‘Texas Miracle’ author interviewed on Morning Joe
Link to the video of the Interview on Morning Joe
Link to book on Amazon
As they say, watch it yourself but here are my notes and comments:
Erica (all paraphrased)
- “all potential problems like education, environmental and safety issues all started at a low baseline and have improved”. Translation - we sucked in the past but we suck less now. And where we suck less we act more like Democrats and less like Republicans. Reality - Texas has cut their state education budget by more than $5 B dollars and cut more than 10,000 teachers in the last 5 years. Texas allows almost a free rein for Fracking. The Deepwater Oil Rig disaster that killed many was based in Texas and Texas Congressional leaders unanimously resist increased regulation for the industry and demigogged the issue against the Obama administration. Texas has one of the highest rates of gun death / capita in the WORLD.
- “4 million people have immigrated into the state in the last 10 years and many of them are educated and have higher paying jobs”. Translation - most of them have been minimum wage jobs and many of those are filled by the illegal immigrant population of Hispanics. Reality - Texas fail to properly educate the Hispanic population , take away their wives’, mothers’, sisters’ healthcare by defunding Planned Parenthood. And we also dilute their vote in openly cynical re-districting plans and attempt to suppress their votes with unreasonable voter ID laws. The educated ones are from outside Texas, and live in Urban areas where the Tax Haven status has lured many Fortune 500 companies to move their headquarters to Texas. The Texas economic miracle is actually a parasitic relationship to that of the country as a whole.
- “The Demographics definitely favor the Democrats. Youth, hispanics and the fact that Texas is now 80% urban is all bad for the future of Republicans in the state”. Translation - the Republicans in Texas are fucked in the medium to long term. Reality - The Hispanics won’t vote Republican because Texas treats them like shit and the educated young urban population don’t and won’t because they are educated young and urban.
Joe
- “I absolutely love Texas”. Translation - I am functionally a moron but I was once a Republican Politician and have a TV show so I get to foist my opinions on you. Reality - Joe is just, just, just barely smart enough to detect when the Republicans are following a poor national policy strategy but can’t think quick enough to reason through the fact that the current changes occurring in Texas are just as bad.