Texas politicians have always been a peculiar sort. The state itself is steeped in a mythology that may well have more to do with a desire to preserve slavery than any concern for independence. Imagine a precocious 10 year-old saying, in a Bryan, TX classroom, “If Santa Ana was trying to stop slavery, wasn’t he the good guy?” Oh yes, that was a fun trip to the principal’s office, and yes, my mom still laughs about it.
But I digress. Thing is, I grew up in Texas, and once lived in Collin and Denton counties. These counties are rapidly diversifying, very highly educated, and going blue faster than a treated swimming pool.
Running my now defunct business, I met a fairly large cross section of women. Many of these women were traditionally conservative. That is to say, they like low taxes, limited government, and a strong defense. They were fine voting for Bushian/Romneyesque taxcutters because they knew the anti-choice rhetoric was considered a necessary ploy to please the mentally unstable family in the basement.
But thanks to letting the family in the basement take over the GOP, the modern, financially conservative, highly educated independent woman is a political dam waiting to burst. And make no mistake, Republicans can’t win without upwardly mobile women. Be it Maricopa County in AZ, or Fort Bend County in TX, affluent developing suburbs were already turning blue.
The rampant misogyny of the Trump regime accelerated this process, but this snitch law is the dam breaker.
Take a look at these numbers from Texas in 2020, zero in on the 13 percent that is white female college graduate-
Are you:
White female college graduate13% of voters
|
51
|
47
|
White female not a college graduate19%
|
68
|
32
|
White male college graduate13%
|
62
|
37
|
White male not a college graduate16%
|
79
|
19
|
Not any of these40%
|
32
|
66
|
Trump only won these voters by four percent. Now look back to 2016 and take a look at this number-
education among whites by sex
|
clinton
|
trump
|
johnson
|
stein
|
other/no answer
|
white college-grad women
16%
|
35% |
59% |
4% |
0% |
2% |
white non-college women
14%
|
23% |
74% |
2% |
1% |
n/a |
white college-grad men
14%
|
26% |
66% |
5% |
1% |
2% |
white non-college men
12%
|
19% |
77% |
2% |
0% |
2% |
non-whites
43%
|
66% |
29% |
3% |
1% |
1% |
That is a 20 point swing in a state the now President Biden lost by 6 points. Similar swings across other female demographics, including non secondarily educated Texas women, politically dooms the GOP. So what is a tyrant to do? Keep people of color from voting! But even that is not enough in a state where 30 percent of the electorate, give or take is educated white, and notably, Trump lost 15 percent off of white college males as well.
But this is about the women, treated like dirt, and subjected to a law that literally places bounties on their wombs. And the effect may well be to leave Texas with a whole lot of fancy offices and not a whole lot of employees.
Texas employers may lose skilled workers as a result of the restrictive abortion law that went into effect on Wednesday. According to a new poll by PerryUndem, 66% of college-educated workers say they would not take a job in a state that prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, as Texas now does after the U.S. Supreme Court failed to intervene on Senate Bill 8. Roughly half of respondents said they would consider moving out of a state that passed such restrictions.
So much for the booming economy, the Elon Muskian advancements in technology, the new fangled corporate developments in Plano. Women simply will not tolerate this garbage.
For decades we have heard about all the population shift from liberal California to Texas. Well guess what? Places like AZ, CO, CA, where a woman is treated more respectfully, can access a toke after a stressful week, and is not culturally expected to abdicate authority over their own bodies all of a sudden, even with the supposedly high taxes, look a whole lot better. (By the way the notion that Texas is low tax is also a myth. But that is for later.)
I still have friends and acquaintances in Texas from school, and among the women, I have never heard them so angry. As with any group, they run the gamut politically, from liberal to deep red, but even some of the reds are displeased. They just don’t want to be told what to do. They especially don’t want to be part of a Spaghetti Western/Clint Eastwood remake where the “Man With No Name” hunts them. over
I expect this, along with the electricity companies awarding some lucky Texans the chance to do historical re-enactments using candles and wood burning stoves in zero degree temperatures to do in the Republicans politically for good in 2022. In fact I expect Texas to lead a blue wave, largely centered around civil and voting rights, along with the forced Covid death pact these morons seem to have entered into, that will stun the pundits and reshape American politics.
In 2022, the best advice is to lead, follow, but whatever you do, get out of her way.
-ROC
I am weak, dealing with a stretch of fatigue I have been unable to pinpoint. We continue to monitor for cancer recurrence. This is the only living my health allows me to earn and I appreciate you. My newsletter is unaffected. Sign up here to subscribe! It publishes every Wednesday and is full of original reporting, laughs, and fun!
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-ROC