Texas Republicans held their convention in late May, and the state’s Democrats followed in early June. Credit: Shutterstock / wellphoto

“We are not the bystanders in the story of our future. We are the authors.” — Texas State Rep. John Bucy III

Party conventions aren’t my thing. I find something inherently cringeworthy about the nonalcoholic affectations of rowdiness, the perfunctory applause, the pretense that your side’s definitely going to win, the call-and-responses, the hokey cliches. Comedian Lewis Black joked way back in the post-9/11 hyper-patriotic haze, “If you are inspired by either George Bush or Bill Clinton, then you were probably inspired by your high school principal.” But Clinton and Bush, both two-term presidents who connected well with diverse audiences, were among the best politicians to ever do it.

So when you meet the B Team, it’s unhealthily underwhelming. 

After subjecting myself to over two dozen combined hours of the Republican Party of Texas convention in late May, followed by the Texas Democratic Party convention June 6-8, if I hear one more person repeat the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” I’m defecting to China.

It’s legitimately surprising though how diametrically contrasting party platforms can arise from similar intuitions about what constitutes a fair deliberation. When crafting rules for themselves to adhere to, committee members abhor any “thumb on the scales.” There’s deference, politeness, decorum and congeniality. “I stand corrected” is uttered in abundance. Robert’s Rules of Order, the manual for parliamentary procedure first published in 1876, is universally cited in reverential tones. And whatever awkward moments of disagreement arise — and there were some doozies — both Republicans and Democrats demand respect for the rank-and-file delegates, not merely the party brass. If only these democratic sensibilities carried over to the inner-workings of corporations or politics-at-large.

Common values were in evidence not only on procedure, but on policy substance as well.

“The Texas Democratic Party supports the right of law-abiding Americans to own and bear arms as preserved in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution” is a platform plank I wonder whether most Texas Republicans know is in there. U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, the long-shot candidate challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz this autumn, talked about “our proud heritage of gun ownership in this state.” OK, that’s a far cry from giving the Kenosha killer, Kyle Rittenhouse, a hero’s welcome — as the Republicans did — but still.

“We believe that our lives, homes, communities and country are made secure by appropriately staffed and trained law enforcement,” reads the Texas Democrats’ platform. In fact, the word “defund” is only used once, and it’s not in reference to police but to “‘crisis pregnancy centers’ … which discourage abortion using unscientific, inaccurate information.”

The most heart-rending moment in either convention was hearing Amanda Zurawski’s story in her own words last Friday. And I’d be willing to bet if your hardcore conservative friends and neighbors heard it, they’d think twice about the current status of Texas’ abortion laws.

“In the Spring of 2022, after 18 months of grueling fertility treatment, my husband Josh and I learned I was pregnant with our first baby. A girl. We were over the moon,” Zurawski said. “But then suddenly, at 18 weeks, I suffered catastrophic complications. My cervix dilated prematurely, and because my membranes had ruptured, there was no way to safely reverse course. We were with 100% certainty going to lose our baby girl. We were devastated. What I needed at that point was an abortion, so I could safely and with dignity, deliver my daughter and begin the healing process, both physically and emotionally. But unfortunately, this was post-Roe Texas. The near-total abortion ban had gone into effect just two days after my water broke. Ending the pregnancy would’ve been an illegal abortion, and my doctor would’ve been at risk for loss of her license and even jail-time. So I was told to wait, until I got so sick that my life was considered in danger — one of the rare exceptions where a doctor can actually intervene. It took three days and a near-death crash into septic shock before my doctor could finally provide the healthcare I desperately needed. … Our family flew in from across the country for fear that I would die. It was in that dark and lonely hospital room where I realized I was actually lucky, because I lived. I knew others might not be so lucky.”

She described her experience as barbaric and preventable, and barbaric because preventable.
Eleven years ago this month, former State Rep. Wendy Davis led a 13-hour filibuster of abortion restrictions which seem tame by today’s low standards. She also spoke at the convention, informing delegates there’ve been an estimated 26,313 rape-related pregnancies since Texas outlawed abortion.

