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Yettheres little evidence these transplants are the sole, or even the driving,cause of Texass approaching swing-state status. As the Houston Press wrote last year, It is utter nonsenseto assume that every person coming here is some wide-eyed socialist hippie whodreams of high taxes and replacing Whataburgers with soy patties. Another write-up noted that it wassignificantly reductive to ascribe Texass leftward lurch to these new arrivals.

Indeed,theres a kind of cognitive dissonance at play in the Texas rights claim thatthe sole reason for the states political shift is wayward Californians. Afterall, shouldnt these uprooted Californians be fleeing the supposedly failedsocialist policies in California? Why would they be bringing these left-leaningpolicies with them? Are California politicians secretly plotting to spread theseeds of socialism wherever the roots of liberty run deep?

Thiswillingness to pin Texass political changes on an influx of liberals acts as akind of cover, or an excuse, for a state Republican Party unwilling to face newgenerations and demographics of Texans disgusted by the partys Trumpian turn.Younger Texans, nonwhite Texans, second-generation Americans whose immigrantparents selected Dallas and Houston and El Paso as the place to raise theirfamilyall of these contingents are increasingly sloughing off the outdated imagesof Texas that prep schoolers like Roy and Rodimer cling to. Its these true-nativeTexans who are refashioning those tiredtropes,all while steering the state leftward, toward a more multiethnic polity aimedsquarely against the authoritarian rot at the heart of the Texas RepublicanParty.

Buttheres one more irony at the heart of these far-right transplants attemptingto claim the mantle of Texanness. When the state first began convulsing towardindependence in the 1830s, the states residents broke into two camps. On theone end was a multiracial cohort composed of older Anglos and most of thestates Tejanos, content to remain within the anti-slavery republic of Mexico.On the other end was a contingent of young, transplanted Anglos, comprising theso-called War Party.

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The Republican Poseurs Who Claim to Be True Texans - The New Republic