Only a stupid white Texan would ignore the fact that the area now called "Texas" was populated a LOT longer by darker folks than the recent light-skinned interlopers.
It's kind of like when Trump talked about renaming New Mexico "New America". The name "New" Mexico is older than any of the British colonies established on the more northern Atlantic coasts, much less any notion of an "American" nation.[1]
Just saw this on Mastodon, and it relates the "Heritage" morons:
"While much is taught in United States schools about the English settlement of the Eastern half of this nation, little to nothing is taught about the Spanish colonization of United States southwest and Florida, which took place earlier and concurrently. Excellent historians who relate America’s colonial past to present-day events, like Heather Cox Richardson, specialize in English colonial history and rarely talk about the much larger portion of the nation that was first colonized by Spain (or, too, France)."
"To read most US history textbooks, or to watch 'western' films and TV shows (even modern ones), you’d think the first European colonizers of the Wild West were Anglo Americans, and the only people in the Southwest were a handful of Native Americans."
"This is simply not true. The American southwest was part of Spain and Mexico for far longer than it has been part of the United States. And it has been Native American, with many different indigenous language and culture groups calling the area home for far, far longer than it has been either of those."[1]
The talk back into 2016 was that Donald Trump was going to ruin the Republican Party and in fact his leadership has done exactly that. Maybe the clean up will start in 2028 but I doubt that very much. Making matters worse is the Democratic Party offers no clear alternative as a group either.
Really, you don't understand how priorties like small-L liberalism and liberal democracy come into play? Or is it that you don't actually think about politics very much?
I understand that in today's lexicon the meaning of words have changed from the original definitions. Everyone in the GOP says they are conservative yet there's nothing conservative about DJT and his leadership and very few protest but take up the conservative label. I consider myself a classical liberal (and conservative) which has little relationship to the current use of the word liberal.
If the intent of Trump and the GOP was to get rid of the existing swamp to replace it with their own version, they have been successful. Is the current version of the GOP to be admired? Don't think so.
As far as the Democrats are concerned, what are their principles and how are they going about attaining those goals? They excel at whipping up emotional hysteria to achieve their goals that has little to do with enriching any lives but their own.
Do we live in a liberal democracy? I don't think that the current Republican or Democratic parties meet the requirements of governing a liberal democracy.
Don't be so sure there will be an electoral backlash, in Texas anyway. In March of this year there was a primary in Williamson County (just north of Austin) for an open County Commissioner's seat. The three top candidates were two white men and a woman of Indian heritage. The female candidate has been a business owner and resident in Texas for over 20 years. She married a Catholic American. (That catholic part is going to come up again in a minute.)
From the moment the Indian-American declared her candidacy, a MAGA activist in our neighborhood attacked her as "Not representing real Texans" and claimed that we should be focused on electing Christians. When another community resident pointed out that the candidate's husband is Catholic, the MAGA activist (himself an elected official) said that Catholics aren't Christian! He also claimed that Hindus are actively, today, committing genocide against Christians.
When I pointed out that these were dog-whistle campaign smear tactics, the MAGA activist used his position on the local MUD (Municipal Utility District) board to ask the MUD's legal counsel to obtain copies of our HOA bylaws and codes of conduct. The MUD counsel did so, despite these documents already being available to all homeowners. The MAGA activist/MUD board member then tried to use those documents to have me removed from the HOA board because, he and his wife claimed, I'd called them racist.
Meanwhile, the female candidate, despite being well versed in budgetary requirements, a practicing attorney, and having deep community ties, did not even make the runoff. Two white men did.
(They failed to remove me from the HOA board, btw.)
A certain amount of racism will exist until the entire earth's population is some uniform shade of beige. Most of you have never seen pervasive racism. I grew up with it. I was in the third grade when Truman integrated the military. I was graduating from engineering school when the civil rights act was passed. What you are whining about are mostly political differences which are largely festered by blue state politicians buying votes using federal welfare dollars with no regard or oversight. There is definitely resentment from conservative voters and some of it is manifested as racism.
You whiners are not paying attention to the facts about birthright citizenship and TPS and illegal immigration and sanctuary states and local governments.