“And as bad as it is, believe it or not, it can absolutely get worse,” she said. “Have you seen the Republican platform? Murder charges for pregnant patients seeking care? State possession of, and forced adoption of, embryos conceived as part of IVF?”

If testimony and statistics like those, alongside literal recommendations to criminalize in vitro fertilization and birth control, cannot win the war for the allies, I’m not sure what will.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Texas emphasize freedom from Big Brother meddling in our private lives, with varying degrees of success and sincerity. I have yet to hear of the political party that disbanded over obvious philosophical contradictions, however.

In principle, the Republican Party of Texas platform claims to endorse “a free enterprise society unencumbered by government interference.” But it also “supports the prohibition on manufacture, sale, or distribution of food products made from cultured animal cells” — a potential growth industry. Texas Republicans officially “oppose any expansion of gambling, including legalized casino gambling” and “oppose the legalization of recreational marijuana.” Yet gun-wielding Texans should, they claim, be able to “legally carry firearms in public sporting venues, including, but not limited to, ball parks, arenas, airshows, car shows, rodeos.” Evidently, a semiautomatic rifle is less dangerous than an aromatic plant or a poker chip.

“We call on a ban of mRNA technology for vaccines,” the Texas GOP platform also states.

So even if my family and I choose to follow the advice of public health officials and stay up to date on the very safe and effective vaccines developed under the Trump administration, and which he correctly credited with saving millions of lives , Texas Republicans want to legally forbid us from doing so? Call that what you like, but it’s not health freedom. And is there anything more pathetic than the fact that Donald Jehovah Trump, a congenital braggart, cannot tout the signature achievement of his presidency without getting booed by anti-vaxxers at his own rallies?

COVID defeatism is bipartisan at this point though. In an otherwise invaluable discussion on defending public education from Gov. Greg Abbott’s voucher boondoggle, State Rep. Gina Hinojosa let it slip: “My kids get Covid every semester.” So are we just going to normalize and accept over 70,000 Covid deaths every year for the foreseeable future? That’s the plan?.

To again quote Lewis Black, “The Republicans are the party of bad ideas. The Democrats are the party of no ideas.”

On paper, the Texas Democratic platform is only a tittle or two away from the Green Party: single-payer healthcare, reparations for slavery, ranked-choice voting, public financing of elections, “decolonizing ourselves and our institutions” — whatever that means. But if the “Texas Democratic Party supports policies that limit the pervasive influence of money in politics,” then why not forgo corporate donations altogether and censure any Democratic candidate on the take?

The nonprofit coalition Americans For Tax Fairness reported last month that, as of early May, 50 billionaire families had already spent more than $600 million on the 2024 election. “Over two-thirds of the contributions from America’s biggest billionaire family donors supported Republican candidates and conservative causes,” the group found.

But if Democrats are as adamant in their anti-corporate stance as they profess, why isn’t it closer to 100% of contributions? Neither the Republican or Democratic parties seem to have much of a problem with the fact that America is for sale. They merely object to rival buyers.

Both Republicans and Democrats still speak glowingly of “the American dream,” though they have radically different ideas of what that means. “What does their respective stereotypical constituent want?” I kept asking myself. It’s wrong to characterize a convention-attendee as an average Republican voter, but in simplest terms, here’s my answer:

They want to walk around with a gun. They want to use gold and silver in everyday transactions. They don’t want to pay any income tax, societal collapse be damned. They don’t want gays adopting kids or getting married. They don’t want refugees resettling here, and they want immigrants without papers excluded from the census and the country. They want every ballot counted by hand. They want prayer in schools and teachers to be armed — two proposals that go well together, now that I think of it. And they want Texas to retain the right to secede from the Union should any of their other demands not be met in full.

In sum, they’ve confused modern society with a John Wayne film.

