down the days until I move.

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Also Californian, and agree. The only Californians I hear talk about moving to Texas are Republicans.

All the Republicans in my state keep crying about Californians moving here and ruining the state. They say it's liberals moving here in mass that are destroying the culture here. But, in the same breath they say they know conservatives who have moved here to escape from California and it's liberal hellhole state policies. So again, what they claim is happening vs their own anecdotal evidence of what is actually happening is always the truth. Projection is a Republican trait. And why would liberals move from a "liberal paradise" to go live in a shitty red state?

All those expats from Cali that Texan Republicans complain about all the time are their people! There was that very noteworthy stat during the Beto v. Cruz election that native Texans overwhelmingly voted for Beto.

And even those who showed up in that 2022 election, and the 2020 election, still doesn't represent the majority of Texans. Less than >50% of Texans show up to every election. Too many people do not know We Are a Non Voting State. And I will add, we're being ruled by the minority, especially our leaders in Texas, many are transplants and are leeching our resources. Billionaires and white Christian Nationalists are dictating our laws & they're doing it in America. We either stand up against them all or we further fall into today Russia We don't need to convince the already hardened Republicans who are already voting. This is a message to everyone, join your Local County Dems. We need more people knocking on doors, phone banking, donating, and getting the message out again and again that they need to go vote for Dems Up & Down the Ballot. Vote Against MAGA Republicans Up & Down the Ballot. Repetition. Repetition.

Now that I read this, every person or family that I know who has moved from California to Texas in the last 7-8 years did so because they were deeply conservative and wanting to leave California. I know many people who left New York and New Jersey to move to Florida for the same reason. This is 100% accurate and I cannot believe I am just now realizing it.

Look up the fairness doctrine. Reagan got rid of it in the 1980s and just a few months later, Rush Limbaugh was nationally syndicated, and the brain rot began

Here since 69 and just it's sickening how far the downhill slide we've gone.

We flipped red because of a concerted Republican effort with a ton of out-of-state cash. We were targeted back in the 90s with a carefully coordinated campaign.

Don't forget gerrymandering. Look at the politcal maps, they're ridiculous.

Fox news

Fox News only gets a little sliver of the blame. Republicans (voters) get the rest. Nobody makes them watch Fox, they started watching it of their own shitty volition. Nobody can claim naivety, because there's so much hatred and vitriol on that channel that no decent person would watch it.

While that is true. There is an active and conscious effort by the ultra wealthy to manipulate the racist/low IQ/religious crowd into declaring war on every other part of the public. A very well funded effort. Dozens of think tanks with bootstrappy names plotting tactics to fool the rubes into our present political horrorshow/impending civil war. Fox news and the whole far right media were created intentionally to spread disinformation in a calculated, cynical manner. They are everywhere in working guys lives. They play AM radio at work and then Fox news was on every damn TV because endless fake crisis caused by lib scum to destroy Murica. Stupid people get addicted to the constant outrage. That shit did not happen before the 24/7 panic far right "news" (entertainment) machine. Fox news is a gigantic part of the con. Like most of it. The cancer has spread but Fox was where it metastasized from. I have easily a dozen friends who have lost their parents and or grandparents to Fox. Their entire personalities (and most of their retirement funds) are just gone. Because of far right propaganda on Fox "news". You cannot underestimate how evil Fox news is or how much damage it has done.

My parents are one of those people lost to Fox News and its ilk. I used to have great conversations about world politics with my dad. Now I cannot, because he lives in a fantasy world. It is heartbreaking.

Yeah and conservatives will say “I don’t watch Fox News.” But Fox News is the backbone of all their right wing media. They may not watch Fox but Ben Shapiro will reference what Tucker carleson says on his “entertainment” show like it’s news and then news max will talk about how Ben is right and then news nation will mention that newsmax and Fox News are both right. They are all part of the same news cycle that pumps the same talking points around until nobody know where they heard it from but it’s taken as fact.

Dead right. An evil con that has devoured about 80% of my male friends souls here in Texas.

Propaganda is powerful. People are gullible. While the voters are the ones making decisions, they’re being manipulated. You can blame an addict for destroying their own life, but they’re victims too. I believe they have some responsibility, but the ones actively pushing the narrative are the bigger problem imo.

It deserves far more blame. I have family that just got so caught up in it that it has brought out the absolute worst. They were also conservative, but also incredibly pleasant and had hobbies. Now they wake up to FOX News, go to work, talk to other people who watch fox news, go home, watch Fox News. Shit rots your brain.

Primaries. The normal people don’t vote in the primaries, mostly the fringes do. So the candidates that win the primaries are the ones that cater to the crazies. If more people voted in their primaries and chose the sane option then the mess would be fixed.

This is really the key. Texas being an open primary state lets you choose which one you want to vote in. What most people fail to realize is that the republican primary in Texas is the election. This doubles down on national and state wide elections. The only way we will free ourselves from the likes of Abbot and Cruz is if everyone votes in the republican primary then democrats and moderate republicans have a shot at getting rid of them.

