Polarized Politics & Hispanic Identity: These Not So United States (TX, Part 4)

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March 22, 2022 | Dr. Henry Cisneros and Dr. Sharon Navarro on the competing identities of Hispanic Texans

The Purple Principle is visiting the Lone Star State throughout the month of March 2022 and wondering if the famously strong Texas identity is holding up under the powerful forces of red vs. blue throughout our nation. In Polarized Politics & Hispanic Identity, we focus the discussion on Hispanic Texans and, particularly, the large Tejano community (Texans of Mexican descent) in South Texas.  

Is the Tejano identity weakening or changing amidst nationwide polarization and the increasing attention being paid to Hispanics as swing voters? 

Two respected commentators weigh in on this and related issues. Former four-term San Antonio mayor, Henry Cisneros, provides an insightful critique of his own Democratic Party’s failings in Texas of late, as well the growing appeal of the GOP to specific groups of Hispanics, such as small business owners. 

“If all the appointments at the state level to serve on boards and commissions, if all of the invitations to you as a member of a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce are to be with like-minded business people, and they're all Republicans,” observes Cisneros. “Then at some point you say to yourself, ‘well, maybe that's where I should be if I want to advance.’”

Dr. Sharon Navarro, political scientist at UT San Antonio and author of Latina Legislator, feels that the Tejano identity still runs stronger and deeper than political party affiliation in South Texas. But she also notes that the GOP has been successfully conflating the identities of Texan and Republican while wielding power to full advantage in the region. This includes recruitment of Latina GOP candidates who fared well in the recent 2022 primary. 

“These Latinas are looking for an opportunity and the Republican Party has been listening,” observes Navarro. “You have new Latinas running for offices in South Texas that are getting endorsements from political heavyweights that you wouldn't see happening in the Democratic Party.”

Texas is not only as large as a good-sized European nation but more diverse as well, being 40% Hispanic statewide and 80% in the South Texas region, a majority being Tejano. For a deeper dive into Texas diversity, tune into Polarized Politics & Hispanic Identity: These Not So United States (TX, Part 4), with original music by long-time Texas resident Ryan Adair Rooney.

SHOW NOTES

Our Guests

Dr. Henry Cisneros, former four-term Mayor of San Antonio, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and former President of Univision. Currently a board member of the Bipartisan Policy Center. Dr. Cisneros on Twitter.


Dr. Sharon Navarro, Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and editor of Latinas in American Politics: Changing and Embracing Political Tradition. Dr. Navarro’s Faculty page, Twitter, website

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Transcript

Henry Cisneros

There was a former land commissioner in Texas who used to say the only thing in the center is yellow stripes and dead armadillos.

 Robert Pease (host) 

That’s Henry Cisneros, former four term Mayor of San Antonio. He was a Clinton Cabinet Secretary and former President of Univision, the largest spanish language broadcaster in the United States.

Henry Cisneros

And yet, I don't know how we can govern if we don't at least listen to both sides and find something that resembles compromise.

Robert Pease (host)

No armadillos will be harmed in this episode. But some ideological extremists may need to  moderate a bit. I’m Robert Pease and this is the Purple Principle, a podcast about the perils of polarization. And this is our fourth episode on how nationwide blue vs. redness might be eroding the strong, proud and neighborly Texas identity. Including that of Hispanic Texans, fully 40% of the population and growing. In recent elections, Hispanic voters and candidates have continued their shift toward the GOP, especially in South Texas.  

We’ll be speaking with Henry Cisneros on this trend as well as with political scientist Sharon Navarro of the University of Texas San Antonio:

Sharon Navarro 

You know, in Texas politics, the Republican Party, has sort of remade the Texas identity and sort of has it couched in party politics. And we see that in every aspect of our lives.

Robert Pease (host)

We’ll get back to current identity issues among Texans generally and the largest group of Hispanic Texans, the Tejanos of Mexican descent, just a bit later. But let’s start off at an interesting historical point for Tejanos and Hispanic Americans generally: the decision by Henry Cisneros to run for mayor of San Antonio. He was the youngest member ever elected to the City Council. Impressive graduate degrees.  But this was 1981, and there were no other Hispanic mayors of major cities in the U.S. So we asked Dr. Cisneros if he approached that initial decision to run for mayor with just a bit of trepidation.