"What you are whining about are mostly political differences which are largely festered by blue state politicians buying votes using federal welfare dollars with no regard or oversight."
What's the Blue State political policy that Bo French is upset with that led him to slander a bunch of his fellow Texans (since he apparently has no agency of his own)?
I never heard of Bo French before this week. He's a bigot according to the conservative websites I follow.
My main complaint about this issue is that there is almost no balanced opinion from the authors and commenters here. I get it that there is plenty to criticize about President Trump's methods and his Trump-centric politics, but he is addressing problems that the USA has been plagued with for half a century. From what I've seen, The Racket News often puts more effort into deciding which topics offer the best opportunities to bash Trump rather than real insight. In this case, David's real motivation was to find a way to bash the Republican party purely because of its association with President Trump whom he clearly hates. He picked one obscure bigoted Texas politician and tried to extrapolate that bigotry to millions of citizens.
Trump will be gone in about two years. In the meantime, the criticisms should be useful instead of merely political. And we should hope the real problems get resolved.
GOP voters selected Bo French over several less-racist candidates in a statewide primary, so extrapolation to say that those voters who pulled the lever for him (and those TX GOP primary voters who sat at home) are okay with the racism isn't unreasonable.
If Texas GOP voters don't want to be accused of being racist and tolerant of corruption, they have the power to pick candidates to represent them that are neither racist nor corrupt (like Ken Paxton).
The way you phrase it above presents French as a candidate that just appeared out of nowhere and unfortunately landed in Texas. These men have histories of this behavior, and as long as the GOP (and GOP voters) keep granting them mulligans, the rest of us are going to reasonably think that the GOP is fine with that kind of behavior.
Correction on my end - Bo French LOST the primary election to James Wright, but was close enough to force a runoff. He won the runoff, which looks even worse for the Texas GOP and TX GOP voters.[1]
"Heritage Texans"
Only a stupid white Texan would ignore the fact that the area now called "Texas" was populated a LOT longer by darker folks than the recent light-skinned interlopers.
It's kind of like when Trump talked about renaming New Mexico "New America". The name "New" Mexico is older than any of the British colonies established on the more northern Atlantic coasts, much less any notion of an "American" nation.[1]
[1] https://abiquiunews.com/news-and-features/new-mexico-we-aint-new-anything
Just saw this on Mastodon, and it relates the "Heritage" morons:
"While much is taught in United States schools about the English settlement of the Eastern half of this nation, little to nothing is taught about the Spanish colonization of United States southwest and Florida, which took place earlier and concurrently. Excellent historians who relate America’s colonial past to present-day events, like Heather Cox Richardson, specialize in English colonial history and rarely talk about the much larger portion of the nation that was first colonized by Spain (or, too, France)."
"To read most US history textbooks, or to watch 'western' films and TV shows (even modern ones), you’d think the first European colonizers of the Wild West were Anglo Americans, and the only people in the Southwest were a handful of Native Americans."
"This is simply not true. The American southwest was part of Spain and Mexico for far longer than it has been part of the United States. And it has been Native American, with many different indigenous language and culture groups calling the area home for far, far longer than it has been either of those."[1]
[1] https://alisav.substack.com/p/donald-trump-wants-to-change-new
A great reminder, brother, on how far the right has drifted.
The talk back into 2016 was that Donald Trump was going to ruin the Republican Party and in fact his leadership has done exactly that. Maybe the clean up will start in 2028 but I doubt that very much. Making matters worse is the Democratic Party offers no clear alternative as a group either.
Depends on what you prioritize.
Not sure how prioritizing comes into play here. From my view neither party has shown an ability to govern wisely and we keep electing fools.
Really, you don't understand how priorties like small-L liberalism and liberal democracy come into play? Or is it that you don't actually think about politics very much?
I understand that in today's lexicon the meaning of words have changed from the original definitions. Everyone in the GOP says they are conservative yet there's nothing conservative about DJT and his leadership and very few protest but take up the conservative label. I consider myself a classical liberal (and conservative) which has little relationship to the current use of the word liberal.
If the intent of Trump and the GOP was to get rid of the existing swamp to replace it with their own version, they have been successful. Is the current version of the GOP to be admired? Don't think so.