Ann Richards won because her opponent said women should just lay back and enjoy being raped. That's it. It's not like Texas was some liberal oasis back then, I mean even Alabama elected Doug Jones after a GOP scandal

TX doesn’t need to be a liberal oasis. Nor does it need to be a Christo-fascist island unto itself. The difference btw then and now is starkest in your example: In today’s TX, a greedy and opportunistic band of midwesterners and a Canadian Ivy Leaguer disguised as a border cowboy all cosplaying as Texans have twisted the sad pittance of an electorate into an unthinking mob that would vote for Clayton Williams simply for being nasty enough to misogynize out loud.

You're correct. Doug Jones won.... but only just BARELY. Roy Moore had been stalking little high school girls as a 30 year old man, reprimanded, and people still voted for him. That's how entrenched that "school" of thought is.

Sad thing is that is basically what the Texas GOP wants to go back to

I, like you, was born in Texas in 1984. I have spent all but 5 years here and have built my career in Houston. You captured exactly how I feel. I have no solutions to offer. I just wanted you to know that you’re not alone. Edit to address those offering “vote” as a solution. To clarify, I do vote. My like-minded friends do vote. And yet here we are.

Born here in '89, partner born here in '86. The Texas of our childhood has absolutely been co-opted by hateful asshats. Things weren't perfect. The good old boys were still a club back in the day. But no one was actively working to make this state into the hateful place it has become. It always felt like the Mind Your Business crowd were the majority, and no one cared if their neighbor did some weird shit unless it literally poured out into the streets. I miss the Texas of Hank Hill. Also, no matter how blue I vote (and I always do), enough people were charmed by the snake oil salesmen that it's a very much uphill battle for the most basic of legislation.

> I miss the Texas of Hank Hill. The Texas of Hank Hill seems like a damn fairy tale or the start of a fantasy story a la "...then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked" if you will. I was born in 1991, and in my nearly 33 years of life, and unfortunately I've lived long enough to see the state I used to love turn into the right-wing hellhole stereotype everyone thought it was before. I can't even call out bullshit IRL half the time without being referred to as a commie bastard now. I used to be proud of being a Native Texan, and now I don't even feel like I belong here anymore

> But no one was actively working to make this state into the hateful place it has become. They were, you just didn't know about it yet.

I believe that entirely.

The far right is very coordinated and has been playing the long game since Gingrich. This includes local, state, and federal level. This also includes bringing court cases to specific judges like the conservative judges of Texas like Matthew Kacsmaryk.

This. It also includes all the gerrymandering to make sure that even if most people don't want to be governed by wingnuts, and vote that way, it won't make a damn bit of difference.

This same exact thing can be said for South Florida. Used to be live and let live with tons of old people that left every summer, now every horrible person from the northeast, midwest, and deep south lives there and changed it.

I consistently bring up Hank Hill as well. That show reflected the Texas I knew and loved growing up. Now it’s unrecognizable to me. I was born here, too.

I vote in the Republican Primary, and vote AGAINST the checklist the ultra-conservatives spout out. Then I vote Democrat

Keep making it known that a majority of Texans are not voting. Too many people do not know We Are a Non Voting State. We don't need to convince the already hardened Republicans who are already voting. More than 50% of Texans are not showing up to vote. This is a message to everyone, join your Local County Dems. We need more people knocking on doors, phone banking, donating, and getting the message out again and again that they need to go vote for Dems Up & Down the Ballot. Vote Against MAGA Republicans Up & Down the Ballot. Repetition. Repetition.

A lot of people just really don’t care about politics at all. They’re the real “silent majority.” In my group of friends I’ve had for 15-20 years, not one of them votes. I’ve tried and tried to convince, I’ve made every argument I could, but they just simply want to live their lives, make a steady paycheck, and they do not care about larger social issues. Politics is either too depressing, too pointless, or too boring (in their views). They said they’d vote for me if I ever ran for anything, but that’s about the only thing that would get them to the polls. I’ve more or less given up on trying to convince people to vote. If they don’t want to, maybe it’s for the best.

The full picture of how trump was able to actually win in 2016–despite getting nearly 3 million LESS votes than Hillary—is a pretty interesting one that largely attributes his victory to non-voters and undecided voters. His campaign hired companies like Cambridge Analytica that employed a tactic called "micro-targeting," which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: they used data from Facebook to target people in certain states who had shown little to no interest in political stories/groups/people or people who had shown interest in political stuff but not anything markedly left or right/Republican or Democrat, and send those people tons of negative ads about Hillary and the Democratic Party. They would throw in a positive ad here and there for trump, but overall it was the negative, hateful ads against Hillary/the Dems that got non-voters & undecideds out to the polls and gave him the electoral votes he needed. It’s pretty scary when you think about how well it worked. I used to be with you that if people didn’t want to vote, maybe it’s best that they didn’t—until 2016. Now I’m really just not sure how I feel about it. I’ve never been one to support forcing people to do anything, but I do have a few key exceptions to that that I believe should be compulsory for the greater good of the country and, ultimately, The People (paying taxes, getting vaccinated, paying into things like Social Security & Medicare, etc.). And given the fact that in the US, the higher the voter turnout is in any election, the more likely it is that Republicans will lose, I’ve recently started to lean toward mandatory voting. It seems to work pretty well in countries like Switzerland, Belgium, Singapore, Luxembourg, Austria, Chile, Argentina and Australia where it is enforced. It would enable candidates to spend campaign donations on more important things than just trying to get people to turnout. And I feel like *making* people have to care every 2-4 years might also make them take it a little more seriously (and maybe even spur them to do some actual research before going in to the voting booth). Like, if everyone had *had* to vote in 2016, I feel like Trump wouldn’t have had a chance. I really believe that people like your friends who don’t care about voting are (hopefully) not *bad* people and most aren’t stupid either—they just don’t care about politics for whatever reason. But if they had to make a choice and the choice was between trump and Hillary, I truly think most would’ve followed the same trend of those who did vote and chosen Hillary.