Enter Interview

Multicultural Progress in America

Henry Cisneros

Well, there was a lot of trepidation because no Hispanic had been elected mayor here since 1836, at the time of the fall of the Alamo. A man named Juan Seguín was the mayor then. And in the intervening century and a half, there had been no one selected mayor. The times were changing, we had come through the civil rights movement. The city was ready for, kind of a new approach to its economic development, job development, social progress. And those were the themes that I had championed as a city council member, but I had no idea whether or not the majority Anglo population would support a Hispanic as mayor. 

Indeed on election day, I won 42% of that vote. So approaching a split, and that made it possible to be elected. I campaigned on what I hoped was a unifying theme, which was creation of jobs as we had never really emphasized before. A growth strategy for economic development. And I hoped that that would be a unifying theme that would have something for everyone, for the existing business community and as well as for people who were seeking to approve their lot in life and move to the middle class. It proved to be a good call. 

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah. Well, if you were back in 1981, looking at the current situation, we do see a much larger number of Hispanic candidates on both sides and both major parties. But you can also say primarily in Hispanic districts or states with a large Hispanic population. So from the 1981 standpoint, have we made as much progress as you would've hoped for?

Henry Cisneros

We've made an immense amount of progress. And I see it in the access to economic opportunity, in the breaking down of segregated housing patterns, where people can live in any neighborhood that they choose. I see it in the distribution of leadership, where we have Hispanics running some of the major institutions of the community: from the energy system to the water system, to the schools, to the higher education colleges. So a lot, a lot of progress. There's a great disconnect between the kind of consensus building we have created in San Antonio and what we're seeing in the state at large, which is a seeming roll back the clock and draw some old divisions, which I think are not productive. 

Robert Pease (host)

So one media-related question, you were president of Univision at a time when it grew very rapidly. And we, we wondered in your estimation, how important has that been for Hispanic identity in the US to have a media network like Univision?

Henry Cisneros

Well, I come from a tradition of being able to communicate to the Latino community in Spanish. My grandmother was the first Mexican-American woman to have a Spanish-language radio program in San Antonio, when she had a program in 1932 for an hour on English radio, but speaking Spanish and educating the community about Spanish literature and history and geography and culture. A radio station in San Antonio became the first Spanish radio station in the country, KCOR. And then our Spanish-language television station here, KWE,X was the first Spanish-language television station in the country. And it was the building block for the Univision network. So I have grown up with and seen and participated in Spanish language broadcasting. And polling was done to determine what sources of information Mexican Americans and Hispanics in the United States trusted. Univision was the number one most trusted element. Well, actually number two, second only to the Catholic Church. 

Texas Going it Alone with the Grid

Robert Pease (host)

Let's turn, if we may, to infrastructure and housing and urban planning to some degree, you've spent your career in and out of those important fields. And so first, a question about Texas and the grid failure last year during the deep freeze. We wonder if you think enough has been done since then to prevent future failures. And maybe a related question: in hindsight, what do you think of the decision in Texas to go it alone with the power grid and not connect to either of the two main national grids?

Henry Cisneros

I think it's absolutely clear that Texas has not done enough to prepare itself for another emergency, uh, and has not done enough to think through the interconnections of the power grid. When I was mayor, ERCOT, the Texas energy network, was created in order to be able to shift power around within the system and fill in gaps where one part of the state was down and power existed in another place. But ERCOT over time went the way of so many other things in Texas, which was just to become more ideological and less strictly a  service to the utilities. And the ideology was that Texas would go it alone, that somehow our system was better, that it would be less regulated. And that proved to be a very fateful decision, because when we hit an emergency, there wasn't the ability to draw power beyond Texas, and we came very close to a complete and total breakdown of the system. 

[Archival Audio - News about the 2021 storm and grid failure]


Henry Cisneros

As it was in San Antonio, where power had to be rotated, we had utter disaster. And clearly it was all a function of just ill thought out strategies on the part of ERCOT and the leaders of our power system. I see no reason why Texas should not be integrated into the national power grid, instead of this sort of ego-centric mantra that Texas can do it better if it does it alone.

Robert Pease (host)

And are there any efforts underway to try and sway the legislature or the governor to do that? Or is it politically impossible at this time?
Henry Cisneros

I think the legislature and the present Governor are unswayable.

Robert Pease (host)

So let's talk about infrastructure nationally. Uh, we did have a bipartisan bill pass, uh, the Senate with 19 Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell, and some Senator Republicans saved the bill to some extent in the House, when progressives went the other way. So, were you surprised at that outcome, or did you think there was just so much consensus, so much need, for infrastructure upgrades that that bill was gonna pass?

