Is Texas really as conservative/narrow-minded as people say it is? (Houston: stats, safer)
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Texas is by no means monochrome but it does have some of the most conservative cities in the US, including Lubbock, Midland, Abilene, to name a few.
Now am I assuming right that you originate from one of these areas? And if so, did you move because of a difference in ideology or actual political differences such as one political parties stance on foriegn policy vs another's stance for example? The reason I ask, is your arguements for or against Texas and or Conservatives seems to stim solely around your atlternative life style. Texas has a long history of voting Democrat but has always remained Conservative through out it's history. The reason is most Texans (once you get out away from the larger cities filled with transplants) believes in hard work and disagrees with most of our social programs. But at the same time, Texas is part of the bible belt and thus believes a Marriage is between a man and woman. This however apposes your own ideology. So I think your opinions and views are compromised, basically their based on emotions and ideology differences vs political differences. This thread however is designed wih the idea of discussing political differences concerning Texas vs our ideologies.
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Originally Posted by savanite
This thread is confused, it is conflating politics and ideology.
Texas is by no means monochrome but it does have some of the most conservative cities in the US, including Lubbock, Midland, Abilene, to name a few.
What I wonder is whether anyone here is old enough and politically aware enough during their life spam to recall great Texas progressives of decades past such as Sissy Farenthold. I sometimes get the impression that I'm the only one who has any memory of politics before Ann Richards ( or in some cases before Bush).
I wasn't into the great progressives, but we used to have some great blue dogs. I remember Sissy, my grandfather and father worked with her family some. I want to say they were Bartlett's, but that's not right.
Sissy Farenthold was never able to prevail against Dolph Briscoe in the Democratic primary race for governor. She ran against him twice. She served in the TX House of Reps and was the only female state rep at the time; contemporaneous with Barbara Jordan's time as the only female member of the state senate (and of course the only African-American at the time, as well).
A better example of changing times and the renewed expression of conservative ideology in Texas politics is the career of US Sen. Ralph Yarborough, first elected in 1957 in a special election to fill out the remaining term of - IIRC - "Pappy" O'Daniel, and subsequently elected to two regular terms as US senator from Texas. Yarborough refused to sign onto the "Southern Manifesto" with other Southern senators that denounced federal civil rights legislation. He supported LBJ's domestic program (and had supported the less assertive and effective program of JFK), especially in regard to civil rights, but denounced LBJ's foreign policy, especially in respect to the war in Viet Nam. He barely lost to Lloyd Bentson in the Democratic primary of 1970, subsequently ending his career in elective political office. Yarborough was denounced by many as a left-wing demagogue and worse. Can you even imagine Yarborough being elected to a state-wide office in Texas in recent decades?
Now am I assuming right that you originate from one of these areas? And if so, did you move because of a difference in ideology or actual political differences such as one political parties stance on foriegn policy vs another's stance for example? The reason I ask, is your arguements for or against Texas and or Conservatives seems to stim solely around your atlternative life style. Texas has a long history of voting Democrat but has always remained Conservative through out it's history. The reason is most Texans (once you get out away from the larger cities filled with transplants) believes in hard work and disagrees with most of our social programs. But at the same time, Texas is part of the bible belt and thus believes a Marriage is between a man and woman. This however apposes your own ideology. So I think your opinions and views are compromised, basically their based on emotions and ideology differences vs political differences. This thread however is designed wih the idea of discussing political differences concerning Texas vs our ideologies.
I don't strictly "originate" from any single place, having grown up in a military family, with my dad then pursuing a further career in academia that involved more moving around. Without going through my long and diverse developmental experiences around the State of Texas, suffice it to say that I was born in Corpus Christi and that I attended high school and the lower division section of my undergraduate study in Lubbock. I was actually ok with Lubbock, having moved there after slightly less than two awful years in Monroe, Louisiana (to which we had moved from DC). Lubbock felt far more open and far less reactionary and blatantly racist than northern Louisiana. I moved from Lubbock because I did not want a degree from Texas Tech and because I did not want to stay in a place that felt to be so provincial and out in the middle of nowhere, notwithstanding my personal enjoyment of much of my rather rebellious, nonconformist and hippie-ish experience there. My moves from Lubbock, later to Colorado for a time (from Fort Worth), and then finally leaving Austin and Texas entirely for - sequentially - Eastern Europe, London, and the US East Coast were never predicated on politics, ideology, or legal realities in Texas. Those moves were all predicated on a desire for personal fulfillment - a desire to live other places, to not let the grass grow too long underfoot, to have different experiences than what life in Texas could provide. Only secondarily, there was some motive to get out of the US altogether stemming from disgust with the foreign policy of the United States under the Bush administration (note: to do with the US national administration, not with Texas per se).
What I have found in the last eight years living away from Texas is that many other places have a more forward-looking, ideologically and politically progressive climate than Texas. Look at Delaware - it's a state with a total population smaller than any of Texas' largest cities (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio), but we are a lot more into what y'all might consider to be nanny-statism. There's a statewide law prohibiting indoor smoking in any public venues, legislation was introduced during the session this year to institute a single-payor health insurance system in the state (can you imagine such a bill being filed in the Texas legislature?), and then of course there are other kinds of progressive legislation such as laws prohibiting various forms of discrimination against gay/lesbian persons and providing for same-sex civil unions that are exactly modeled on the state's marriage law.
