WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH TEXAS?: THE DISASTER SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED

Many Americans couldn’t help noticing the incongruity between the recent landing of a powerful rover on Mars while millions of Texans  struggled with freezing homes, burst water pipes, and disruptions in supplies of food and other commodities. We note the Mars landing was a project of the federal government, while the disaster in Texas resulted from policies of the state government. 

                                           

The Texas catastrophe drew our interest because one of us lives there and we found the suffering of so many of our fellow citizens revolting.  More than 50 people died at last count. That’s unacceptable, given our understanding of why it happened. Like the toll from the pandemic, much suffering could have been avoided with a more compassionate, attentive government focused on human needs.

The Roots of the Disaster

We’ve alluded at various times to Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. The book shows how

Republicans capitalized on social and racial issues in getting lower and middle income whites to vote against their economic interests to the benefit of big business. That’s a lot of what caused the Texas disaster. For years, Texas Republicans, in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry and utility interests, neglected imposing regulations that could have prevented the equipment failures that caused the electrical system breakdowns. These politicians, preaching the gospel of deregulation, didn’t heed warnings from a decade ago that electrical generating facilities in Texas needed weatherization. The power producers preferred not spending the money  and politicians

didn’t make them do it. They insulated themselves by harping on culture-based issues that kept the majority of Texans voting Republican.

Texas operates its own electric grid which serves about 80 per cent of the state. The federal government doesn’t regulate that grid.  Texas, therefore, can’t access electricity from neighboring states in an emergency.

When the freeze occurred, Republican

heavyweights like former Governor Rick Perry, energy secretary in the Trump administration, advanced the suggestion Texans would trade a few more days without electricity so they could avoid federal regulation. Rob and other Texas residents said, “Speak for yourself, Mr. Secretary.”    

 

Rob’s Take from the Ground

I’m not a native Texan (like Henry and Woodson I was born and grew up in Arkansas), but I’ve lived here 40 years and consider it home. Though I’m proud of my University of Texas degrees and the fact three of my children were born here, I’m not proud of the brain-dead politics that created this disaster. Our state’s political leaders apparently care more about protecting corporate interests that fund their campaigns than about the welfare of ordinary citizens who found themselves burning their own furniture in sometimes futile attempts to stay warm.  

I should say that my partner and I got off easy. We didn’t lose power. Thanks to her decision a few years ago to switch to weather resistant pipes, our water supply remained intact. But I have reason for anger. The three of my children who live in Texas suffered through a good portion of the four-day emergency with little electricity or water. They got the full brunt of the misery and the blame lies squarely on state leadership.

 

The Green New Deal?  Give Us a

Break!

Texas Governor Greg Abbot, who

harbors 2024 presidential ambitions, went on Fox News during the tragedy and blamed the problems on the fact wind turbines and some solar facilities failed. He said that showed how America would fare with the Green New Deal.

Republican legislators called for more emphasis on fossil fuels. All that was disinformation.

Texas gets about ten per cent of its electricity from renewables like wind and solar. The shortfall went way beyond that. Grid operators admitted most of the problem resulted from disruptions in power generated by natural gas caused by frozen gas lines. Abbott eventually walked back the renewables statement. His dissembling didn’t help and didn’t encourage confidence in a state government under fire for a preventable human tragedy.

 

Any Hope of Change?

Public anger raised hopes for change in Texas. Abbot put several energy regulatory issues on his legislative agenda. Details aren’t clear yet, so it’s too soon to predict what might pass and what effect anything passed would have.

Many weren’t holding their breath.

Public attention in disasters, white hot for a time, notoriously fades. The 2022 election, when voters might throw out some of the culprits, seems ages away. Many other things will occupy the political space between now and then.

That brings us to two Texas politicians who took leave of the state while things

were bad. U.S.  Senator Ted Cruz, when caught heading for a vacation in Mexico, claimed he took the trip because his children besieged him to and he “wanted to be a good dad.” He flew back to Houston the day after he left, admitting he’d made a mistake. Attorney General Ken Paxton and his state senator wife found meetings in Utah they couldn’t miss.

People are mad at Cruz and Paxton, but their loyal followings remain.

By the time they face the voters again (Cruz 2024, Paxton 2022), both will likely have pivoted to the usual list of Republican boogeyman issues that have kept them and those like them in power all these years. We won’t bet against them. We wish we could.    

