The Good News: Democrats’ Future Might Be In Texas. The Bad News: See The Good News.
When Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a third-term Democratic congressman from West Texas, announced this spring that he would quit his promising career in the House to run for the Senate against Ted Cruz, Republicans could hardly stifle a laugh. “I know Beto—he’s a good guy,” said John Cornyn, the state’s senior senator. “But I think this is a suicide mission.”
It certainly looked like it. Texas Democrats have lost (or didn’t even compete in) 123 consecutive statewide races since 1996—the longest losing streak of any state party in the country. The only thing worse than the odds for Democrats overall are those for candidates from O’Rourke’s hometown, El Paso. Texas’ sixth-largest city—separated from the rest of the state’s population centers by hundreds of miles, a desert, a handful of mountain ranges, and a time zone—has never produced a successful candidate for statewide o ce. Not a senator, not a judge, not even a railroad commissioner.
Even O’Rourke can’t quite explain his path to victory. “The numbers on paper just don’t add up,” he conceded when we met in May, over coffee at his Washington, DC, row house. But his optimism comes, in a strange way, from what he believes really happened last November. He’s been thinking about what a man in Amarillo said to him about the wall.
“He said, ‘Look, I have friends who voted for Trump, and I don’t know if they literally want a wall. What they like is that you fuckers have been there for 30 years in Congress talking about immigration reform, and…nothing’s happened,’” O’Rourke said. He thumped the table for emphasis.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September/October 2017-Ausgabe von Mother Jones.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September/October 2017-Ausgabe von Mother Jones.
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In the Name of the Mother - How Shyamala Gopalan Harris raised a presidential contender
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Kill the Messenger - The anti-disinformation field is retreating under attack.
A few months ago, a man crawling along a rooftop in Pennsylvania tried to murder Donald Trump at a campaign rally. Hours later, press releases started to circulate, from analysts, think tanks, politicians, and pundits, all offering to cut through the swell of confusion and misinformation.
Food + Health / Global Warning - Why Project 2025 is an environmental catastrophe in the making
When President Joe Biden took office, Democrats held a slim majority in the House of Representatives and a single-vote edge in the Senate. Despite the monumental odds, he has presided over the most productive presidential term for climate action in American history. Under Biden’s direction, the federal government took up the arduous task of incorporating climate considerations into scores of administrative operations and procedures. The epa cracked down on superpollutants and issued stricter emissions regulations for passenger vehicles. The Inflation Reduction Act, the biggest climate spending bill Congress has ever passed, brings the nation closer to its goal of slashing carbon emissions in half by 2030.
Trumpnesia - To get a second chance, Trump needs voters to forget his disastrous presidency.
One of the most oft-quoted sentences ever penned by a philosopher is George Santayana’s observation that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In 2024, this aphorism is practically a campaign slogan. Donald Trump, seeking to become the first former president since Grover Cleveland to return to the White House after being voted out of the job, has waged war on remembrance. In fact, he’s depending on tens of millions of voters forgetting the recent past. This election is an experiment in how powerful a memory hole can be.
WHEN IN DROUGHT
This obscure yet adaptable grain could be a healthy staple for a warming planet.
BAD HABITS
A spate of recent horror movies recycle tired tropes about nuns-and reveal society's ongoing discomfort with independent women.
Taking the Fifth For a glimpse of the Supreme Court after a second Trump term, look at the radical circuit court that's already driving America to the right.
Imagine obamacare is dead and millions of Americans have lost health coverage.
THE ARCHITECT
TRUMP WANTS TO BE KING. RUSS VOUGHT HAS A PLAN TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Losing Faith
As an evangelical leader, I enticed lawmakers and federal judges to adopt a conservative Christian agenda. Donald Trump’s rise proved how wrong I was.
GOD'S COUNTRY
These Christian nationalists have a plan to take over Americafrom small towns to the highest court in the land.
