Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas.
Re: Texas freezing in the dark. From The Atlantic magazine.
“Rick Perry, the governor of Texas during the 2011 storm, recently told House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy that “Texans would be without electricity for longer than three days to keep the federal government out of their business.” It’s possible that the freezing cold and rolling blackouts in 2011 didn’t make more of an impact on Perry because he was in California at the time for an event honoring Ronald Reagan, setting himself up for a failed 2012 GOP primary run for president.
I doubt that “We’d freeze to death to own the libs” is a popular sentiment in Texas, but drawing that impression is easy if you’re outside the state, listening to its Republican officials.
As the journalist Brian Kahn noted on Twitter, when California was struggling with much smaller blackouts in late 2020, ambitious Texas Republicans were sneering at the state on social media. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said, “This is what happens when the Democrats are left in charge,” while Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced, “California’s politicians did this, not the heat.” U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw joked, “Alexa, show me what happens when you let Democrats control energy policy.” And U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said that California “is now unable to perform even basic functions of civilization, like having reliable electricity.”
Last week, Cruz jetted off to Cancún with his family while his constituents were burning their children’s toys for warmth.”
Way to own the libs. But you might want to try some governance as well.
