You are operating under false assumptions and painting all of us with that very large brush.
It’s OK. There’s been a lot of that going on lately from the rest of the country, and understandably so.
But just because some of our politicians are posturing loons doesn’t mean all of us are.
Abbott needs a big very visible win after that power grid fiasco. An easy one is to rescind the mask mandate. The base didn’t believe in it anyway, so he gets an immediate boost. And in a couple weeks, when infections spike AGAIN, there will be much wringing of hands and exclamations of “Who could have foreseen this”.
In the meantime, the rest of us are waiting for the 2022 elections.
And you’d be surprised at how many places still require a mask. Just because the state isn’t mandating it doesn’t mean that private businesses won’t.
All part of the “soft succession” that the Trumpists in red states are now engaged in.
Double down on the “stollen election trope”, enact more voter suppression legislation,
and ultimately, defend insurrection~
Yeah, I talked to my Austinite friends and my parents out near Marble Falls. They all are ignoring the bully in the wheelchair. I was kinda sorta hoping to visit them this autumn, when flights from Germany are allowed again (I hope), but now I’m going to suggest we go meet in some other state.
I think what is going on in Texas right now is a bit of sore loser mentality in the governor’s mansion: the mean-spirited asshole and his party are on the decline, so they are going to destroy and hurt as much as they can, even if it’s the equivalent of opening their own veins so that they can make blood stains all over you.
So is this a bid for the CSA to reopen the Civil War thru Bio-Weapons? Deliberately becoming CoVid hotspots (Tx, Ms, Fl.) to prolong the suffering of the entire country so the blame for the “failure to control” can be laid on their political opponents.? Yep.
Yes, I totally get that and have always understood that. I was just really confused by the assertion that Texas delivered more votes for Biden than California. What is true is that there are more Biden voters in Texas than in New York.
I like this map, which is as good an illustration as any as to why the electoral college is stupid and needs to go:
The degree of accuracy also kind of depends on what you mean by “The South”. When people blame “The South” for our current troubles, they mean something like “Those people who wave the confederate battle flag and want to protect statues of confederate soldiers, the people who identify with the confederacy”. Rural Indiana matches that much better than Atlanta.
That’s a good question, really. Utterly chagrined, still-mask-wearing Texan here. A few months back, all of the light-up traffic notice signs on the freeways had notifications saying that all people traveling from Louisiana must quarantine. That was in response to a sharp upswing in cases there. One data point, anyway.
I don’t know where that directive came from, or if it had any legal force behind it. But I can imagine surrounding states posting similar notices about Texas now. I don’t care what the Gov says, Covid cases are still around and vaccines are nowhere near to the levels they need to be. Oh, and apparently all of the new strains have been spotted here as well, so who knows if the vaccine will help.
This isn’t a wise, or even a particularly well rationalized, decision. It’s propaganda and vote-grubbing response to his constituent’s disaster fatigue.
The directive came from Abbot.
There wasn’t much enforcement. There are lots of gas refineries along the state line and they let people that worked across the line cross with no issue everyday. For other people they stopped everyone at the border and made them attest to quarantine for 2 weeks and give the address they would be at. No one checked those addresses, though, so it was just a spectacle to harass/discourage entrants from LA.
The states surrounding TX are all mostly republican (LA having a dem govenor is part of why Abbott put in the LA restriction), so will more likely follow suit in lifting restrictions than impose travel bans after Texas’ impending case spike
This is the intended way to operate - the states are a laboratory to see what works before setting federal policy. How can you be sure masks and shutdowns are effective unless you have some controls? (Kind of like using placebo, right?)
Never mind that all the other countries have the data from the past year. SMH
He was educated in Texas, so that helps explain his lack of understanding basic concepts.
Hey now! Don’t tar us all with the same brush! It’s not that most Texans are uneducated. That’s far from the truth. It’s just that educated, rational people aren’t polarizing enough to get elected.
…Are you really asking me to assume the worst about you, or are you just throwing everyone else under the bus?
Look, surely just about everyone has lived somewhere that has elected officials with views you are extremely disappointed in. I know I wouldn’t want to be judged by the quality of politicians that have ended up presiding over me. How hard is it to recognize other people may be in that same boat, instead of leaning on cheap geographic prejudices?
since i work in a grocery store, i get it. my store had a mask mandate before the state did, and it was hard pushing back against customers who refused.
on the other hand, all of the employees lives are now at risk. people will not only not wear masks, they’ll go shopping when they know they’ve been exposed, and when they feel sick.
( and i know feeling sick does not correlate with transmission, it’s just an example of how most people don’t think much about store employees as being real alive human beings. “it’s just one item” “i’ll be real quick” “it’s fine, it’s just my allergies” )
