Why Democratic Party Current Approach Will Never Win Texas

— Or Learning from the 1930s Dustbowl People

I was born and grew up in the part of Texas that was the epicenter of what in the 1930s was called the “Dust Bowl”. There is a remarkably interesting book written about it by author Timothy Egan called “The Worst Hard Times” and a short fascinating documentary done about it by the famous Ken Burns. If you want to understand the current polarization of America, our struggles with the COVID-19 Pandemic or why Democrats failed to win any gains in Texas in 2020 the answers are in these works.

Spoiler alert. The moral of the story can be found in the recurring attitudes of the farmers who suffered and mostly left the Texas Panhandle sometime between 1932 and 1936. It is summed up by this statement: “We will try the same thing next year only work harder and believe it will turn out better”.

Let’s talk about an ethnic group that has as a generalization (always a slippery premise) a lot in common with Texans affiliated with the Trump style GOP. I live with, work around, and have a close friendship with the largest growing ethnic group in Texas, Latinos.

First and foremost, the prevailing value is family and family values — which means law and order (social stability), jobs (economic stability), infrastructure (stability) and education (upward stability). Notice how often stability comes up and especially how it relates to tangible, pragmatic results. Religion is often a central part of daily life as is hard work. Government interference is distrusted, person to person communication in fiesta or on social media is much more relied on than soaring rhetoric or grand pronouncements. Abstract, intellectualized, and conceptual ideology does not get much traction or movement of behavior unless is associated with a related immediate crisis. Without change, Democratic Party dreams of the “Texas Blue Wave” will continue to get closer but tantalizingly out of reach.

If we scan through these often-predominating Texas sympathies, there are some secondary consequences that can be heroic and mythological as well as short-sighted and prone to corruption. Action speaks louder than words in Texas and fortitude and risk taking are systemic. Any con artist who learns how to exploit the biases can exploit the culture, but it takes nervy courage and strong street smarts. Any history student of Texas can start rattling off names from Davy Crockett to Billy Sol Estes to the NASA center in Houston to Jeff Skilling.

For Democrats to make Texas competitive politically it will require the same changes we need nationally to reduce polarization in this country and better deal with future pandemics. For purposes of concluding this short thesis I’ll just list words: Hard work and strong economics, compromise, pragmatism, specificity, technology, non-ideological inclusiveness, respect for stability with progress, education, healthcare, infrastructure, restraint from government over-reach, respect for individualism and all the freedoms itemized in the constitutional amendments, community, grass roots.

Photo Credit: ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN/RESETTLEMENT ADMINISTRATION/TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES