cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/50107486

Last year, with the midterms fast approaching, some Texas Democrats began talking about putting together a “super ticket,” a dream team of battle-tested franchise players who could raise big money and drive turnout across strategic demographic groups.

They wanted the Avengers. They got Miracle on Ice.

But just like Team USA facing the Soviets in the 1980 Olympics, the ragtag group of scrappy underdogs the Democrats put together ended up pulling off the impossible, beating seemingly insurmountable odds to win not just one major contest, but every statewide seat.

A group of little-known state legislators and one millennial farmer unseated longtime GOP powerbrokers and their wealthy backers, reversing the state’s entire political power structure in one night.

At the top of the ticket, Austin state Rep. James Talarico managed to haul in record-setting amounts of money for the U.S. Senate race and build a national brand through his social media presence. His colleague, Austin state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, saw fundraising and attention surge in the home stretch of her challenge to Gov. Greg Abbott.

But the rest of the ticket struggled to build the branding and get the funding needed to break through in a state the size of a small country. Less than a month before the election, about half of likely voters did not know enough to have an opinion on the Democratic nominees for lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller and railroad commissioner, according to the Texas Politics Project.

Less than 24 hours after a historic sweep of Texas’ statewide elected offices by Democrats, the state’s attorney general-elect Nathan Johnson said Tuesday he will not continue Ken Paxton’s practice of suing doctors in other states for sending abortion medication to patients here.

It’s the first big salvo against the state’s four-year-old near abortion ban which makes the procedure virtually impossible to access in this state and is likely to be the first of many tweaks to make the ban less rigid. The attorney general’s office under Ken Paxton, who gave up the role to run for Senate, has been a powerful enforcer of the state’s abortion ban laws and a Democrat coming into that position cuts off a powerful tool for the country’s anti-abortion movement.

The first thing I do when people ask me about abortion is point out that I’m not a legislator, and I can’t change abortion law,” Johnson told The Texas Tribune. “What I can do is cease using Texas abortion laws as an instrument of persecution and intimidation, harassment and political showboating. All four of those things have happened.”

It is illegal for Texas doctors to mail abortion medication within the state and Paxton has sued doctors in other states who prescribe the medication, chilling Texans from obtaining these pills, abortion advocates say. Those lawsuits have run up against blue states’ so-called shield laws that protect physicians who send abortion medications.

Johnson said he won’t be suing those out-of-state doctors anymore. “I will not pursue the judicially absurd position that Texas law has extra territorial effect. I can honor other states’ shield laws.”

While this eliminates an obstacle to accessing abortion pills, Democrats won’t be repealing the abortion ban anytime soon.

Despite the increasing use of executive power by Gov. Greg Abbott, Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa cannot legally repeal the abortion ban with her own pen stroke. She also told Politico in September that repealing the ban would not be a priority because it would require Republicans to pass such a bill and that seems unlikely.

Instead, University of Houston political professor Brandon Rottinghaus points out she can greatly limit how the law is applied. Hinojosa has said that she would work to end penalties for doctors who perform life-saving abortions, although lawmakers provided additional protections for doctors in these situations last year.

“She can influence how portions of the law are implemented, and how certain exceptions are interpreted, and other reasonable additional restrictions that might become law eventually,” he said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53987317

Let him swim in the Rio Grande with all the razor wire he dumped in it.

Crossposted from https://sh.itjust.works/c/fauxmoi

The values expressed by the party that often got 40 to 45 percent of the statewide vote could find no expression. They could not be playacted or validated by anyone with more power than a mayor. This was painful to many Texans in a way that probably sounds a little silly to outsiders, and it’s warped public life here. Liberal Texans grow up hearing stories, passed down like samizdat, of the liberal Texas that existed and often held power through the end of the last century. It didn’t use to be like this.

Pretty decent quick-take think piece, and one that tells the story from a very Texan perspective, which will be important for any national blue operators assigned to help ensconce last night's wins. Now, in a globalized world it's less pronounced, but the threads of thought that John Steinbeck saw in the early 60s endure:

“I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study, and the passionate possession of all Texans.”

Texas lefties have our own versions of these myths, that aren't necessarily much more true than the right's, but they're more hopeful. They focus on De Zavala and Texas Chili Queens, black cowboys, on the word Texas meaning "friend," on regional pride that can conveniently omit the Confederate battle flag, and a million other little tweaks. The heroes of the story are Sam Houston telling the other slaveholders that slavery wasn't worth seceding over (that's really the best I can do, LOL, he was better than his peers but ol' Sam was a man of place and time and class), LBJ learning as a schoolteacher that brown kids are alright and eventually big-dicking Republicans to get the Civil Rights Act passed, Ann Richards calling out Clayton Williams and George W. Bush, and Willie Nelson doing Willie Nelson things. This is national mythmaking you can use to spur people to follow their better angels, rather than raw machismo that lashes out at anything new or different. It can even hold up to --gasp-- teaching history truthfully and trusting people to learn from it and do better. We need more Hank Hill, less Elon Musk.