Henry Cisneros

I was not surprised, because I've been working on infrastructure for a long time. I am a board member at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and Chair of several committees. And including in my committee assignments was work in infrastructure. And so I've been championing federal action on this for a long time.

The shortfall of infrastructure needs in the country was somewhere between $2 and $3 trillion worth of spending necessary.  I know that there are so many dimensions where we have near-emergency situations– bridges that are deemed unsafe, water systems that are a hundred years old, in some places still with wooden pipes and the toxic dimensions of that as we saw in Flint and even New York City. So, I'm not surprised that there was a bipartisan consensus. I wish it had, it had been even stronger. 

Bipartisanship on Immigration, and No Monopoly on Hispanic Voters

Robert Pease (host)

We've had a couple of guests speak to, you know, perhaps if there's a glimmer of hope there for some bipartisanship in light of infrastructure, maybe to a lesser degree on the U.S. Postal Service. Do you feel that there's any possibility for bipartisanship on immigration? 

Henry Cisneros

We have thought for the longest time that an overarching immigration bill was the way to proceed. That is to say, to take the three critical legs of border security, a path to citizenship, and legalization of people who have been here for a long time, together. However, most analysts believe today and I think my work at the Bipartisan Policy Center again underscores this conclusion, that it will be necessary to split pieces of that apart. 

There are elements that do involve the potential for bipartisan support, like the DACA young people who have come here as children. Many of them have done great things in our country, including serve in the military, graduate from college, hold jobs in key sectors. People we need. People we want to be citizens of this country. And if they were to be forced to return to their home country, they return without family to places they don't know anything about. I have personal examples in my life of young people that I have worked with and know, and have helped, who are in that situation.

Thank goodness for the Executive Order that made it possible under President Obama for those students to stabilize their lives further. And now they're just sort of in a strange limbo.

Robert Pease (host)

Yeah, so it feels like in recent elections, some Democrats have been surprised that they don't have a political monopoly over Hispanic voters. And we have seen some movement towards the Republican Party. In your experience there in Texas, are Hispanic Texans naturally independent? Do many of them just not feel comfortable with either major party?

Henry Cisneros

Well, traditionally in Texas, up to about 75 to 80% of Hispanics have thought of themselves as Democrats. And principally, it has been driven by the aspirational dimension of Latino politics, which is people want to advance. And Democrats have been the party that have been been supportive of improvements in education, bilingual education, scholarships and financing for education, job training, the opportunity to create affirmative action-type programs that open the door within the workplace, small business programs, and a range of things that are on this aspirational track. This ladder, if you will, of upward mobility. Republicans in many instances have opposed those things. And therefore Latinos have traditionally gravitated to the Democratic Party. We have seen that begin to break down, and I suspect it will break down even further. In the last election, some of the poorest areas of Texas, which had been the bluest areas of Texas, were actually carried by President Trump in this last election.

And the question is well, why? Well, in part, many of them are evangelical, and that puts them in a certain place with respect to the right to life versus choice questions. Also, they live in rural areas and  they use guns, and they were really nervous about the Democratic positions, which seem to be, take away people's guns. We know that's not the case, but that's the way they were pitched and pursued. They are also people who run small businesses and were worried about the impact of regulation on small businesses. The Republicans have made a point of being the party of business. So for a lot of reasons, Latinos were sort of saying, ‘well, wait a minute, if this is what I believe, it's out of sync with my traditional Democratic leaning, I have to at least consider the Republican Party.” And I think we're seeing that. And I expect we're probably gonna see more of it.

Now, politics is a marketplace of ideas. And when Democrats can figure out that things that might work from a left point of view in New York don't work in rural Texas, then they will make accommodations on the spectrum of ideas that bring Latinos back. But if they don't, then they do risk losing some major portions of the population. 

Exit Interview


Robert Pease (Host) 

We’re talking with Dr. Henry Cisneros, former Democratic Mayor of San Antonio and Housing Secretary under President Clinton. He just gave us a candid critique of his own Democratic party’s ideas in the political marketplace today, and why they’re not faring as well with Hispanic voters. We’ll hear more from Dr. Cisneros later in this episode. Our next guest, Dr. Sharon Navarro, is a political scientist at UT San Antonio who specializes in Latino and Latina politics, with emphasis on political participation.