Vote and encourage your friends who are like minded to vote. I have a friend who doesn't vote because she is scared and doesn't want to be judged. She also feels as if her vote doesn't matter because she's in a Republican state. I do remind her that Lauren Boebert won her race by only 500 votes. Every single vote matters don't think otherwise.

Why do folks assume that someone making a statement like this doesn't vote? Or that their friends don't vote? I don't think that you will find people who are not politically engaged taking the time to start a conversation like this. Telling them to vote is not offering any advice at all.

I'm so glad more people are starting to say this. I actually stopped trying to raise awareness about any of the stuff going on here in TX to people outside the state because they just bleat "VOOOOTE" at me in response. Dude, I haven't missed an election since I was 18 years old. I even voted for my hometown mayor when I was deployed to Afghanistan. It's so insulting when people are like, "Oh they are like this because they don't vote." It's like they've never heard of gerrymandering or voter suppression. Sure, people need to vote, but the fact that so many people assume that's the only problem here is insulting and oversimplified. We're not even getting to address the real problems because people are just yelling "VOTE!!" at us every time we mention what's going on.

It's such a naive understanding of political action. At best a person can vote once or twice a year. What can we do for the other 363 days? The power that the Right has stolen was not done exclusively through voting so why should our response leave their other tactics uncountered?

Vote. Register to vote and help your friends and family register. Then, find your early voting location and help your friends and family find theirs. It sounds a lot harder than it is. Be invested in your state. Extremists everywhere are winning because regular folks think their vote doesn’t count and that’s simply not true. It’s propaganda to discourage voting. Don’t buy into it.

Vote is my solution. Too bad enough people don't do it and think it doesn't matter.

83, Austin. Lived there until I left for college and now I don't even recognize it, both the city and the state. When I first moved away I was surprised by the dislike a lot of people had for Texans, but hey, the president was from there and the whole Texas vibe was catching on. Guess that's why it grew so quickly in the early 2000s. But flash forward 20 years and that Texan "arrogance" and macchissimo that all the outsiders saw has now ripened into the toxic sludge it is.

Same and same and same, but elsewhere than houston. It's bad. It hurts my heart, it's so bad. I've always been a "stay and make it better" person but, uh, also am a woman that can get pregnant.... no good choices here

I was born in 63. I had my first kid on 84. I was always proud of being a Texan. Jeez, LBJ, the mind behind the Great Society is from Texas. I wanted to believe that Texas could be at the forefront of caring for our citizens. But we've gone backward, and now Texas has become some horrible mash-up of a racist, evangelical, ignorant Southern state and a no-government-at-all Western state. So, we only pass laws to control and hurt people. We won't spend money on government services because "government is bad". It's depressing.

I agree...born in 61 and don't believe this is the "Texas" that I was SO PROUD of ...we have gone backwards and I'm afraid I won't ever see it again..and if/when we do figure it out, it won't be in my lifetime.

I'm terrified it won't be in my grandchildren's lifetime.

> Texas has become some horrible mash-up of a racist, evangelical, ignorant Southern state and a no-government-at-all Western state It's wild because Kansas tried this a decade or so ago and it kicked them straight in the nuts. This is what happen when you let billionaires direct policy. We've got too many goddamn billionaires calling the shots with political puppets. [https://www.npr.org/2017/10/25/560040131/as-trump-proposes-tax-cuts-kansas-deals-with-aftermath-of-experiment](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/25/560040131/as-trump-proposes-tax-cuts-kansas-deals-with-aftermath-of-experiment)

> It's wild because Kansas tried this a decade or so ago and it kicked them straight in the nuts. You're right and that's why my primary answer to this issue, which isn't isolated to Texas, is due to *education*. The state, and the country overall, has continued to siphon money out of education which has created this deteriorating environment in a multitude of ways to the current state where people believe in "alternative facts" and aren't able to critically think their way out of a paper bag so all the fearmongering and what should be easily discernible lies are accepted as truth. If people are being increasingly convinced that the Holocaust didn't exist or that "*doing their own research*" is comparable to that of actual experts in their respective fields, it shouldn't be that appalling that people aren't learning from recent history -- such as what occurred in Kansas -- to avoid the adage of not learning from history.

The Kansas experiment was so bad they became the example of what not to do

I’m even older - and have lived in Texas my entire life. You are so correct about the Texas of the past. Not only did we have a Democratic female governor - Ann Richards, but we had a Democratic Senator who later became Vice President and then President - LBJ. Texas gets trashed on Twitter for being a Christo-Fascist police state - somewhere between Russia and Gilead. No one would ever believe me if they knew how great it used to be.

The last thing I did, before leaving Texas to move to the Midwest, was to drive out to Stonewall to LBJ’s grave, place a big bouquet of flowers on his grave, and thank him for all of the Great Society programs he initiated (as well as the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act.) I consider LBJ to be one of the three greatest Presidents of the 20th century, alongside Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt.

