Been thinking this for a while.
The population of Texas is going more and more blue, with Hispanic and non-white populations and disenfranchised white voters increasing, liking Beto O’Rourke.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts continues to ignore/isolate its working class voters while embracing its high tech tech innovation large wage takers and welcomes the likes of Charlie Baker.
Let me look at this post in four years.
Hope I am still around.
Please share widely!
I wouldn’t say we are going red. Yes, there’s a good chance of Baker’s re-election, but that would not be a flip. Most state Democratic parties would kill to be as successful as we are here.
California, Oregon, and Washington come to mind as states with state parties “as successful as ours” that also manage to pass progressive legislation Maybe that’s a big reason they haven’t elected nearly as many Republican governors as we have?
People want progress, but if the party in power does not deliver that they will then to the other party. Even if it is regressive.
Well, I did say most rather than all, though for what it’s worth our D:R ratio in the legislature is better than the three states you mention.
Which makes it even more pathetic that theirs do a better job than ours. Maybe because in their state conservative Democrats actually run and win as Republicans making their Democratic majorities more progressive and more effective? As long as we keep defending the Garry’s of the world, it’s a supermajority in name only.
This exemplifies the issue, by completely missing the point.
Such score-keeping is the problem, and will drive us into the ground.
Here we are with the “best” D:R ratio in the nation and we move steadily backwards. That’s because a great many of “D” members are actually Republicans. The “Democratic” brand in Massachusetts is toxic today. If it were a product in our grocery stores, it would be recalled for false labeling.
The “other party” in MA is dead. Until we have an actual alternative, the “D” brand here is completely meaningless or worse.
The declared political affiliation of a state’s elected leadership is different from the actual attitude of its population.
I recently had to spend an unplanned 3 days in Houston, because of a medical emergency that turned out to be minor. It was a case study in the contrast between health care in a red state and health care in a blue state. For example, I was billed $1,400 for the fifteen minute ambulance ride from the train station to the hospital. That provider is contracted by the city of Houston. I had no choice in the matter. The provider does not have a contract with Blue Cross (my insurance company). That means that even though BCBS allows only $492 for the same service, I am still obligated to pay the full amount. That doesn’t happen in Massachusetts. One reason is a little-known state law that prohibits providers from collecting more than the negotiated BCBS rate for any given procedure. The bottom line is that an ambulance ride that would have cost $492 in Massachusetts and been covered by insurance cost $1,400 in Houston and was not covered.
There is a clear cultural and economic bottom line here. In Texas, if you are in an economic class where $1,400 is a major expense, then you are screwed. The laws of Texas reflect the attitudes of the population of Texas. Among those attitudes are “I’ve got mine, too bad for you.”
This is a microcosm of the difference between Texas and Massachusetts. Texas still does not allow its grade school text books to present evolution as the fundamental fact that it is. That opposition reflects the belief system of Texas residents. The tint of Texas electoral politics reflects the attitude of its population, not the other way around. The GOP has always pandered to racist white wealthy men, to the women who enable those men, and to the population that wants to be like that. Working-class people who embrace the GOP remind me of the overweight middle-age men and women who wear Patriots regalia to a football game. It’s as though they hope that the intensity of their cheering and the emulation of their appearance will bring them the same success.
I agree that the share of Hispanic and non-white populations is increasing in Texas. I think it will take a very long time before that makes a noticeable difference in the culture of the state.
In Massachusetts, I think you overstate the role that disaffected white male workers play in Massachusetts politics. I know you weren’t that specific in your comment. As always, though, you use “working class voters” as a euphemism for “white working-class males”. Your commentary here opposes the steps that Massachusetts takes to help minority and female working class voters. You oppose public funding for higher education. You argued against the equal pay bill (claiming that the male workers would pay the price).
Massachusetts is a long long way from “going red”. Charlie Baker is popular in Massachusetts because of his public distance from Mr. Trump (a public distance that overstates the reality of his policy decisions). The GOP candidate running against Ms. Warren will get a tiny handful of votes.
In my view, it is more constructive to emphasize the importance of addressing the wealth concentration chasm that is destroying Massachusetts. That is neither red nor blue, although of course the GOP has always advocated policies that increase it.
Massachusetts working-class men and women are suffering from economic strangulation. Our minority men and women are suffering more than our white men and women. Women of every demographic group suffer more than the men in that same group.
This suffering is not making Massachusetts working-class men and women “go red”, if for no other reason than that Massachusetts working-class men and women are smart enough to know that such a move is a jump from the frying pan into the fire.
My hope is that working-class men and women of all demographic persuasions can join together and force BOTH parties to address the obscene wealth concentration that is destroying all of us.
I agree with much of your analysis, Tom, and i am particularly pleased to see that here you are including BOTH parties to work responsibly.
The better analogy to MA, a long time blue state, is to former purple states like Oregon and Washington that have leapfrogged us on progressive legislation. Or MD which has a similar demographic profile and political culture but managed to do a whole lot more under O’Malley than we did under Deval.
I think that definition “success” is part of the problem and has bred complacency in the organization. A supermajority means jack shat if you do nothing with it. Tom has a point we are nowhere near TX, but John could be right that in ten years TX leapfrogs us if it transitions to CA style politics. As many are predicting it will. Without our machine, without our stale bench of statewide prospects, and without our lack of progress on critical issues that affect our state.