Messing with that Texas Identity?

 

Jason Whitely 

I remember covering the 2000 election for George W. Bush, then governor of the state of Texas. And there was still a Texas identity then. This sense of, you know, independence. This is how we do it in Texas. This is the model that works here. And then the war in Iraq, and Afghanistan after 9/11. And that has really just sent Texans into one side or the other.

Robert Pease (host)

That’s Jason Whitely, Senior Reporter at WFAA , the ABC affiliate in Dallas Texas and co-host of the  informative artfully named podcast Y’all-itics, covering all things political in the Lone Star State.

Jason Wheeler

And, I think, to add on to that, that it’s  almost like people are spoiling for an argument, they’re spoiling for a fight, and politics sort of pervades everything. 

Robert Pease (host) 

And that’s Jason Wheeler, co-host of Y’all-itics and also News Anchor on WFAA Dallas. Two Jasons, one great podcast. I’m Robert Pease and this is The Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of polarization, kicking off our series on state level polarization this primary season by looking at Texas:  the state as big as a big country that once was a country, having won independence from Mexico in the 1830s. 

Today, though, Texas is one of the nation’s biggest melting pots with the second highest percentage of Hispanic citizens of any U.S. state.  It’s clearly one of our most vibrant states economically and culturally. Texas is also a culinary powerhouse, getting some credit for the hamburger, half credit for Tex-Mex cuisine, and full credit for the fajita. And would there be so many grills in American backyards without that Texas boosterism and boasterism? 

It’s political red meat on the Texas grill this episode. Meaning, discussion of recently signed  bills that essentially eliminate abortion access, restrict voting access, and allow for unlicensed open carry of firearms. Will this legislation trigger electoral backlash?  

We’ll be discussing that with the Jasons of Y’all-itics. But first, some important fact finding: who came up with their awesome show name? Jason Wheeler has the answer. 

[Enter Interview]

Jason Wheeler

And so we started coming up with all these brilliant names, but the problem with it was that they were all like two or three or four words long. It’s more like a sentence than a name. And everybody kept telling us who was really into podcasts, “nuh uh, you gotta get it down to one or two words.”

And I was standing at my desk after we brainstormed forever and ever, and I just said,’ gosh, it’s almost like, you know, you need something that rhymes with politics…’ and “Y’all-itics” popped into my head, and I had remembered some old branding marketing training from a long time ago that said, people tend to remember words that are not really words. So, you know, obviously Y’all-itics is a mashup. It’s not a real word. And so it might be something that people remember more.

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. It’s great. And it derives from y’allitical science, right? Something you studied in college?

Jason Wheeler

Mhm, way back in the day. Yeah. 

Robert Pease (host)

Well, it’s a great name and you’ve done, if I’m not mistaken, over 150 episodes, which is quite a record. Um, do you have a favorite guest or guest insight that you just keep thinking back to?

Jason Whitely

That’s a good question. I mean, we’ve had some good episodes that listeners have liked. But one of our most listened to was when the Lincoln Project came on with us right after January 6th, 2021 and said that they were going to start targeting no longer Trump, since he had lost the election, but they were going to start targeting Ted Cruz. And that one got a lot, tens of thousands of listens.

Robert Pease (host)

So this is part of a series that we’re doing on polarization at the state level. And there’s the feeling, I think, that Texans have a really strong identity. And we just wondered, is this polarization starting to weaken that identity? Are people becoming more sort of Republican or Democrat in the national model and less commonly Texan?

Jason Wheeler

I think so. Um, I think people here would argue that fiercely because people do like to still, you know, maintain that they have that Texas independence, that independent streak.. But when we get down to it, and this is what I say about Republicans and Democrats too, I think that you have a lot more in common than not. And I think that one of the things you have in common is that you like to think that you’re perhaps more of an independent thinker than you are.

If I can add one more thing there, Robert, I’ll bring up the ‘G word’, because I think that’s a big part of this in Texas and everywhere else. And that’s gerrymandering. We just heard from, in, in one of our podcasts recently, from a Republican county judge in Tarrant County, which is right next to us here in Dallas, it’s where Fort Worth is located. And he talked about how before the last redistricting that was done from the 2020 census, he could count one, maybe two senatorial districts in the entire state of Texas for the Texas Senate that was actually a toss up. Everything else is safe Republican or safe Democrat, no chance, you know, at least in his mind, that it was even possibly going to flip in those places.