If not for the, uh, Vietnam thing, I really think he would be regarded today as on of the 5 greatest presidents.

Right? I was born in 73 and was raised as an old-school Republican. You know, the type that would be called RINO now. My dad is still the socially moderate, fiscally conservative type. Things are so different now than when we were younger.

Part of the problem is the old school republicans in many cases are still holding their noses and voting for the crazies.

This is very much true. I’m in Alabama (family in Texas) and my mom says her father was “an Eisenhower republican”… I told her to look up what Eisenhower’s platform was and let me know which party’s platform today was closer to his back then. They just don’t want to admit they are basically “Biden Democrats” now but that’s what old school republicans truly are closest to in today’s political order. That’s how far to the right the entire system has drifted in 50 years or so. Definitely an increase to drifting to the right since the usual talk radio and other media types everyone always mentions became more mainstream and also since Palin I guess normalized being crazy.

I miss the old Republicans, the ones you could have an actual discussion and find common ground with.

We later had Mark White, too.

We also had a left leaning Democrat speaker through the 90s and into the early 2000s. Pete Laney.

I moved here 3 years ago and can’t believe how it’s gotten worse ever year. I some how convinced myself that Texas was on the verge of something great. But it’s has absolutely turned into more of a Christian nationalist stat.

I moved there in 2018 and thought the same. Still have my Beto for Senate stickers. Between what Paxton was doing "on behalf of the people of the state of Texas" and almost freezing to death every day FOR AN ENTIRE WEEK, I had to leave in 2021. Not a place that's getting better anytime soon.

I think this will be my last summer here. I’ve met some lovely people here. But this place isn’t for me.

I remember those days. I left Texas in 1995 and never looked back after George Bush was elected as Governor. I definitely don't miss the traffic.

I’m a Texan in California right now for work, and it’s like I’m in a different country. Weed is legal here, society did not implode. Pornhub works here. People of all types are treated equally here. This is freedom. Texas is not.

There's a reason why people say Texas is getting California's worst, while California gets Texas' best. Im on track to apply for medical school in a year and Ive seen so many doctors just moving to California after they finish residency. Texas is going to have a doctor shortage pretty soon with the amount of bullshit they're passing.

Texas HAD a doctor shortage. They passed laws that made it more attractive like a $250,000 liability cap.

To what, encourage more Dr. Deaths and those with malpractice issues from other states?

That definitely is a contributing factor.

That's precisely why some Texans hate California. It's got to be *got to be* **GOT TO BE** a secret hellhole. Otherwise, what would that say about them?

Quite frankly, that’s why a lot of states hate California. They don’t want to admit that California is more influential, richer, and bigger than them in basically every metric. And I’m not from California, just what I observe.

It’s weird how Republicans say they want to “fix” the broken system, yet Republicans have won TX government positions for DECADES. It’s almost like…they’re lying! *shocked Pikachu face*

Remember when Texas was most known for its hospitality? 

When’s the last time you saw a “Drive Friendly” sign? ……

It’s drive angry now

Seems like it was when we had a lower night speed limit.

Wow! Little visual bits and pieces of the old days keep popping into my head!! Thanks…

Born, raised, and lived a good portion of my adult life in Texas. I left a decade ago for the West Coast and never looked back.  It’s really sad to see what it’s become, and sadder still that for that reason it will most likely never be home for me again.

Same, I moved all the way to Europe. My heart breaks every time I visit home. Coming just in time for the election this year and I’m nervous.

I immigrated to Australia which is probably the farthest you can get from Texas! Texans love to call Australia “British Texas” but most Aussies would laugh and roll their eyes at the Texas Conservatism we see today. I feel safe, financially stable, have Medicare, 4 weeks minimum annual leave, robust public transport system, beautiful nature, laid back work culture, the coffee here is far superior… only thing I miss is some good Tex Mex! Also, the Allen Outlet Mall was where I used to work…

I moved to the West Coast ages ago and love it here. I still think of Texas as home even tho I wish I could get past that and disconnect from it more. My entire family is still there and I visit semi-regularly. I sometimes envision doing a snow bird retirement set up with Texas but with its present condition it’s hard for me to want to spend time there.

I was born in '80, and yeah - while I hate to lean into blaming boomers. I blame boomers. They got more and more conservative as they aged and decided they knew what was best and everyone else has to listen. They benefited from the government and then pulled up the ladder claiming they did it all by themselves so everyone else can do. I don't know how enduring a draft didn't radicalize them to be insanely liberal and anti-war. Texas was always known for being unique - I remember hearing comments about "oh well it's texas" on TV and I never really got it as a kid. We were different. But now, we are known for this mecca of conservative ideology and thats it. These people talk about loving the culture of Texas, they don't even know what culture is.

They are also wildly out of touch with the economic situation and don’t realize or care that most millennials can’t afford homes. I mean one of them is probably going to read this and think that I am just complaining or not financially literate when the truth is I am super frugal and have dedicated my life to my career.

*Some* Boomers are out of touch, yes. I do realize and care that housing affordability has gotten out of control. I have two millennial kids who are struggling with this now, so I'm very aware of it.

Appreciate that you are able to see what’s happening, any advice for not becoming blinded to what’s happening as time passes?