Let’s hear Dr. Navaro’s assessment of the long proudly held Texan and Tejano identities under red and blue assault from nationwide polarization of all things political, including things that shouldn’t be remotely political.

Enter Interview

Polarization Trends in South Texas

Dr. Sharon Navarro

There's a saying in Texas among Texans, that everything is big in Texas and that's true with the identity and labels. If you're from Texas, you are a Texan. If you are a mix between Latin descent and Texan, you're a Tejano or Tejana, and then you're a Texan. And closely after the identity of the Texan is Conservative or Democrat.

Robert Pease (Host)

Yeah. So we've had a couple of previous guests speak to this, the Editor of Texas Monthly, Dan Goodgame agrees with you, Texans are Texans first. But we also had a couple of guests from the podcast Y'all-itics, based in Dallas, who feel like, well, maybe not as much as 20 years ago. Have you noticed any erosion or weakening or polarizing of the Texas identity in that time?

Dr. Sharon Navarro 

Sure. You know, in Texas politics, the Republican party has sort of remade the Texas identity and sort of has it couched in party politics. And we see that in every aspect of our lives. In studies that I have done on social media looking at Twitter, specifically in Texas and on Texas issues, just about every issue that you see on Twitter comes down to, oh that's a Republican problem, or it's a Democratic problem. So you simply can't get away from the hyper-politicalization or hyper-partisanship in Texas. It is alive and well;  it's part of Texas identity now.

Robert Pease

Yeah. Now how does that affect the Tejano community around you? Are there families, you know, sort of riven by that polarization or communities or neighborhoods, that are polarizing on a smaller scale just as the nation is in a bigger way?

Dr. Sharon Navarro 

Sure. National politics and the hyper-politicalization that you see at the national level certainly falls down to the local, particularly in school board elections. The hyper-partisanship and the divisions fall along any economic line job lines where you can easily divide communities based on economic situations. And that's what you see within the Latino community in Texas. You also see that in health care, you also see that in education. So every aspect of the Latino electorate, similar to the larger American electorate, is affected.

Robert Pease

We also spoke recently with Dr. Geraldo Cadava at Northwestern about his Atlantic article and other articles on the myth of the Hispanic voter,  the overgeneralization and the fact that people are obviously now discovering the diversity in that term. So tell us about that diversity in southern Texas, are there now immigrants from countries other than Mexico? Are there generational cleavages as well as country of origin?

Dr. Sharon Navarro 

Right. So the primary constituency is of Mexican-American descent, but you do have smaller pockets of other Central Americans making it across the border. So when we look at the Hispanic voting myth, you have to take into a much more complex view, the generational differences, the educational differences, whether or not children are born in Mexico or in Central America, or whether they're born here. You also have to look at migration patterns, first immigration generation versus second and third. The farther way you are in generations, the least likely you are to see issues like immigration important. So understanding the Hispanic vote is complex, and there are a lot of cultural nuances that candidates have to take into view when they try to mobilize the base and bring them out.

Robert Pease (Host)

And how about gender? There's been some articles about Latinos tending towards the Republican Party in recent elections, you know, to the surprise of the Democratic Party. Is that true in your community? And is that the case with, with Latinas or not to the same degree?

Dr. Sharon Navarro 

Oh, I think it, you know, when I hear discussions about, you know, is this new to the Democratic Party, these sort of changes have been taking place for quite some time. It's just that the Democratic Party hasn't been listening to these changes. And while there is a higher propensity of male Latino voters to vote for the Republican Party, there are also some Latinas who are returning or turning to the Republican Party because they see the systemic dominance of the Democratic Party in Southern Texas. These candidates have been there for quite some time. And then when they decide to retire, there is already a male heir apparent. And so these Latinas are looking for an opportunity and the Republican Party has been listening. You have new Latinas running for offices or newly minted candidates that are of Latin, female descent running for offices in South Texas that are getting endorsements from political heavyweights that you wouldn't see happening in the Democratic Party. And when you see these kinds of support in the Republican party, you're going to have more Latinas turn to that party because they feel like they're being listened to, and the issues that they feel the Democratic Party is ignoring are being dealt with in the Republican Party.

Exit Interview

Robert Pease (Host)

That’s Dr. Sharon Navarro of UT San Antonio, Political Scientist on Tejanos, meaning Americans of Mexican descent in South Texas.