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/c/politicalmemes

record-breaking turnout

unbelievable margins of victory

makes it easier to feel hopeful

The race was the most expensive U.S. Senate competition in American history as Talarico, an Austin state legislator, and Paxton, the three-term state attorney general, fought an intense campaign that could decide control of the U.S. Senate through the end of President Donald Trump’s second term. Democrats need to flip four seats, and hold onto their existing ones, to win the majority.

Democrats have not won statewide in Texas since 1994, and they last captured one of the state’s U.S. Senate seats in 1988 — when Rick Perry was still a Democratic state lawmaker, the Cowboys were coached by Tom Landry and Talarico was not yet born.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53788517

The early voting for the Midterms is now available in many places. You can early vote at a polling place or you can use mail-in voting.

Get organised today here: https://www.vote.org/

If you choose to vote in person, either now or on election day, be aware of your rights and course of actions: https://lemmy.world/post/53334632

In the Poetic Edda, written between the ninth and 13th centuries, Thor and the Asgardians have a problem: His hammer has been stolen. To get it back, they devise a scheme: They’ll disguise Thor as a woman and send him into the land of giants. Thor protests: What if people think he’s “queer”?

Medieval Icelanders had no problem with this story, and I’ve used it many times in the classroom to help students talk about gender expression, and subversion, in the Middle Ages. However, thanks to the administration of Texas Tech University (TTU), I am no longer allowed to teach it to our students. And the people who will pay the highest price for this change aren’t professors like me—they are the students and communities of Texas.

Crossposted from https://lemmy.world/c/dfw

Dallas police are investigating whether the three shootings were connected and asking witnesses to share photos and videos.

The shootings occurred about 12:20 a.m. in the 2600 block of Elm Street, 1:05 a.m. in the 2600 block of Main Street and 1:35 a.m. in the 200 block of South Crowdus Street, according to a preliminary police investigation.

McALLEN — Dr. Ivan Melendez was among the 110,000 voters in Hidalgo County who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 in a historic swing that amounted to the first time the predominantly Hispanic county has gone for a Republican presidential nominee in more than 50 years.

In the Rio Grande Valley, Melendez serves as the county’s health authority, responsible for enacting health laws in an area with one of the highest uninsured rates in the country.

Naturally, healthcare is a top issue for the top medical official for the region. He cast that vote in large part because he viewed Trump as a major force in expediting the COVID-19 vaccine in early 2020. And after already enduring four years with Trump in the White House, Melendez thought he knew what he was getting with the tempestuous leader.

Today, he regrets that vote.

Melendez says he’s been completely disappointed by Trump because of cuts to federal programs that have gutted health departments in the Valley and made insurance coverage harder to obtain.

“It’s a simple question. When it comes to access to healthcare, am I able to do more now than I was before he became president?” Melendez said. “And the answer is no, I’m doing less.”

But earlier this month, with Election Day approaching, he had yet to decide whether his disillusionment with the Republican party would translate into support for Democrat U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico, a candidate he worried was too far-left.

Melendez, who says he doesn’t identify with a political party, is among the state’s most politically valuable voters. He’s independent, undecided and Hispanic — which is the state’s largest ethnic bloc. Following the trends of Valley voters, Melendez had previously aligned with Democrats, but moved with conservatives in recent elections.

In 2024, exit polls showed 55% of Texas Latinos supported Trump in a massive victory for Republicans who have spent decades wooing those voters. Trump also prevailed over Kamala Harris in 14 out of 18 border counties, which is a number that doubled from the four years prior.

This midterm election, all eyes are back on the Rio Grande Valley’s voters again. Two years of higher prices from tariffs and the war in Iran, coupled with aggressive deportation tactics often targeting Texas’ border, have moved an increasing number of Latinos away from Trump. About a quarter of Hispanic voters who picked Trump say that if they had to do it over, they would not vote for him again, according to a survey by UnidosUS, a nonpartisan Latino civil rights group.

With what is expected to be Texas’ most competitive election in decades, Democrats are unlikely to succeed in their statewide bids without a major surge of Latino support.

But Melendez notes that being anti-Trump doesn’t equate to being against other Republicans running atop the ticket in Texas.

As hundreds of Valley voters were already rushing to the ballot box for early voting, reaching participation levels matching the 2024 presidential election, Melendez was still agonizing over his choice.

“I support the policies on healthcare of Talarico, but I do support some of the more fiscal issues with [Attorney General Ken] Paxton,” Melendez said of the Democratic and Republican candidates for U.S. Senate.

“My soul is torn,” he said.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53634182

The early voting for the Midterms is now available in many places. You can early vote at a polling place or you can use mail-in voting.

Get organised today here: https://www.vote.org/

If you choose to vote in person, either now or on election day, be aware of your rights and course of actions: https://lemmy.world/post/53334632