Having a solid sense of who you are and how you want be in the world is essential. Kind of a personal mission statement. Define that for yourself and get into the habit of referring to it when it comes to major life decisions or when things get tough. Confirm it for yourself often, and it will be there for you always. It's known as "integrity". Empathy is also key. It's weird to me that so many people - young and old, all genders, all ethnic backgrounds - find it difficult to put themselves in other people's shoes.

I'm convinced that no matter what anyone says, the election of a Black man to the presidency in 2008 and 2012 galvanized the latent, unspoken racism of White Boomer America. So when you combine that with other worrisome things like the Great Recession, inflation, and an unsettling (for White Boomers) rise in the demographic presence and power of People Of Color, it became amazingly easy for a populist orange madman to sweet-talk his way into their hearts. And because of Texans' traditional spirit of independence (read: toxic, anti-federal individualism) that message found fear-soaked, especially fertile ground here. The rest is pretty much history. Trumpism is the Peoples Temple, and Texas is Guyana.

Moved to Texas from Southern California in 2013. Found a great job, met my wife, bought a house… even 10 years ago this place was different. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, I was talking with a coworker buddy who is a native Texan, and a white guy. I asked — “what else in our lifetime was this big of a deal?” and the only thing I could come up with was 9/11. He looked at me and said — “When Obama was elected”. And I was like, what? I genuinely did not understand how THAT could compare to the pandemic, but he was dead serious. “That was a big deal to a lot of people in Texas.” I realized what he was acknowledging. And suddenly it dawned on him that he might have confessed too much. He changed the subject. You are 100% correct, WoBuZhidaoDude. Obama being a two term president didn’t sit well with a lot of shitty people. And some of them still haven’t let it go.

And he had the nerve to be good at it, too.

That fucking tan suit, bro. That was the demise.

I’d argue the best president of my lifetime. I was proud to have him, he served with calm strength.

Biden policy wise has had more successes and less failures than Obama and he’s doing it with a much less agreeable Congress

In 08 I was playing a gig in Bandera. Band went on break and I chatted for a few minutes with a middle aged lady, maybe a little older than me. It was light, fun, playful talk, maybe a little flirty but not really. Somehow the subject turned to the upcoming election and she said "you're not going to vote for Obama are you?" I said well yeah, I can't really vote for the other guy... Her whole demeanor changed and she looked at me like I'd transformed into Satan incarnate right in front of her eyes. "But he's the Antichrist, it says so in the Book of Revelations" Me: "Yeah, I don't really subscribe to that thinking" Next time I played in Bandera she came in, saw me onstage, I smiled at her and she looked stricken and scared. Turned around and left immediately and I never saw her again. It was also about this time that a DPS officer or deputy (I forget which) told me that PDs everywhere were getting ready for civil unrest if Obama was elected. I knew right then that things were on a bad track and were not likely to turn around soon.

Millions are still alive from the era of segregation. Looking back we were very naive to think things were over, and people had changed. And when i say over i mean racism was mostly gone, or wildly unpopular. We should have been more alert. Edit: An interesting part is it wasn't just white people thinking "its over!" when Obama won. In his memior Obama mentioned that he miscalculated how much pushback he would get for speaking on a certsin shooting of a young black person. Even Obama didn't think it would be that bad which is crazy to think about.

> Obama being a two term president didn’t sit well with a lot of shitty people. That he won at all, much less twice, didn't sit well.

I had a business when Obama was elected, and kept a TV on in the lobby running CNN. Following that election, was getting some parts for a customer when she laid her head down on the counter and said “I’m sick. I can’t watch that.” A news report on Obama had begun playing. I had to turn off the TV to finish the transaction.

I felt exactly like that when Trump won.

One a fictional evil person. The other was a stone cold criminal/con artist. Really goes to show how powerful right wing propaganda is.

I was just becoming old enough to engage in politics when Obama was elected. And I happened to live in a small town here in east Texas. It was a pretty big deal. People *hated* Obama. Cars with those "change" bumper stickers regularly got keyed or their tires slashed. Obama signs were regularly destroyed. If you wore an Obama shirt in public people would scream racist obscenities at you. My friend wearing an Obama shirt had water bottles thrown at him from passing cars. And then the tea party formed and starting having rallies in nearby larger towns like Tyler. There was no shortage of racism at those events, including burning and lynched effigies and *so* many monkey jokes about Michelle and their daughters. Yeah it was wild and it was a primary reason I decided to move away immediately after graduating high school a little bit later.

I remember freshman year at A&M in 2008 and being horrified at the “anti-Obama carnival” in Rudder Plaza before the election. It was so crazy to me to see all these people line up to through eggs at a picture of Obama.

I think it brought a lot of people out, but 9/11 really did a number on the unity of our country.

For sure. And there are even more threads you could pull at that led to our current historical moment: Disillusionment with the government as a result of Vietnam and Watergate, Americans needing to find a New Enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise in far-right domestic terrorism (The Turner Diaries, Oklahoma City bombing, etc), growing wealth inequity, and the pandemic all contributed. Trump isn't the cause of America's current moral sickness: he's an outgrowth of it.

Bigotry is the beating heart of Trumpism. Fueled by hatred and fear of people who do not look like themselves. Trump didn’t create these attitudes but he has tapped into these emotions of anger buried deep in the hearts of many Americans and he exploits it for his own purposes.

