People will lose those rights in almost all states regardless if the Supreme Court rules to overturn Roe. There are no Supreme Court Justices allotted to Texas. Most blue states don’t have their own abortion rights laws on the books. Many won’t be able to pass them. Good luck in Pennsylvania.
Even if they can - that won’t help people in the interim.
And transgender people’s bodily autonomy is under fire in so many states. Just as all LGBT rights are. Don’t have a statewide nondiscrimination law (like PA again) - you’re shit out of luck. Don’t have a marriage equality law on the books in your state - which almost none do - good luck when they overturn Obergefell and retroactively invalidate your marriage.
Regardless of the immediate legal repercussions- the social repercussions and far right ginning up of violence won’t respect state borders. Only this time it’ll be implemented by organized paramilitary groups.
Just to add to this point, at the height of the CR movement, there would be people who would say that to activist. But that’s where the real fight was. Racism was and is a national problem, but the core fight had to be in the south, because that was where it was most solidly enshrined in law and cultural practices. To get those laws overturned, that’s where the fight had to fought. Same here. While, the entire country has a problem with this current incarnation of the far right, places like Texas and other GOP dominated states have the most visible manifestation in state governments (with Abbott and Desantis the most obvious examples). You don’t win a war by only focusing on the margins only.
I could take the easy route. I mean, I live overseas in Germany, have since 1990, and so on. But I am still active in Democrats Abroad, and when I go back to the USA, I visit my parents… who moved to Texas after I emigrated. At first it was El Paso, a pretty progressive neighborhood, and Anne Richards was governor, but it kept getting worse. I think the worst part was seeing the Trump flags this past May, when I finally got to visit them again (they now live in Granite Shoals, in the Texas hill country). The signs proclaiming open hostility to Democrats and the Trump flags left me feeling nauseous.
So yeah, I could say fuck it, all too easily. Texas ain’t my state. I could even apply for German citizenship.
But I won’t.
I plan on supporting my parents to the end, returning to them if I have to and not leaving it to my sister. And I have friends in the Austin area, who I also cannot abandon. So I will fight for the soul of Texas, because it does not belong to the fascists, as much as they would like to pretend it does. It already escaped its history as a plantation state, with the cowboy myth.
And yeah, Texas Republicans are evil, evil assholes.
I can even add one more: I was at the Dachau memorial, where the concentration camp was. Dachau was a Texas Republican’s wet dream, where Social Democrats and sexual deviants and other undesirables were thrown in with rapists, to humiliate and denigrate those they detested. And in the two weeks I was with my parents, I got the same vibe when I went for evening walks (hey, I have been in Europe and walk a lot). The places I saw with Trump flags were the epitome of selfishness, with well manicured lawns that basically said “fuck all y’all, I can afford to waste water in a drought!” Or were run-down businesses, oblivious to how they were driving away Latinx customers.
For the record, my parents vote Democrat, and are active in the Catholic church choir, and I love them dearly. I am thankful for the compassion and critical thinking they gave me when I was young.
To steal a line - how many divisions does the Texas Republican Party have?
The Texas National Guard is actually under the US Department of Defense- and is only 17,000 strong. “There were a total of 1.195 million active-duty military and more than 778,000 reserve forces according to September 2021.”
The US Border Guards being reassigned might be something they would see as a problem. What will happen to their elders social security? Medicare? How will they trade with the rest of the country going forward? How large will our tariffs be?
Can Texas grow all its own food?
And worst for many Texans - who will your football teams play against? You’ll never, ever win a division or national championship again.