 

            

AMERICA’S CLOSE CALL WITH LOSING DEMOCRACY: THE 2020 ELECTION STORY THAT’S BARELY BEEN TOLD

         

At first, we thought the end of the impeachment trial marked a good time for turning the page on Donald Trump and the 2020 election. The new administration certainly has turned the page, as President Biden’s recent Wisconsin and Michigan trips, his first since taking office, indicate. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris revved up their campaign to build support for the administration’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. It appears they’re making headway. Polls showed Biden’s approval rating over 60% and support for the virus legislation nearing 70%.

One thing, however, caught our attention and made

us consider something about the election we can’t ignore –the danger democracy faced and escaped. The February 15/February 22 issue of Time Magazine includes a stunning report about the unprecedented effort by Americans of all political stripes to save the 2020 election. These Americans, first and foremost, wanted a fair election. Their objective was not engineering a victory for either side. The story hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. According to Time, the key participants say they “want the secret history of the 2020 election told,” so we decided we’d help them get it out.

Molly Ball wrote “How Close We Came: The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign that Saved the Election.” She details how business interests, labor unions, and social activists made “sort of an implicit bargain” in which they came together to“keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.” It started with a man few people have heard of, Mike Podhorzer, and wound up involving hundreds of Americans from different political orientations.

Beginnings – Fall 2019 

Podhorzer’s political roots grew in union soil. He served as senior adviser to the leadership of the

AFL-CIO and developed a reputation for using scientific methods in campaigns. In late 2019, he realized a disaster loomed with the 2020 vote because Trump could try to “disrupt the election.” Podhorzer found others, especially in voting rights and civil rights organizations, who shared his fears. He began communicating with them and in March 2020 put his thoughts into a confidential memorandum that outlined how Trump might use right wing media and social media in claiming he’d won the election, even if he lost.

Four major concerns appeared early: (1)attacks on 

voters, (2) attacks on election administration,

(3) attacks on Trump’s political opponents, and

(4) attempts at reversing a Democratic victory. 

Podhorzer's group began working on these

problems before Biden clinched the Democratic

nomination and the Biden campaign never had a

real role in his efforts.

The COVID Bugaboo

Once the pandemic hit, it became clear conducting the 2020 election would pose special problems. States including Ohio, New York, and Wisconsin experienced turmoil in primaries because of poll-worker shortages, lack of polling places, and delayed vote counts.

           

The pandemic presented the first opportunity for real cooperation between the liberal activists sounding alarm bells about the election and business groups, many of whose members supported Trump, yet wanted a free, fair election. Business feared the impact on the economy of prolonged civil disturbances that might follow a disputed contest. Many states and localities didn’t have adequate funding for a pandemic-stricken election. Congress provided some money, but it wasn’t enough. Private donations, many from the business community, filled the gap, helping local election officials purchase protective gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer.

The pandemic dictated a major mail-in

ballot effort. Podhorzer’s group focused attention on helping states prepare for that, something many had minimal experience with. Additionally, they worked at (1) helping the public understand counting the votes might take longer than usual, (2) fighting disinformation on social media by getting the platforms to enforce their rules, and (3) encouraging both left-leaning activists and business groups to buy-in and avoid inflaming the situation. Meantime, Democratic lawyers vigorously fought court battles against Trump’s false claims, before and after the election.  

Alliances

Ball writes extensively about the “strange bedfellows” the effort attracted. She notes that the 

AFL-CIO and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (along with some religious groups) issued a joint statement on election day calling on the media, the candidates, and voters to “exercise patience with the process and trust in our system,” even if they didn’t agree on a preferred outcome.

Once Trump’s post-election fraud claims went into overdrive, members of the group encouraged support from former elected officials for election administrators. In Michigan, for example, three former governors, Republicans John Engler and Rick Snyder and Democrat Jennifer Granholm, joined in calling for an electoral college tally free of White House pressure.

End Game

The Time story makes clear Podhorzer’s informal group anticipated the January 6 effort Trump and his supporters made to interfere with the congressional tally of electoral college votes. The left-leaning activists who were part of the alliance made things easier by standing down in the face of the insurrection. They didn’t confront Trump’s mob with a counter protest, which only would have made things worse, in part by letting the right wing media offer a false equivalency narrative.

In the end, the informal group Podhorzer spearheaded narrowly pulled out a victory. Ball’s story reported that they (and the country) “won by the skin of [our] teeth.”  That the  United States

needed the kind of effort reported by Time both depresses and encourages. It depresses, of course, that we had such a close call. It encourages because Americans of all political persuasions stepped up and preserved our democracy. The Time story is worth reading.