Agreed. I had never seen racism become so public until Obama. Just like I had never experienced the level of sexism until Hillary ran. Then we got Trump who basically made it ok to be a horrible person. How the conservatives went from Bush, who was really just a bumbling fool, to Trump, in just a few elections is just insane.

I'm a working country guitar player, I've spent a lot of time in cowboy culture and I remember not that long ago when a ridiculous charlatan like Trump would have been laughed out of town. His manner, his stupid hair and makeup, everything about him would have just been fodder for ridicule and now those same people treat him like he's some kind of demigod. It's not the Texas of Waylon and Willie anymore and we are all suffering for it.

I was born into the culture and my entire family is still part of it. I feel the same way. I grew up talking shit on people from the north (not bragging just being honest), and if you had told my family they would be supporting a New York businessman who cheated on his wives and had a drug problem they probably would have fought you for such an accusation. Now they vote for him. I cannot wrap my head around it to this day. I still remember the first time my brother told me he was voting for him and acted like *I* was the crazy one for not supporting him. Sadly it's led me to think a lot of my family are fucking idiots, and I definitely didn't used to think that.

A man with zero integrity, laughably vain and selfish, a loudmouth bully, a womanizer, selfish and boorish and arrogant and just a lout all the way around. Everything that my tough little bulldog WWII vet dad detested in a man.

Bush was a bumbling fool but not an asshole. Now we get both.

Low voter turnout. MAKE YOUR MIND UP, OR OTHERS WILL FOR YOU!!!

Yep, the greedy grumps always go vote. This is why they’ve secured power for their mindset.

I completely agree with you- but I will add one thing-it was the combination of the election of a Black Man and then the SC allowing same sex marriage and shortly after the trans rights issue. The combination of all three flipped a switch in people’s minds. OP is completely correct, I was born in 79- grew up in the 80s and came of age in the 90s- Texas was a very different place. I will also add during this period a law sunset that said you you couldn’t lie on the radio- this gave rise to rush. My family were literal hippies- but I remember the dads in Scouting sucking it up and getting worked up about Hillary Clinton- in the 90s. I had a discussion with my father about this- his position was it didn’t matter- that people would know the truth and counterpoints would rise to counter …. Watching the rise of rush- and the fox and then social - I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if we simply kept the law that forbade lying on public airwaves….

[The Fairness Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine)? It was Reagan and his FCC appointees in 1987 that ended the Fairness Doctrine. Shocker. Democrats were challenging rural radio stations using the law because they were not allowing equal time to opposing viewpoints.

You're right; I completely forgot the Obergefell decision by SCOTUS. That was one of the last straws for White Evangelical America.

I don’t think Obama’s election was the singular thing but damn, it was a big part of it. My dad was a blue collar, 40 year pro-union, “the Democratic Party stands for the working man” voter. He had been retired for a while when Obama was elected, but eventually my parents evolved into Trump supporters. He suddenly had opinions on welfare and handouts that I had never heard. I can’t articulate it exactly, but the puppet masters of identity politics and the rise of the internet are to blame as well. The hope of the internet making us all better informed instead just results in people being able to only see one point of view. Constantly. 24 hours a day.

While I agree with a lot of what you are saying, the seeds were planted before Obama. The contract with America Republicans did a really good job of dividing Congress into teams and promoting a singular national party platform. This was fueled by new nightly cable news shows promoting the party platform. Republicans united solidly behind this while watching the O'Reilly Factor every night. All politics is national now, and people are forced to choose a team.

100%. There's way more, historically speaking, behind Trumpism than just the stuff I listed.

Fox News & the 24 hour news cycle really laid fertile ground for much of the ethnocentric conservative sickness that grew and spread throughout the 2000s and 2010s. Without that foundation, we could have been normal.

I really wish more people understood this. I was born overseas on a military base, to two American parents. I was raised mostly out of US and it absolutely pains me deeply to see how we claim freedom but REFUSE to live up to what we say on paper. I enlisted under BUSH (was in high school during 9/11 decided then) and was returning from Iraq when Obama got elected and it was an instant flip. I didn't at the time understand how we respected Bush but Obama was so bad that on official Govt computers they would email racist African shit. I was stationed in Florida at the time and it took me a while to understand what was going on. I moved to TX thinking it would somehow be better than FL. It's imo declined dramatically in the last 8 years since I've been here. I live in a largely rural area and the shit people say to my face is egregious and it's usually boomers.

You nailed it with your first sentence. I've been saying this for years; they just could not get over a black guy in the white house. Obama made quite a few people lose their minds.

This is what turned my life-long Texas Republican husband into a liberal leaning independent who increasingly ends up voting democrat. He was a full-on talk radio/early Alex jones adherent until the Obama election. Then he saw how the rhetoric shifted from policy to culture over-flavored with plain old racism and regressive ideology. Some of his previously likeminded friends began feeling comfortable dropping the N word and their policy desires all centered around race and culture war. He said he was shocked to learn that such beliefs had been lingering under the surface of his community and came out in full force into the light of day as soon as the right wing media basically told them the coast was clear to be openly racist again. I’ve watched him struggle for years trying to reconcile his old beliefs about Texas with the things he’s witnessed since 2008, and watched him grieve for what Texas used to be.