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. That’s interesting. We also listen in that episode about your discussion about upcoming primary races. And it does seem like they’re paying special attention to the Attorney General’s race. So I was wondering if you could tell us, you know, who’s in the running, why that race is so important, and maybe especially important in Texas.   

Jason Whitely

Yeah. We’ve done a couple of episodes on this, but the Attorney General in Texas, just a quick zoom out on this thing, is the third most important elected official in the state. It’s the state’s “top cop”. Right now it’s someone who, who is named Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton might have made news in other parts of the country. He has, uh, sued Biden and Obama a number of times. He was a massive Trump supporter. He’s still in office. He was there on January 6th on the Ellipse there with President Trump at the time, you know, rallying the crowd before they marched down to the Capitol. 

But Ken Paxton, for as much as primary voters love him in Texas, he’s also been caught up since he was first elected in 2015 on a felony state charge for securities fraud. Here we are seven years later, that charge has never actually gone to trial. It’s still pending, it’s bounced around the state, and it’s still out there. So Paxton has some ethical issues. That has launched three people running against him.

The first is a Congressman named Louie Gohmert. He is a far right Congressman, a big supporter of President Trump. The second is our land commissioner here. His name is George P. Bush. He is Jeb Bush’s son. He’s the, you know, his uncle is George W, his grandfather is George H.W. Bush as well. He is a big Trump supporter too. 

[Archival Audio – George P. Bush] 

Jason Whitely

And then the last person in the race is a former state Supreme Court Justice, Eva Guzman. So these are solid people who are entrenched in the GOP in Texas who think that Ken Paxton is vulnerable for those reasons I just mentioned.

When Will Texas Be Truly Purple?

Robert Pease (host)

I think you’re coming up on about 20 years now as a Republican trifecta with no state level Democrats, but the legislature’s recently passed some pretty strong stuff. If you think about open carry, restrictive abortion, restrictive voting access.  So it would seem that maybe there should be a pendulum swing, there often is after strong legislation. Is there any sense of that happening? 

Jason Whitely 

Yeah, at the end of the day, Republicans go vote in this state. Democrats just don’t go vote. Beto O’Rourke is a former Congressman from here. He ran against Ted Cruz. He’s running for governor right now. And, and one of his famous lines in the campaign trail is, “Texas is not a Republican state. Texas is a non-voting state.” And he is right about that. 

And Robert, just to point out too, while Republicans dominate this state at all levels, this state is shifting demographically here. And we’ve seen this in, in the numbers and that’s what has the Republicans kind of spooked in this state. There are a lot of people moving to this state from the east and west coast. Um, there are, uh, a lot of immigrants coming here. And with diversity and the change of demographics, we are seeing the past few years how Republicans aren’t winning by as large of margins as they have in the past.

And that has that, that has, you know, conservatives concerned. I did pull a few stats on this. Back in 2012 Romney, Mitt Romney beat President Obama by 15% in Texas, fast forward four years, Trump defeated Clinton here by nine points. So Clinton cut that in half, and then Trump beat Biden in Texas by six points.

But when and if that great purple wave ever rolls over Texas, or the great blue wave, as they say here, and turning Texas purple, I think it’s gonna be maybe a decade or more, but who knows.

[Exit Interview]

Robert Pease (host)

Those are two special Jason guests today, Jason Whitely and Jason Wheeler, co-hosts of Y’all-itics and anchor-reporters at the ABC Dallas affiliate, WFAA. That was Jason Whitely there making a point about the change in presidential voting patterns in Texas and the possibility of purpling trends. 

However we have two highly informed upcoming guests who question that projection. Dr. James Henson, Director of the Texas Politics Project at UT Austin, a respected political scientist and pollster whose been gauging voter sentiment in Texas for over a decade:

[Look ahead audio to James Henson]

James Henson

The question you ask in the overall sense of essentially, was the Republican agenda that was passed and signed by the governor in 2021, you know, a bridge too far for a general election in 2022. 

Those are positions that are obviously opposed by the vast majority of Democrats, but that split Republicans. And so you get very narrow Republican majority support for those, but a very significant plurality of Republicans that oppose that. This is legislation that is promoted by Republican legislators who do not want primary challenges from the right and are not afraid of the general election electorate, or, you know, at the very least are willing to, you know, face that problem when they have to. 

I mean, I think as we look at polling and we look at the electoral environment, I don’t expect that this is going to work to Democrats’ advantage extensively. 

Robert Pease (host)

Dr. Henson’s caution against blue or purple expectations in red Texas are echoed by another uniquely positioned observer of all things Texan, Dan Goodgame, Editor-in-Chief of the widely read and widely respected Texas Monthly. 

[Look ahead audio to Dan Goodgame]

Dan Goodgame

I think some analysts get this wrong because they assume as leaders of the democratic party in Texas do, that the rising proportion of Texas who are “people of color” will automatically vote Democrat. Nevermind that many Latinos are Catholics who support abortion restrictions, that they favor restrictions on immigration, larger police forces, and a strong oil and gas industry. And I think that’s, you know, that’s one of the reasons why this, you know, “demographics is destiny” argument is not proving out.

Don’t California My Texas…Most of the Time

Robert Pease (host)

Important things to bear in mind. But what about Governor Abbott’s rallying cry of “Don’t California My Texas?” Might the continuing movement of California citizens and companies into Texas be tilting that all-red political balance? Jason Wheeler is first up on that trend.

[Enter Interview]

Jason Wheeler

Yeah. That’s an interesting phenomenon, and I think it cuts both ways. Interesting thing is though, even though both parties are sort of welcoming them in that way, you do hear a lot about, you know, sort of the big, bad Californians, they’re gonna come here and change our state. “Don’t California our Texas” sort of thing. The funny thing is, you don’t hear anybody saying “Don’t California our Texas” when, you know, Governor Abbot and his predecessor Rick Perry were extremely aggressive, and continue to be so, in going after California businesses to get them to relocate to Texas. So they don’t mind “California-ing our Texas” in that way. You know, when they’re going after a SpaceX, a Tesla, a Blue Origin, Toyota, you name it. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on.

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. But it does seem like we’ve been reading that Texas is, you know, trending more purple, trending more blue for a long time. And it just, uh, the finish line keeps moving forward. You know, they keep moving the goalposts. So why, why does the national press continue to get that wrong? And is there a risk of doing that again in the anticipated race between Governor Abbott and Beto O’Rourke?

Jason Whitely

I don’t think they’re getting it wrong. I mean, if you look at the numbers, especially the presidential numbers, you can see it actually changing like that. But everyone wants it to happen in that, you know, in this cycle or that cycle. It’s not going to happen as quickly as people expect it to happen. But the trend lines are clearly showing that Texas is heading purple. And I think they’re gonna continue to show that as we move forward here. At the end of the day, Republicans are genius at messaging. I don’t have to tell you this, Robert, you know that. Democrats are not very good at messaging at all. They’ll tell you that yeah, we need to learn a lot from messaging.

Jason Wheeler

Well, and it’s not just messaging either. Republicans are expert at turning their voters out in the elections. And that’s why Beto O’Rourke, back when, said that Texas is not a red state, it’s a non-voting state. So it’s a question of who can energize the voters and get them to turn out? When he gave Ted Cruz the scare of his political career in 2018 in that senatorial run, that was far closer than a lot of Republicans thought it would be, and certainly a lot closer than they wanted it to be.

Robert Pease (host)

That’s interesting. And speaking of Beto, I don’t know if you remember, during the race with Senator Cruz… I think it was actually on the Colbert show, they had Triumph the Insult Comic Dog interview Beto…

[Archival Audio –  Triumph the Dog on Beto O’Rourke]

Jason Whitely

I don’t remember that one though. That’s a good one though.

The Party of Local Control

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah so turning now to local issues.  You recently had an interesting show, we thought, where you had a Democratic and Republican judge talk about how state government can sometimes trample on local government. So we’re wondering, how common a concern is that in Texas with the huge number of counties that you have?

Jason Wheeler

Oh they’re going nuts about it right now, local control. And you’re gonna hear that phrase over and over and over again, because after, you know, decades and decades of being the party that was all about local control, Republicans at the state level, the leadership, has done somewhat of an about-face on that, especially here during the pandemic, and Governor Abbot ran afoul of a lot of people in his own party. And you could argue that that’s why he’s facing challengers in his primary this time around. Because he, you know, issued this mask mandate statewide and shutdown early on in the pandemic. And now you see the flip side of it. He’s not making anybody happy because now he’s got an order out there saying that at the local level, you cannot mandate masks as a local governmental entity. 

