I second that emotion.
I see it was over a year ago: can they take guns into the state fair? Whatever became of that?
Look, some of us live here. We are appalled at what is going on. We are dismayed that our state gummint needs to be fucked. We agree that it does. But we hate that it does. Politics isn’t 100% of Texas or of life.
I would support changing the title to “Fuck Texas Politics/Government.” Otherwise, just leave it alone.
I appreciate your sentiment.
But you, as a Texas resident, could have answered my second question, too.
Would you also add “…and the majority of voters that put them in charge”?
So, still banned from the state fair.
ETA:
Weapons Policy
As a private not-for-profit organization, the State Fair of Texas prohibits fairgoers from carrying all firearms, knives (other than small pocketknives), clubs, explosive devices, ammunition, chemical dispensing devices, replicas or hoaxes, or other weapons of any kind. This includes holders of a License to Carry, Constitutional Carry, Concealed Carry, and the Open Carry of firearms anywhere on the fairgrounds, including Cotton Bowl Stadium. This policy does not apply to current peace officers or qualified retired peace officers in accordance with state law. Peace officers’ credentials will be verified by Dallas Police Department officers during the screening process.
Thanks, and good for the Fair.
I have family and friends living in Texas, all safely on the blue side of the spectrum, and they agree 100% that there a a ton of people that deserve your hate. But majority is probably wrong. Those of us living outside the state can’t readily grasp how horribly the game is stacked - the recent gerrymanding is just the cherry on top of one of those “challenge” giga-Sundae’s of hacks and corruption. Arguably, Texas Republicans were breaking the law with Trump-like immunity and disregard for the law long decades before Trump took it mainstream.
If the state government hadn’t stacked the deck cold and hard for decades, challenges could be brought. But prior (D) administrations lacked the majority, influence, or political currency to step in. And I won’t say more about how much our ever-more-political SCOTUS has given them cover either.
While I’d sort of agree that outright majority is iffy, don’t forget Abbott, Cornyn, Cruz, among others, hold positions elected statewide and all won by decent, though perhaps not spectacular, majorities the last time each of them ran.
But that last part is probably telling. In a ‘deeply’ red state, getting more than 55% of the vote is still damned difficult for these clowns. And most of those voters aren’t exact “study the issues” types. More like “vote the same party I have for the last 30 years” types.
So, yes, majority but not as solid of a majority as the stereotype.
There has to be a point where gerrymandering blows up in their faces. I mean, if you have, say, five districts to work with and draw lines so three or even four of them barely get majorities for your side and the other side’s voters get stuffed into the one(s) remaining then piss people off to the point where 60+% of everyone won’t vote for you, those bare minorities vanish.
My understanding is that you pick a few “through away districts” that can’t be bothered with (big Metro areas for example) to which you glom on any other loosely (very!) connected territories, and then assemble otherwise however you want. None of this requires being “fair” in anyway. If you want to give, say, the DFW metro plex one token vote (plus any liberal areas around) and another to Austin (ditto) and then arrange for everything else to be red or close to it, you have the powerless opposition entirely sidelined when the SCOTUS says “hands off”.
So you could have (easy but false numbers) 10 million people. 4 million are liberal or lean that way, 6 are conservative. But you decided you have 20 districts. You put a million libs in District 1, another million in 2, and divide up the other remaining 18 districts with the last 2 million libs against 6 million conservatives, and the conservatives win every single time, leaving the two districts outnumbered in representation 9-to-1.
VAST, I say, VAST oversimplification of course. For example even blue metro areas are at best still blue-ish purple), and there are some liberals outside the metro, so the division isn’t nearly as easy as the example above.
But it’s even worse for the whole TX voting BS - each county only gets ONE voting area. So a county of 10,000 people gets one, and a county with a metro city of millions ALSO only gets one. Who is going to have an easier time voting?
It’s BS, corruption, dishonesty or what have you all the way down.