In the good old days when LBJ (1908-1973) was Senate Majority Leader, Texas was solidly Democratic.
But then, along came Republican political strategist Lee Atwater (1951-1991) and his Southern Strategy, which he perfected during the Reagan and Bush One presidencies. Atwater was Chairman of the Republican National Committee, and he was well known for his very aggressive campaign tactics.
It was Atwater who figured out how to elect Republicans to the White House based on the well-known fact that Southern whites were not happy about racial integration; and that same strategy was very much on the mind of Richard Nixon (1913-1994), who resigned in disgrace in 1974 because of Watergate.
And, as all rational people are well aware, Donald Trump’s high crimes were much more serious than Nixon’s, only "Moscow Mitch” McConnell easily saw to it that Trump was acquitted in the Senate.
George Herbert Walker Bush (Bush One) (1924-2018), unlike Donald Trump, was fully qualified to be President of the United States. He was a Congressman, Ambassador to the UN, CIA Director, and Vice President under President Ronald Reagan.
His father was Connecticut Senator Prescott Bush (1895-1972), also a Republican.
The first President Bush moved from New England to Texas, where he made it big in the oil business.
One of Bush One’s most egregious (and deliberate) decisions was to nominate Clarence Thomas to succeed the late, great Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) on the U S Supreme Court. Thomas is part of the hyper-conservative majority of SCOTUS. Associate solitary reporters Jay Anderson, Bob Grisham, and Gloria Peterson, all African Americans, consider Justice Thomas to be a traitor to his race.
For more information on Bush One, associate solitary reporters Bob Norton and Penny Malinowski, both long-term residents of Texas, recommend reading https://classic.esquire.com/article/1991/6/1/how-he-got-here.
Anyway, by 2000, Texas was solidly Republican.
Texas is a major big state geographically and by population.
If Texas were a sovereign state, it would be the tenth largest economy in the world.
In the House of Representatives, there are now no fewer than thirty-six Members from the Lone Star State — twenty-three Republicans (including superclown Louie Gohmert, whom nobody with any sense takes seriously) and thirteen Democrats, after the 2018 midterms.
By contrast, Colorado has only seven Members of the House of Representatives, only that’s gonna change after the 2020 Census, as the result of which Colorado is likely to have eight Members of the House, because Colorado has mountains, and because Denver keeps building and building and building and, on the whole, people, including your solitary reporter and associate solitary reporters Lewis Thompson III, Larry Theis, Eddie Cook, and Sylvia Kenwood, all enjoy living in the Centennial State.
But because of Donald Trump, all 38 of Texas’ Electoral College votes could (God willing) flip to the Dems. Long shot, but it could be, if enough sensible Texans pick Joe Biden over Trump.
Texas, a solid red state, has a slogan: “The Friendly State,” but it’s not in the least friendly to Democrats. Ask senator Ted Cruz (TP-Texas), who lost to Trump in the 2016 GOP sweepstakes, but now panders to Trump’s base by slamming President Obama (see https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-trump-obamagate_n_5ecf3d18c5b649a4e52f6e62).
Years ago, Texas was described in a major magazine as “a geographical hemorrhoid suspended from the southern portion of the United States."
Could that be because, as of 2017, Texas emits the most greenhouse gases in the United States? If Texas were an independent nation, it would rank as the world’s seventh-largest producer of greenhouse
gases — something that Trump thinks is wonderful.
The State Bird of Texas is the Northern Mockingbird — so named, perhaps, because, as presently constituted politically, the Lone Star State likes to mock northern states such as Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Our Liar-in-Chief falsely claims that voting by mail inevitably leads to fraud.
Republicans don’t like it when lower-income people and people of color vote. That’s why Trump keeps yelling about voting by mail being a bad thing.
Colorado has mandatory voting by mail; and that is very capably administered by Democrat Jena Griswold, 35, Colorado’s Secretary of State. Your solitary reporter held a fundraiser for Griswold when she ran for Secretary of State in 2018. She defeated incumbent Secretary of State Wayne Williams, a Republican; Williams is now a City Councilman in Colorado Springs — one of the most Republican cities in Colorado and the home of the Air Force Academy, Peterson Air Force Base, Fort Carson, Schriever Air Force Base, and Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base.
Colorado Springs is in El Paso County, in Colorado’s Fifth Congressional District, and hyper-conservative Republican Congressman Lamborn has represented CD5 since 2007. Lamborn has been challenged in the Republican primaries in his District all but once, but, much to the amazement of associate solitary reporter Ronnie Armstrong, who lives in the Fifth Congressional District, Lamborn, a member of the Tea Party Caucus, is still in Congress.
Unlike Colorado, which has a superb system for selecting judges, Texas elects its judges; and every single Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas is a Republican.
Yesterday, Texas’ Republican Supreme Court blocked a push to expand vote-by-mail registration for people who lack immunity to the Coronavirus, saying that such a condition does not count as a “disability” for which a voter can apply for a mail-in ballot. This made Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton — you guessed it, a Republican — who argued the case, very happy indeed (https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/27/politics/texas-supreme-court-blocks-vote-by-mail-expansion/index.html).
And Paxton’s victory is, no doubt, going to please Trump exceedingly.
Associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones, who spends ever so much more time with Trump than Trophy Wife Number Three, tells us that Trump is more than likely to tap Paxton to be one of his frequently changing staffers.