And who is the stereotypical Democratic convention-goer? As near as I could tell, a woman who wants to know her kids are safe when she drops them off at school and wants to take them to the park without it being 112 degrees outside. Oh, and she’s not down with forced pregnancy. Perhaps she’s a bit overbearing, perhaps trying a little too hard to look cool in front of the young folk. She would certainly not think it a scandal if RuPaul made an appearance when she and her girlfriends were out drinking wine on a Friday night.

This boring Democratic basicness simply doesn’t compete well against fire-and-brimstone electioneering. Texas Democratic Party Vice Chair Shay Wyrick-Cathey, for example, called Colin Allred “a transformative leader.”

Huh? He’s a yawn in human form.

Here’s just about the worst thing Allred had to say about his Cruz: “He’s the guy you hope you don’t get stuck next to at a barbecue.” What a zinger.

And what did Cruz have to say about Allred? That he’s beholden to a Cultural Marxist cabal who want to tear our nation to the ground. No joke.

In practice, Texas Democrats are running a minimalist campaign dedicated to making America great again. Regain the reproductive freedom granted under the 1973 precedent in Roe, return to higher rates of union density, reinsure the peaceful, elections-based transfer of power and relegate right-wing extremists back to the fringes. They’re for business-as-was-usual and not rocking the boat.

And as infinite are the hugs I have for drag queens and trans kids, one has to wonder whether foregrounding their unsatisfactory situation distracts voters from the kitchen table, working-class issues that ought by rights redound to Democrats. Activist Brigette Bandit admitted as much in general session last Saturday.

“The unfortunate truth about this is, while Republicans spend their time attacking queer expression and people, real problems for Texans persist,” Bandit said. “My heart aches for what Texas children are forced to experience living day-to-day in a state that is more focused on silencing drag queens than preventing gun violence.”

Only trouble was she lamented the distraction while wearing a highly-distracting double-stacked wig, hot pink dress and enough mascara to choke a My Little Pony. Libs of TikTok and other reprobate rightwing propagandists were quick to retweet out-of-context snippets of her speech, which was the only convention content that can justifiably claim to have gone viral.

That’s a politically savvy diversionary tactic on the part of conservatives, given that two out of three Texans, including a majority of Republicans and independents, believe unions are good for workers. And, according to University of Texas survey data, that support for unions is identical between college graduates and those who didn’t complete high school.

Yet the convention speech of Derrick Osobase, vice president of the Communication Workers of America, which represents over 75,000 public and private sector employees in Texas, made no headlines.

“It’s been rough for folks in the last 20 years under Republican rule,” he told delegates. “Our workers continue to pay the share of the rich and the wealthy, while getting nickel-and-dimed by Dan Patrick and Greg Abbott, we continue to bear the brunt of the weight of this economy.”

If Osobase said that wearing high heels would Abbott would have responded?

“We have to communicate our values clearly. There must be no doubt in voters’ minds that it’s the Democratic Party that’s going to fight for working class people in this state,” Osobase concluded. 

Here I cannot contain my jealousy for the extreme Right. Republicans talk about purging RINOs, or Republicans In Name Only, and put their money where their mouth is. Perhaps Democrats need to start talking about purging DINOs? I can’t convince myself that the Democratic Party is authentically working class any more than I can convince myself the Republican Party is authentically Christian. But rhetorically at least, the Dems should be adamantly pro-union and pro-choice, and any Democrat that’s not — I’m looking at you U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar — should get the same treatment as all the Republican incumbents who got primaried by Abbott this year.

“Party struggles lend a party strength and vitality,” Ferdinand Lassalle, the father of social democracy, wrote in a letter to Karl Marx in 1852. “The greatest proof of a party’s weakness is the blurring of clear demarcations. A party becomes stronger by purging itself.”

Whether you lean Republican or Democrat, I bid you good fortune in the purges to come.

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This article appears in Jun 12-25, 2024.