New Orleans Texas is a red state with a headache. The cities are becoming bluer and bluer, and a huge number of the F150 pickup driving, cowboy boot wearing folks are Latinos. A visit to Houston might be educational for the president. For example, President Trump doesn’t understand that the border stretches all the way into the city without even stopping for gas.
Before a screening of “The Organizer” at the Harris County AFL-CIO building, I pulled into the giant, fenced parking lot across the street with the boldly painted letters spelling Taqueria. Walking in the largest set of doors, I then realized that I was actually in a bus station. The space was cavernous and the buses were all going back and forth to Mexico with couples, families, and elderly with their belongings sitting quietly and chatting of the benches. In the taqueria of the two servers, only one young woman spoke any English, while the other spoke nothing but Spanish, and since I was the only Anglo anywhere nearby, it didn’t pose any problems in this establishment.
A day is coming when Texas and its huge number of voters will once again be the kingmaker and replace Florida as the critical battleground for national politics. Trump likely could care less how much he alienates the millions in Texas with Mexican roots and relatives, but the future of the Republican Party, and perhaps the Democratic Party as well, will pivot on the fact that Texas is a bilingual and multi-ethnic, multi-racial state. Heck, there are already two candidates in the Democratic list for president with Texas roots!
Keep this thought in the foreground as we contemplate the alternate reality that Trump is now trying to create of the border and the crisis of tens of thousands of migrant families fleeing Central America and flooding into the United States as he attempts to bully Mexico into creating the dike, and it becomes clear he is the little boy with his small fingers in the hole. First, there were threats of tariffs, destabilizing the symbiotic human and economic realities of the border. Pout, pout, whine, whine, he wanted Mexico to somehow solve the problem for the whole continent, which is as ridiculous a proposition as his claim that they would pay for his wall. Then he swore he had a deal, except all involved on both sides of the table argue that all of the announced agreements had been made months ago. Then in another twitter storm, he seemed to be claiming that there were secret side agreements which the Mexican foreign minister categorically denies. This is our president, and this is how we now do foreign policy and trade negotiations.
This isn’t a Trump reality show, it’s a complete farce, but any time in Texas within hundreds of miles of the border quickly demonstrates it’s not a farce, but a tragedy. And, it gets worse. In his madness, he claims victory from this Mexican mess of his own making, and now claims he’s going to see if he can do the same thing with China.
Via con Dios!