Texas Has Broken My Heart
Ms. Swartz is an executive editor of Texas Monthly.
HOUSTON — “Should we be getting out of here?” This is the question my husband, a Virginia native, has asked with growing frequency as he scans the daily headlines at our breakfast table here.
He is not alone. Many of my friends and acquaintances, longtime Texans, including but not limited to die-hard Democrats, are asking themselves the very same thing. Each morning, they wake up to a place they no longer recognize.
In particular, the natural optimism of Texans — part of what we are so proud of and what has made us exceptional (or made us think we were) — has never, in my lifetime, been more under threat.
The culmination of events that brought us to this point was the 87th session of the Texas Legislature. Abortion will be effectively illegal here, with citizens empowered to sue the doctors who perform them and the clinics where they work. Most adults will be able to carry handguns without a permit. Teachers will be restricted in how they can discuss current and past events. The only reason a voter-suppression bill did not pass is that the Democrats took a powder at the last minute to prevent a quorum. (They have done so again, and we don’t know how the sequel will end.)
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What was not on the agenda for Texas lawmakers in this session? Let’s see, rescuing our decaying infrastructure — the power grid that failed catastrophically during the February winter storms that left at least 151 people dead — along with desperately needed improvements to health care and education. According to our state leaders, those issues are not as important as keeping trans children from playing in school sports.
- EZRA KLEIN writes that “midterms typically raze the governing party” and explores just how tough a road the Democrats have ahead.
- JAMELLE BOUIE wonders whether voters will accept a party “that promises quite a bit but won’t work to make any of it a reality.”
- MAUREEN DOWD writes that Biden has “a very narrow window to do great things” and shouldn’t squander it appeasing Republican opponents.
- THOMAS B. EDSALL explores new research on whether the Democratic Party could find more success focusing on race or on class when trying to build support.
Living here has always demanded compromise. I’ve been fortunate — yes, privileged — to have enough money and access to work around much of this. I’ve been able to afford a home in a neighborhood with a good public school for our son, and I have a job that graces me with good health insurance. I soothed my anxiety about climate change by buying a generator between Hurricane Harvey in 2017 and this year’s snowpocalypse.
Like a great many Texans — Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives — I grew up expecting little to nothing from Austin, the seat of state government. Self-reliance is part of the state’s mythology; never mind that most Texans now live in big, modern cities where their survival is not dependent on fighting off Comanches and coyotes and riding out tornadoes.
I made my peace with the drawbacks of living in Texas because, really, there weren’t so many. It has long been possible to live in one of the state’s big cities with only occasional reminders of the stereotypes that have haunted this place for so long. Especially here in Houston, the acceptance of diversity of all kinds — political, sexual, economic, social and more — always makes me think of the best of Texas. The openness that has always been at the heart of our treasured exceptionalism doesn’t just apply to the vast, sometimes hostile landscape; it has allowed me and so many other people like and unlike me to build the kind of life we might never have had elsewhere.
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Maybe that meant claiming a tiny house in a neighborhood that was only slightly better and safer than one left behind in a home country thousands of miles away. Maybe that life included landing in the C-suite of an oil company and going home to a 13,000-square-foot mansion that was a knockoff of a consulate in Dubai. Maybe it was simply the chance to make art, practice law or give just about anything a try without the establishment looking down on you. Whatever the dream — even if it was a dumb dream, and I’ve seen many — it stemmed from a deeply rooted hopefulness that I have never seen or experienced to the same extent elsewhere.
I recognized that quality even in the former governors I didn’t much like: Rick Perry, who was a strong proponent of economic development, and George W. Bush, who at least tried to improve the education of Texas schoolchildren and did not see the Texas-Mexico border as a war zone.
But as I look across the leadership landscape today, that optimism has been eclipsed by cynicism. It would be a challenge to find a shred of conviction, much less hope, among the likes of Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton — you could throw Senator Ted Cruz in there, too. They seem to be dreaming only of higher office.
It is their preference for darkness over light that rings so false to the Texan in me. I wake up every morning in the fourth-largest city in the United States, a place that provides so many people with endless possibilities. What Texas’ Republican leaders see instead is a state overrun by murderous immigrants, faithless feminists and radical leftists who want to blame the white man for every sin under the sun. I’m waiting for one of them to declare, “This carnage must end.”
Lieutenant Governor Patrick’s public tantrum over “Forget the Alamo,” a book that dared to challenge the mythology around the battle, was either a predictable sop to his base or a refusal to admit that times change and our interpretation of history does, too. Governor Abbott’s stated intention to complete the border wall is just another example of his penchant for closing off the future instead of opening up to it in a way that works for all. Being open to change in all its forms was a lesson I learned in my Texas public school. Maybe that’s why these guys now want to control what teachers teach.
If I know anything about Texas for certain, it is that people here do not like being told what to do. We choose freedom, sometimes bordering on chaos, because we can’t all agree on an exact definition. What is clear is that our leadership seems determined to take it away: the right to vote, to learn and to make decisions for ourselves, our families and our communities.
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