Robert Pease (host)

So, what about the state legislature then? After two decades in power are there any Republican members who are more open to negotiation and compromise?

Jason Whitely

Yeah, I think the Speaker of the House, probably like most states, the Speaker of the State House in Texas is elected not by the public at large to become Speaker of the House, but rather by the members of the body. But the speaker is traditionally, the past what, 15 years or so, has been elected unanimously.  

Jason Wheeler

That being said, you know, that it’s almost window dressing in a way because, you know, Democrats will tell you that on policy though, this last legislative session gave a lot of red meat to the conservative base here in Texas. Uh, you know, the abortion law that probably so many people across the country are familiar with now, where Texas allows anyone to sue related to abortion cases that go forward after six weeks of pregnancy, about six weeks of pregnancy, when a fetal heartbeat is detected. Also open carry without a license or training. 

Jason Whitely

And that’s the Trump effect. That’s clearly the Trump effect because the base has moved that way. Open carry, you know, Texas has been a Republican state for almost 20 years in the legislature. And then as the Republican base, the voters have moved farther and farther and farther right, they finally came around to it thinking, “if I want to get reelected, I gotta put some points on the board and I’ve gotta pass something like open carry. I’ve gotta pass these things.” And it sailed through the Republican side after session, after session, every two years, of it failing, failing, and failing.

Jason Wheeler

Even despite the fact that a lot of, uh, chiefs of law enforcement came out publicly against it.

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah, well it’s hard for us to judge that from afar, but I kept thinking about the Johnny Cash song “Don’t Take Your Gun to Town”… 

[Archival Audio – Johnny Cash]

Robert Pease (host)

I wonder if the opposition thought about playing that, it’s a pretty persuasive tune.

Jason Whitely

Right?

Robert Pease (host)

We also wanna talk about the power grid, and we did notice that there was a bit of a power outage, I believe in Austin and a few other places with the storm in early February, ut nothing huge like last year. So is there like a big sigh of relief that you’ve had a storm and the grid has held?

Jason Wheeler

I think that huge sigh of relief you may have heard came from Governor Abbot, just by himself, because it’s on the line here. And, you know, it was supposed to be the number one priority in the last legislative session, well there were a lot of other priorities that got in there. And then they did get around to doing some things with the electric grid, specifically asking for winterization on the part of the generators, essentially at the power plant.

But critics were really upset that they didn’t do more for the producers, let’s say, of natural gas to winterize that, so that you don’t have gas freezing at the wellhead and you can’t get it to those power providers to be able to run the plants. The open question is, were those changes enough to prevent what we saw last February when you had Texans freezing to death, in some cases inside their homes, which had gone below freezing. Some parts of this state were below freezing for 205 consecutive hours.

You had people pulling the artwork off their walls, throwing it into the fireplace to stay warm and to cook, because they have been without power for so long. This affected, I think the power disruption affected 69% of Texans in some form or another.  And so whether you were Republican, Democrat, or independent, you were touched by what happened there… 

Jason Whitely

And just to back up for listeners who might not be in Texas, but Texas has its own power grid. On the east coast and west coast, there’s an Eastern Interconnect and the Western Interconnect, and Texas decided to go it alone. And that was a smart move for a while because it kept energy prices down in Texas. But, going it alone means you can’t plug in to the Eastern Interconnect or the Western Interconnect. So if something happens like we saw last year, February 14th of 2021, then the lights go out and there’s no one really to help out there. 

Texas’ History of Purple Politicians

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. Well, last question we ask all of our guests to show a bit of purple. Uh, what we mean by that is to mention a reasonably well known Texas Democrat and Republican, living or dead, who maybe were a little less partisan, who could, if they were around, possibly help bridge the divide and move some things forward for citizens rather than just their base.