An important point there about Republican efforts in that region, where about 80% of residents are Hispanic. The GOP is gradually breaking down Democratic  dominance in South Texas, a few decades after taking full control of the state government up North.

Let’s go back to Dr. Henry Cisneros on the subject of Hispanics in Texas moving towards the GOP.  The structural strength of the Republican over the Democratic party obviously has a lot to do with that. But what about progressive Democratic rhetoric on open borders or on shutting down the oil and gas industry in a region heavily employed by that sector? And what about the rhetoric on cultural issues?  Could that induce backlash among more culturally conservative Tejanos?

We’re talking with Dr. Henry Cisneros, former Democratic Mayor of San Antonio and Housing Secretary under President Clinton. He just gave us a candid critique of his own Democratic party’s ideas in the political marketplace today, and why they’re not faring as well with Hispanic voters. We’ll hear more from Dr. Cisneros later in this episode. Our next guest, Dr. Sharon Navarro, is a political scientist at UT San Antonio who specializes in Latino and Latina politics, with emphasis on political participation.

Let’s hear Dr. Navaro’s assessment of the long proudly held Texan and Tejano identities under red and blue assault from nationwide polarization of all things political, including things that shouldn’t be remotely political.

Enter Interview

Dr. Henry Cisneros

I do think that frequently we pursue some idea that's emerged from some academic or other place that  assumes that everyone automatically has to adopt it because that defines whether we're left of center or not. And the world really doesn't work that way. Latinx was a good example. The idea of putting an ‘X’ in order to not have to choose between ‘Latino’ or ‘Latina’, but have something that was universal to both the ‘o’, the ‘a’, and everybody else just didn't catch on with folks. You just can't introduce something like that and expect everybody to automatically: A) understand it or B) absorb it. And after a while it becomes a negative symbol of where the society is headed and people react in a negative way.

[Archival Audio - News report about the term ‘LatinX’]

Democrat’s Disadvantage in Texas

Dr. Henry Cisneros

I think we saw that in that case, and there are many, many others. So I think that progressives, people to the left, Democrats generally, would do well to try to put yourself in other people's shoes who are striving to create a better life for their families, who want the best possible education for their children in basic ways and in traditional ways, with respect to views about the country and patriotism, for example, and who want to create the best working environment possible and make an income and buy a home. And that's still where the majority of America is.

Robert Pease (Host)

Yeah, it sure seems to be the case both nationally and in Texas. We've spoken to Dr. James Henson from the Texas Politics Project, and we thought Dr. Henson had an interesting point about just the structural imbalances in Texas politics right now: 

[Archival Audio - Dr. James Henson]

Dr. James Henson

You know, the Democratic Party here has not had any statewide incumbents as you know, in 20 years. And you don't have to believe that politics are driven entirely by patronage to note that incumbency has its advantages in cultivating party resources. And so, you know you get in a position where you're just so structurally disadvantaged that it almost changes the fundamental nature of political competition… 

Robert Pease (Host)

Yeah. So, interesting observation there. Do you feel the structural advantages of Republicans at this point are overwhelming? 

Dr. Henry Cisneros

No, I wouldn't say overwhelming, but I would say they're substantial. And that was a brilliant analysis of a problem that I've noted and have spoken to over the years, which is that, you know, in the way politics works, if you were a young, Hispanic in business and you wanted to progress in your community, you're gonna relate to the people who are in power. And if all the appointments at the state level to serve on boards and commissions, if all of the invitations to you as a member of a Hispanic chamber of commerce are to be with like-minded business people, and they're all Republicans, then at some point you say to yourself, ‘well, maybe that's where I should be if I want to advance.’ And that is an immense advantage of controlling all of the levers of power. And the Republicans for 20 years have controlled not only every office, but I was told the other day that every single appointment to any body in Texas is now a hundred percent appointed by Republican officials.

And I think a lot of Latinos are sort of seeing that. And then they figure out, well, I wanna do this for business and professional reasons, but it also begins to match their own philosophy, their own politics of support for small businesses and lower taxes, the focus on issues of faith, for example, and the evangelical causes, et cetera, and some kind of a momentum begins to happen.

Robert Pease (Host)

Well, the last question we ask all of our listeners, is to show a bit of purple and name one Republican, one Democrat, either currently in office or in recent memory, who you think was able to transcend the partisanship that does paralyze so much of our politics.

