Open Letter To The Texas Democratic Party
Dear Texas Democratic Party,
What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know when we started losing in Texas? When we quit leading, that’s when.
I know I am a damn broken record, but we either need to grow some or fold up the damn tent.
They are saying that Hillary Clinton is gonna win Arizona. Wanna know why? You really want to know? Because both the minimum wage and marijuana legalization are on the ballot. That’s damn why. Democrats will turn out for that.
Hell, in Texas we can’t even get “controversial” stuff like that on the Democratic primary ballot because it might cause some sheriff candidate out in east Texas to lose his race because he supports dope. The future of the Texas Democratic Party is not in east Texas. The future of the Texas Democratic Party is in the city and young people and working people of America.
Thank you for your attention in this matter,
Juanita Jean Herownself
Once they take their collective thus out of their mouths, I can’t wait to hear what they say!
1Thumbs, spell check, not thus!
2From an old army instructor to newly minted infantry second lieutenants: If you are going to be wrong, be wrong at the top of your lungs. Provide the leadership example for those that follow. If you are convinced you are going to lose, go out with some style.
If you are defensive ALL the time, you will NEVER win.
3yeah, good luck with that.
4Assuming no recent change, the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) consists of two members from each state senatorial district. Hopefully, after the 2020 census those districts will be more urban. Then, perhaps the SDEC collective thinking may move from the 19th century to the 20th century. That they could move to the 21st century is too much to hope for.
5Hallelujah and amen.
It is hard being a Democrat in Texas. Having to watch the state party do nothing since John Hill got his ass kicked is hard.
I remember telling that bunch of lawyers running his Houston office he was not gonna win. They thought I was nuts. They were too busy deciding which job they were gonna get.
6I couldn’t agree more Juanita. This is right on the Mark.
7The Democrats have been losing since Edmund Muskie was the front-runner to challenge Richard Nixon (who got a better briefing from LBJ than Humphrey did). They’ve been losing since “Landslide Lyndon” stole his Senate race from Coke Stephenson using money and marketing to bury an honest man–and not incidentally showing the R’s how to do it.
Never mind that Nixon subverted the peace negotiations with the Vietnamese (co-opting Kissinger, then making him his Sec’y of State), LBJ self-destructed. Some of that was good–i.e. civil rights legislation he predicted would lose the South for a generation–but some of it was beyond bad. Stealing elections, corrupt business practices, rank opportunism and dishonesty were the characteristics of LBJ’s political career.
For Texans to join the Dixiecrat to exodus to the Republican party was just not much of a stretch…and the D’s, in not standing for much, enabled the process.
8Except this could have been written 2 years ago. And years before that. You know what I mean because we both went through the disappointment of 2014. Your Texas Democratic Party is a sham. Dems in TX need to wake up… and sound off good and LOUD!! In your face, top-of- your-lungs, angry as a hornets nest, spittle-flecked LOUD!!!! Or just sit quietly and take the sh*t as it comes. The “Great” State of Texas needs to earn that title again. IMHO.
9If I started a superpac to clone Ann Richards do you think it would help?
10Hear, hear!
11Don’t forget the highest elected D ( speaker of Texas house?) endorseing gw in 2000 to give him bipartisan credibility.
Screwed the world on that one.
12TrulyTexan: go for it, and work on cloning Barbara Jordan and Molly Ivins while you’re at it.
13Too many Dems are cowards.
I can name a dozen issues that define the Repub party. It’s hard to think of any issue that the Dems support wholeheartedly. They’ve even weaseled on protecting SS and Medicare.
There are signs we are getting a new generation of feisty, principled Dems. It can’t happen soon enough.
14Yup, we need Democrats with real ovaries across the country and in every state!
When I read stuff like that I’m so glad I live in Minnesota now. (Not bragging, but really relieved.)
15I’m with Trulytexan and Rhea. Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, and Molly Ivans – one of the few reasons I give a shit about Texas. Well, that and juanitajean herownself, her mama, Bubba, and that cute grandson.
16I can’t add more to the very real and very legitimate criticism of the Texas Dem party. I have seen a Dem revival in Dallas County but in Collin and Denton Counties the entire Dem electorate could dance with the angels on the head of a pin. With room to spare. 🙁
17As a labor union liberal democrat, it’s a painful experience to witness the self destruction of HC. She is my third choice behind Warren and Bernie. In life we pick a bad position in preference to a worse situation.
18JJ:
*LIKE*
19Change the election of state offices to years in which the President is elected and the Repubs will go away. Repubs win when fewer voters turn out. That is way the ‘Repubs have been pushing voter suppression bills like voter ID.
20The Democratic Party is going to also have to do something about Republican vote suppression and election rigging and damned gerrymandering, and quit pretending that it’s just not happening. Yeah, I know, that will make them vulnerable to retaliation of a similar kind in places where there are still a few Democratic machines in place. But they are damned few. And growing fewer with every passing year. So that disincentive is becoming irrelevant.
The alternative is slow devolution into irrelevance. If the Democratic Party is going to ever regain its stature of being widely respected, it’s got to quit trying to out-Republican the Republicans by sucking up to Wall Street and industry and start representing the people it claims to represent – the poor, the working class and organized labor.
Otherwise, it’s going to following the Republican Party, moving so far to the right, it falls off the right hand end of the political spectrum, as the Republican Party largely has, also ending up with an unceremonious plop in the fetid mud of the fever swamps of Angrywhitemenistan.
There is a vacuum on the left hand end of the USAnian political spectrum, and political nature abhors a vacuum, and so it’s going to be filled. Will it be filled by a regenerate Democratic Party, or will it be filled an odd, uncoordinated collection of socialists, environmentalists, immigration activists and radical Noam Chomsky wannabes? I would hope it would be the former. The interests of the USAnian left, and the world’s polity would be much better served by it. But I don’t hold out much hope. Bidstrup’s First Law of Politics argues against it – all political institutions, including especially parties, drift slowly to the right with time. That’s because just as water flows downhill, politics flows towards money – and that’s on the right.
But if a political party wants to remain relevant, it has to resist that trend and stay focused on its constituency. The Democratic party, unfortunately, has not. And we are, unfortunately, increasingly seeing the results.
21Marajuana and minimum wage? That’s all? I have a much longer list of issues Democrats are aligned with the majority of Texans on that should be front and center if only we had a leadership willing to lead.
Elections are about choices and voters keep saying they don’t see any difference between the two parties because TDP and the people who control the issues, platform and money keep failing to give the voters a clear choice each November.
The only way to protect women’s choice, health care, veterans benefits, social security, voting rights, and same-sex marriages is to vote Democratic. The only party interested in funding zika virus research — or any scientific research — is the Democratic party. The last President to balance the federal budget was a Democrat (and a Clinton). Tired of being dependant on the volatility of oil prices? Then vote for a Democrat and build up the wind and solar industries to create stable jobs. Democrats offer solutions to immigration problems; Republicans offer a #$@* wall. Democrats take climate change seriously and are moving the American economy to a cleaner more sustainable future.
Thank you for your open letter – marajuana and wages are a good starting point for offering Texans a reason to vote straight Democrat.
James Cargas
22Democratic Candidate, US Congress (TX-7)