Jason Wheeler

And so I thought long and hard about this. And I ended up, and this is kind of sad in a way I think, but I ended up choosing two people who have passed away. But I chose on the Democratic side, LBJ, who is an iconic Texan of course, a larger-than-life guy. You know, for all of his faults, and there certainly were faults there and there were certainly huge missteps in his administration, but you look back on that administration and again, different time, but Medicare, Medicaid, civil rights, voting rights, education, environmental legislation…

[Archival Audio – Lyndon B. Johnson]

Jason Wheeler
…huge legislation came out of that administration and LBJ is renowned for having just been a charmer and a great arm twister.

On the Republican side, I chose the late President George H.W. Bush, uh, who was, I don’t think he was a Texan by birth like Whitely, but he was grandfathered in, spent a lot of years here. And again, a lot of bipartisan legislation that was pretty big, that happened during his time there. The Clean Air Act, and Americans with Disabilities Act and… 

[Archival Audio – George H.W. Bush]

Jason Wheeler

…tackling, or trying to tackle AIDS in Africa. There was a lot that was done there that required support from both sides.

Jason Whitely

As far as living people, I have two living people, both are current members of Congress, both represent areas in the Dallas, Texas area. One is a Democrat. His name is Colin Allred. He’s an attorney. He’s a former Tennessee Titan NFL player. He worked in the Obama administration. But he is someone who reaches out and works with the other side. 

[Archival Audio – Colin Allred]

Jason Whitely

He has a buddy on the other side, who’s also a member of Congress from north Texas. His name is Van Taylor, and Van Taylor is a former member of the Texas Senate.  

[Archival Audio – Van Taylor]

Jason Whitely

Both of these guys are part of a bipartisan caucus in D.C., where they look for ways to bridge the differences that both parties have, now because of that Van Taylor faces a pretty serious challenge right now in the primary. Can he survive that? Are the voters in his district okay with his bipartisan outreach? We shall see how that one turns out. But it’s hopeful, Robert, that there are at least still people out there today who have the R or the D next to them who are still willing to reach out to the other side. 

Jason Wheeler

And Robert I’ll say here, I agree with both of Whitely’s choices there. And who knows, maybe I’m seeing this through too dark a lens, when I say it, but it does feel a lot like, in many corners though that bipartisanship, if it hasn’t died, it has certainly suffered some major casualties. And, you know, I’m talking about our politicians here, but in the end, our politicians are a reflection of us. And the more polarized and partisan we become, they’re going to do the same because they want our votes.

[Exit Interview]

Robert Pease (host)

That was Jason Wheeler there making a point about acute hyperpartisanship among politicians and voters, not only in Texas, but in the country writ large. That’s what this Purple Principle series on Polarization at the state level is all about. Are we witnessing the end of bipartisanship in our two party politics? Are those purple hues long seen in many regions of the country, especially at the state level, becoming more angry red and blue? And is the zero sum politics of our nation’s capital coming to your state house and eventually your town or school board meeting?

We’ll be taking an audio tour around the country centered on these questions, including visits to the great states of Minnesota, Maine, Georgia and others. But this month it’s all Texas, so hugely important on so many levels. Many thanks to Jason Whitely and Jason Wheeler for sharing their Y’allitical perspective with us. Y’all-itics can be heard on all major streaming apps and found at wfaa.com/yallitics

Next up, our featured guest will be Dan Goodgame, Editor-in-Chief of Texas Monthly, more of a media vertical now than just a magazine. Dan himself is a former White House reporter for Time magazine, a Rhodes Scholar and Pulitzer Prize finalist.  And his perception is that the powerful Texas identity is holding its own…

[Look ahead audio to Dan Goodgame]

Dan Goodgame

Well, we do suffer from polarization in Texas, Robert, but less, I think, than the rest of the country. And the identity that Texans hold as Texans is stronger than in any other state. And if you ask someone who grew up in Lubbock whether she identifies as, you know, first as Republican, or as a Texan, she’ll say Texan. And a Democrat from San Antonio will say the same. Because there are all these things that people have in common. I mean, Texans of all political stripes bond over, you know, barbecue and tacos and college football and Willie Nelson…

Robert Pease (host)

Texas Identity Part Two next time on the Purple Principle, with Texas Monthly Editor-in-Chief Dan Goodgame. We hope you’ll join us for that episode and travel with us for this extended series on state-level polarization. Also, please join us on Apple Subscriptions or Patreon for exclusive content. This is Robert Pease for the whole Purple Principle team, with special thanks to composer Ryan Adair Rooney for some additional Texas twang. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production.