As far as the Democrats are concerned, what are their principles and how are they going about attaining those goals? They excel at whipping up emotional hysteria to achieve their goals that has little to do with enriching any lives but their own.
Do we live in a liberal democracy? I don't think that the current Republican or Democratic parties meet the requirements of governing a liberal democracy.
Don't be so sure there will be an electoral backlash, in Texas anyway. In March of this year there was a primary in Williamson County (just north of Austin) for an open County Commissioner's seat. The three top candidates were two white men and a woman of Indian heritage. The female candidate has been a business owner and resident in Texas for over 20 years. She married a Catholic American. (That catholic part is going to come up again in a minute.)
From the moment the Indian-American declared her candidacy, a MAGA activist in our neighborhood attacked her as "Not representing real Texans" and claimed that we should be focused on electing Christians. When another community resident pointed out that the candidate's husband is Catholic, the MAGA activist (himself an elected official) said that Catholics aren't Christian! He also claimed that Hindus are actively, today, committing genocide against Christians.
When I pointed out that these were dog-whistle campaign smear tactics, the MAGA activist used his position on the local MUD (Municipal Utility District) board to ask the MUD's legal counsel to obtain copies of our HOA bylaws and codes of conduct. The MUD counsel did so, despite these documents already being available to all homeowners. The MAGA activist/MUD board member then tried to use those documents to have me removed from the HOA board because, he and his wife claimed, I'd called them racist.
Meanwhile, the female candidate, despite being well versed in budgetary requirements, a practicing attorney, and having deep community ties, did not even make the runoff. Two white men did.
(They failed to remove me from the HOA board, btw.)
Normies oppose illegal immigration.
But when you oppose immigrants (nvm 2nd or 3rd generation natural born Americans) of any and all forms, that just makes you a racist.
That plays well to the maga base. But it won’t in the general.
A certain amount of racism will exist until the entire earth's population is some uniform shade of beige. Most of you have never seen pervasive racism. I grew up with it. I was in the third grade when Truman integrated the military. I was graduating from engineering school when the civil rights act was passed. What you are whining about are mostly political differences which are largely festered by blue state politicians buying votes using federal welfare dollars with no regard or oversight. There is definitely resentment from conservative voters and some of it is manifested as racism.
You whiners are not paying attention to the facts about birthright citizenship and TPS and illegal immigration and sanctuary states and local governments.
"What you are whining about are mostly political differences which are largely festered by blue state politicians buying votes using federal welfare dollars with no regard or oversight."
What's the Blue State political policy that Bo French is upset with that led him to slander a bunch of his fellow Texans (since he apparently has no agency of his own)?
I never heard of Bo French before this week. He's a bigot according to the conservative websites I follow.
My main complaint about this issue is that there is almost no balanced opinion from the authors and commenters here. I get it that there is plenty to criticize about President Trump's methods and his Trump-centric politics, but he is addressing problems that the USA has been plagued with for half a century. From what I've seen, The Racket News often puts more effort into deciding which topics offer the best opportunities to bash Trump rather than real insight. In this case, David's real motivation was to find a way to bash the Republican party purely because of its association with President Trump whom he clearly hates. He picked one obscure bigoted Texas politician and tried to extrapolate that bigotry to millions of citizens.
Trump will be gone in about two years. In the meantime, the criticisms should be useful instead of merely political. And we should hope the real problems get resolved.
GOP voters selected Bo French over several less-racist candidates in a statewide primary, so extrapolation to say that those voters who pulled the lever for him (and those TX GOP primary voters who sat at home) are okay with the racism isn't unreasonable.
If Texas GOP voters don't want to be accused of being racist and tolerant of corruption, they have the power to pick candidates to represent them that are neither racist nor corrupt (like Ken Paxton).
The way you phrase it above presents French as a candidate that just appeared out of nowhere and unfortunately landed in Texas. These men have histories of this behavior, and as long as the GOP (and GOP voters) keep granting them mulligans, the rest of us are going to reasonably think that the GOP is fine with that kind of behavior.
Correction on my end - Bo French LOST the primary election to James Wright, but was close enough to force a runoff. He won the runoff, which looks even worse for the Texas GOP and TX GOP voters.[1]
[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Bo_French