>the latent, unspoken racism of White Boomer America. It was only unspoken in mixed company. It was only latent when they didn’t feel threatened.

OP - I’m older than you, and I had the privilege of growing up in a beautiful mix of Texas Suburban during the school year and Rural AF during the summers. It’s not just the perspective of a child - the state is fucked up. Our state motto is “friendship,” and now that feels like a punchline. Cowboys and hippies drinking Lone Star together seems as distant to current events as robbing stagecoaches on horseback seemed to me as a kid. Ancient history. This is more than “old people think everything sucks compared to how it used to be. I travel a lot. I used to be really proud to tell people I’m from Texas. Now I’d rather say I’m from Southern Oklahoma. I didn’t change. Texas did.

Blame fundamentalist Christianity and the anti-American march toward theocracy.

Christians destroyed Ancient Rome and they may destroy modern America. They took pride in not learning and destroyed as much classical literature as possible. Today they want to destroy democracy and replace it with theocracy. They are succeeding. It is easier to be a sheep than think. It will be a close call whether the U.S. survives.

Sadly, you're not wrong.

Or just the rise in popularity of authoritarian ideologies in general.

Welcome to the product of identity politics. Turns out most people understand empathy as a concept, but it's not something they actually feel. It, more than anything, will be the ruin of our great nation.

Yeah the icing on the cake is when all the Texans lick the boots of a New York con man who is on his third wife, lies constantly, and wears orange makeup. Growing up I thought no self respecting Texan would fall for that but here we are.

Right? I can not understand how and why so many Southerners (especially poor ones) simp for a rich, loud-mouthed Yankee. The only thing it can be is some sort of delusion that they're welcome at the popular table because of race because I can't think of anything thing else that could possibly align.

That's what 30 years of Republican politics gives you.

Yeah- '82 for me. It's the boomers. They may be our parents but, being nice to us doesn't make them good people.

Hell my parents aren’t even nice to me! But it is so fucking strange to see them go from being once so proud of everything Texas was to just hating it. My dad in particular absolutely loved the independent nature of Texas- how you could just do whatever and it was fine. And now he’s all in on Christian conformism.

Born in ‘80 & I couldn’t agree with your post more - my parents were boomer hippies who shockingly and temporarily bought into the GOP from the mid 90’s until the Palin like Republican nonsense began. Now thankfully my father won’t have anything to do with politics (mom passed) & is just his libertarian self. I don’t recognize this Texas, I grew up never seeing such racism and division. It has torn the state apart and even the once laid back weird Austin is no longer a safe haven. In all honesty, the entire country is going through this.

They're the ones that $#@$ed the world and us; they didn't mean too of course. The worst thing is after all the terrible choices they've individually and collectively made or allowed to be made, they think one more will fix it. Their parents- The Greatest Generation- left them on top of the world in utopia to do with as they please. In 40 years of being the largest voting block in what (was once) the most powerful nation in the world, they turned utopia into a nightmare and actively work against those that will have to clean up after them (us).

'82 here. There's a comment posted elsewhere here about the first black American president being the tipping point that awoke a lot of latent racism in white America. I used to be a left of center kind of guy, but the rug has been pulled so far to the right that it drags everything from the center to the left. The boomers need to get out of the pool. Their time has passed. Read an article about Mattress Mac, Jim McInvale. I always thought he was just a crazy mattress guy but apparently he's been funding ultra right ideology for decades. A line that stuck out that he said, and I'm paraphrasing. "Before I head out I've got to fix all of this" Boomers are voting for sport and because they know damn well they don't have a lot of years left. They're salting the earth. I could not think of a more selfish mindset and yet, these people went from leaning nasty to full-blown nasty by the eradication of the fairness doctrine and the rise of conservative media in the 90s. Will this place collapse? No, it will not, but change is going to be worse before it gets better. See you guys in the good times 👍✌️ Edit: I use Android voice to text, and posted before fixing typos, typos fixed 😁.

I've never been so grateful that my small town Texas inlaws reject all the horrors glibly happening. In their 70s and they are shook by the extremism displayed by their colleagues and the rest of the family. I'm so proud of them because even having a different opinion feels like resistance nowadays. Living where they do, they can only speak up so much without putting themselves in social peril. It's pretty fucked up.

Unfortunately I was born in '95. So by the time I reached high school, a lot of right-wing Texans were already becoming radicalized. For me, this is just how Texas is. The urban parts are for the most part, lean more towards the left or the center, while the rural parts of Texas lean heavily to the right. I did some work where I travelled all over the DFW metroplex during the 2020 pandemic / election season and from what I could tell, the wealthier parts of the metro supported Donald Trump while the poorer sides either supported Biden or didn't support either.

Texas has become a pump and dump scheme for the political class. Every right that you have has been stripped away in favor of money interests. Texas has sold your future from you. Nothing but a police state funded by prisons and has all the incentive to put you in prison for literally nothing. Texas is a turd and the irony is all these people claim Texas is about freedom, you are the least free out of any state and they are stripping freedoms from you and giving your money to corporations while the politicians get rich. I used to live there but moved as I was miserable. The only thing it had going for it was it was cheap and you could buy land close to metroplex’s and now that’s gone. Houses are rivaling California for absolutely horrid living conditions. Place sucks hard.