But how do you explain these differences? The largest city here has only about 30% the population of Lubbock, and even if you take in the population of the largest county you've still got something with a population about the size of Fort Worth or Austin within their respective city limits. You've got a lot of political, religious and social-ideological conservatism in the more southerly rural-agricultural counties which manage to exercise a good deal of influence in the state legislature despite their smaller population. There's pretty natural areas and terrain, but nothing dramatic like Upper New England or even the Trans-Pecos. Clearly, topography ain't the explanation in this case.
Perhaps the difference in the way politics operate and in the respective ideological positions in the two states is a matter of (1) differing history, (2) the vastly different sizes of the two places (in terms of population more than area in square miles, though both may have some effect). I'm using this as a case in point. Quakers played a big role in the early history of Delaware, with their pacifist and anti-slavery ideology. The state also is called "the cradle of Methodism in America" and the earliest Methodists were strictly opposed to slavery. Thus, the state was full of abolitionist activisim (together with slave-holders) that may have created a different, more communitarian social consciousness than in a frontier Texas where such movements did not operate or exist for all practical purposes. In terms of population and physical size, a little state like Delaware comes close to being Mayberry at a whole-state level. People are connected across the state in a way that would be less likely in a bigger, more populous place and it may not be so easy to ignore the various interests of the different electoral constituencies making up the state body politic. In a place so small, all of the electorate becomes important, whereas in a place as big as Texas you might be able to get away ignoring some of the constituencies. Socially, people can't avoid one another as much as they can in a bigger place, so people have to find a way of living together.
Since the OP posed the question of conservatism in Texas with reference to comparison with other places, I think you at least can't discuss conservatism in Texas without looking at manifestations of social ideology and organised politics elsewhere in America. I doubt that there is a one size fits all explanation for the ideological and political trends. There are numerous factors that are unique - I submit - to particular states and regions. Religion, economic history, immigration history, population density and absolute size, and geography/territorial size are all among factors that must be determinative.
I doubt that there is a one size fits all explanation for the ideological and political trends. There are numerous factors that are unique - I submit - to particular states and regions. Religion, economic history, immigration history, population density and absolute size, and geography/territorial size are all among factors that must be determinative.
No, those factors are merely coincidences.
The real generator and driver of left of center politics is terrain and climate.
Certain kinds of terrain will attract and even create Liberals, as will certain types of climate.
That is why Austin is a Liberal enclave in a non-Liberal region.
That is why the Democrat and Republican zones in the San Francisco Bay Area are correlated with the cold and warm weather zones.
That is why the Alaskan coastal panhandle will vote Democrat and support Liberalism and South Central Alaska will generate Sarah Palin.
Ideology is just an artifact of geography.
Texas is anti-liberal because it is hot and flat.
The small number of Liberals that find themselves in Texas have nowhere cool to migrate to. The best they can get is Austin with its not-so-flat terrain.
In terms of population and physical size, a little state like Delaware comes close to being Mayberry at a whole-state level. People are connected across the state in a way that would be less likely in a bigger, more populous place and it may not be so easy to ignore the various interests of the different electoral constituencies making up the state body politic. In a place so small, all of the electorate becomes important, whereas in a place as big as Texas you might be able to get away ignoring some of the constituencies. Socially, people can't avoid one another as much as they can in a bigger place, so people have to find a way of living together.
I see some problems with your theory regarding size, Jef.
If it were correct, then if Texas were divided into 256 states, along the existing county lines, your theory would predict that it would become more Liberal.
Now it would be more apparent that if Dallas county were a state, its existing Liberal base would become more visible, but I see nothing that would convert its Conservatives into Liberals just by a change in government. Moreover, would Collin County's existing base of the rich and Conservative then become as Liberal as Delaware, if Collin county achieved statehood?
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In a place so small, all of the electorate becomes important,
I don't see how... if 60% of the voters vote Democrat, it doesn't matter if that 60% is 600,000 or 6 million... the Democrat still wins.
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People are connected across the state in a way that would be less likely in a bigger, more populous place
That is only true if you assume people only travel within state boundaries. If Texans were always in motion around Texas, and Delawareans were in motion only within Delaware, I could buy it, but I think it's more likely that people travel a fixed distance on average, whether it crosses state boundaries or not.
Also, are people in Texarkana more connected with El Paso than with Shreveport, Louisiana? Your theory assumes that people are more connected within a state's territory than beyond the state line. On the contrary, I would expect Wilmington, Delaware to be more connected with Philadelphia than Texarkana is with El Paso.
Savanite, that's an empirical question. If the population of the county were very homogeneous to begin with you likely would see no difference. DE has only three counties by the way. I think other factors could be more important like the interaction of size with historical factors. The climatological theory advanced by Savite strikes me as completely spurious but I am on an iPhone now and cannot expand at length. Correlation is NOT causation.
OK missed parts of savite's post. First of all if Dallas County were a state in fact what I suggest is that it might become more of a political synthesis per the Hegelian dialectic. IOW it might be overall a politically moderate place.
I see some problems with your theory regarding size, Jef.
That is only true if you assume people only travel within state boundaries. If Texans were always in motion around Texas, and Delawareans were in motion only within Delaware, I could buy it, but I think it's more likely that people travel a fixed distance on average, whether it crosses state boundaries or not.
In fact my observation is that family roots and relations do tend to stay surprisingly in state boundaries. That principle may only have been really violated in certain SES classes in the last generation or do. DE is little, yet its natives are homeboys 'n girls. They have often known eac other from kindergarten and the ones in the northernmost county have property and close connections with their kin in the southernmost county. You really can't draw an analogous situation in Texas.
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