Dr. Henry Cisneros

I think on the Republican side, Lisa Murkowski has proven to be a very courageous person in Alaska. It's a conservative state and she's a conservative person, but I think she really speaks in common sense language. She is probably gonna take some flack from the Trump folks, but she's willing to do that and run on her principles. And I think Alaska's the kind of independent thinking place that can elect such a person.

[Archival Audio - Lisa Murkowski]

Dr. Henry Cisneros

On the Democratic side in the Senate, I would say Senator Warner of Virigina. Virginia is a purple state, some people had thought it was blue but we learned that it probably is still a purple place that's very competitive in the last gubernatorial election. But Senator Warner has been Governor and Senator in a place where you have to run both in the Northern suburbs of Virginia, around Washington, and in Richmond and small communities to the South and West.

 [Archival Audio - Mark Warner]


Dr. Henry Cisneros

And here’s my take on that. I saw that during this discussion over Build Better, and the way the left was hammering Senator Manchin as if he should not consider himself a Democrat, because basically he was listening and saying, we wanna do this in a bipartisan way. That was his sin, that was his offense. And it just struck me that the problem from the left was, they thought that America is just like them, but it's not. There are a lot of other views and a lot of other people. And if you're not big enough to put yourself in other people's shoes, listen to them, hear out their concerns, really try to understand the depths of their, of their passions, right, and say, okay, we can figure out a way, maybe, to find some middle ground, or we should at least try, then a critical element of how democracy ought to function will be missing, is missing. And that's true on both sides.

Exit Interview

Robert Pease (Host)

That was one of two special guests today, Dr. Henry Cisneros, former four-term Mayor of San Antonio, Clinton-era Cabinet Secretary, and Board Member of the Bipartisan Policy Center. A really important insight there about young Hispanic business owners turning towards a Texas Republican Party that has controlled all levers of power and of appointment for two plus decades now.

Dr. Sharon Navarro, our other special guest today, concurs that the Republican Party in Texas has been wielding power to full advantage. Her research also finds that polarization is infecting and inflaming a range of issues in South Texas: Public health, education, immigration, and energy. Yet, on the whole, she feels the Texan and Tejano identities still run stronger and deeper than political redness and blueness. 

Both important viewpoints on the current scene in South Texas and a window on the great diversity within the Lone Star State. 

But next up on the Purple Principle, a broad lesson in Texas history, culture, and identity of the most entertaining and articulate kind. Our guests will be New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright and novelist Stephen Harrigan, long time friends and neighbors in Austin, Texas.

[Look Ahead Audio - Stephen Harrigan and Lawrence Wright]

Stephen Harrigan

And every Texas governor in his or her heart still believes that they're the reincarnation of Sam Houston.

Lawrence Wright

It’s not true, and they don't live up to that, I have to say.


Robert Pease (Host)

Wright and Harrigan were fated to meet and collaborate. They were born in the same hospital in the same year in a neighboring state.  Wright is the author of the Pulitzer prize winning non fiction book The Looming Tower, among many other books and plays. His journalistic memoir God Save Texas describes some explorations with Stephen Harrigan. He’s the author of the award-winning novel The Gates of The Alamo, and the widely praised history of Texas, A Big Wonderful Thing.

[Look Ahead Audio - Stephen Harrigan and Lawrence Wright]

Stephen Harrigan

You see the power of its iconography and its imagery, and you don't want to turn your back on that necessarily. It's not all toxic as some people believe, it's a very complex identity.

Lawrence Wright

Yeah. We also have to point out that a lot of people here are tax refugees. So they're identifying with the tax code more than with the identity.


Robert Pease (host)

We’ll sit back a bit and let Lawrence Wright and Stephen Harrigan discuss and debate the magnetic appeal Texas has held for so long. As well as how the Lone Star State is changing economically, socially, and politically, while also resisting a good chunk of that change.

We hope you’ll join us then, support us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions, and, If you’re a regular listener of The Purple Principle, please leave us a review! One recent Apple 5-star reviewer says we’re one of his “ASAP listen-to’s” and “one of the best edited podcasts out there.” These kinds of messages really keep us going AND help get the show into more podcast feeds.

And if you’re not sure where and how to review us, please go to RateThisPodcast.com/Purple for a bit of guidance.

A special shout out to Senior Audio Engineer Kevin A. Kline, who consistently gets rave reviews for audio quality. And special thanks to Texas influenced composer Ryan Adair Rooney for the original scoring. The Purple Principle is a Fluent Knowledge production.

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