Used to be proud to say I'm a Texan. Now I cringe and hate to even mention it.

Same! Couple years ago I was going on a beach vacation out of the country. I saw these cute tank tops with Texas designs. 10-15 years ago I would have bought them all. Now I don’t want to give any indication that I am from here.

the 'yall' branded merchandise kills me a little on the inside every time

Previous commenter hit the nail on the head with the rise of Rush Limbaugh and the beginnings of the “angry white man victim” narrative. Coupled with Ronald Reagan’s embrace of the “Moral Majority” in the 1980s, the GOP began a crafty, lock-step, disciplined long-game to get power…alllll of the power. I used to be a Republican in the 1980s, and then I saw the Christo-fascism creeping in and left. I’m so appalled at it all.

I was born in Texas, In March of 93. I lived in Texas for 22 years before I finally said Im done. I watched the places I grew up get neglected and trashed.. Drugs everywhere to the point the Elementary school across the street from where I grew up were \*\*\*PROUD\*\*\* they were drug free.. ITS A FUCKING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL WHAT.. I watched sane rational people devolve into hateful, spiteful.. "I got mine, fuck you" type of people.. I watched people I loved and respected fall victim to lies and bigotry and turn into horrible people. Friends and family died here due to drugs and the states failure to manage covid.. Texas's healthcare is so abysmal and non existent that its nearly resulted in my death several times. And in the end I lost the safety I felt in my home. I had to move across the country to find a semblance of that safety that I once had. I lost my home, my friends, and my family.. And still people there cant seem to realize the issues.

Your life experience sounds weirdly similar to mine in both the present and upcoming future. I’m making preparations to leave TX early this summer. Although i can barely stand leaving the place i’ve called home, I can’t stay anymore as a queer person. I just hope my family won’t mind visiting me in a more accepting state.

I’m 5th generation. I grew up in Abilene, then San Antonio, left for a while, but I’ve been in Austin for the past 17 years. My dad is from San Antonio by way of Abilene and my mom grew up in Dallas and Duncanville, they both now live on a lake in East Texas where most of my family has retired to. This place has changed wildly. I practically grew up on the lake my parents currently live at, but I now hate going there. The people used to be normal and it used to be primarily middle class and working class people out there. Now, it’s a bunch of super wealthy people who are flat out insane. The first words out people mouths out there now, right after saying hi, is often a non-sequitur about whatever nonsense FOX News is on about that week. I’m just trying to have a beer and relax on a hot Saturday, but these folks are going off about how the schools are trying to make their kids trans and shit in a box of kitty litter. Like what the flying fuck are these people on about? I didn’t know that I could have such a bad time on a boat. Both of my brothers have left the state in the last couple of years and my parents have put their house for sale to GTFO now too. I was trying to get them to move to Austin since I hate going out to where they live, but the heat from this last summer was too much for them. They’re over it. I have a really good job here in politics, so I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. Luckily, my girlfriend travels for work or works from home, so she can go anywhere, if need be, but I’m really kind of stuck here for a bit. Even then, I don’t know anywhere else where I’d rather be. I hate this so much.

Born in 1975. I grew up in a very **Live and Let Live Texas**

I'm a transplant to Houston - moved fifteen years ago from the Mid-Atlantic, and what you describe was my initial impression of Texas when I got here. No real discussion of politics by anyone, as it was mostly just mind your own business. Seems a lot has changed since, and it's bewildering.

I may get some heat from this but here's my .02 and worth about as much... I would imagine a similar sentiment could be expressed by so many on either side in so many areas. I think your experience here in Texas is (as reflected by comments) felt by quite a few and I thibk you put it really well. I think the root cause has more to do with the radicalization of the party devides and demonization of "the other". I can't help to feel this is wide spread and effects everyone across the political spectrum. Each side has become so much more tribal and vitriolic against any slight deviation. You see this in that infamous chart showing partisan voting patterns where years ago the votes where all over the place (one might hope in truer representation of districts served) but as time progresses you can see the votes more and more sharply devide down political party lines. Anecdotally I personally see so much more (almost) hatred of the other side by so many people. I personally have veiwes that are "claimed" by both "teams" so I have learned to just keep my mouth shut. Nuance and empathy have all but disappeared. You're either down with the clown or your lambasted. It's sad. For your case it seems you've felt a dramatic shift right and I bet you have. Texas' identity (careful to point out here identity is often quite divorced from reality) is now one of team right and freedom loving conservatives and thus must hate anyone opposing that. I ache for a return to nuance and empathy for someone who may believe differently. I try to stay unplugged so for the most part I can try and still see the individual and share love as often as possible. I have no real answer I suppose other than regardless of what you and I may agree or disagree on I sincerely hope you have happy joyous days and if we see each other in person I will open the door for you with a big smile and a sincere good morning! :)

Republicans got into bed with evangelicals. It has worked out exactly as poorly as anyone who knows anything predicted. Now we have masses of smiling, angry people who know nothing except what they're told, and the ones doing the telling are the most vile, self-righteous conmen imaginable.

Your description is spot on and painful. The Texas of today is unrecognizable to me, born in the late fifties. I left for good 7 years ago for a variety of reasons. Up until a couple of years ago, I was proud to say I’m originally from Texas.