Analyst: Texas is in ‘full-on culture war’
In Texas the politics of COVID-19 ratcheted up this week with head-spinning speed, and the divides — Republican vs. Democrat, state vs. local — grew even deeper. Masks, seen by public-health officials as a crucial tool to control the spread of the disease as people go back out into the world, have instead become partisan symbols.
To explain what’s going on, we turned to veteran journalist Scott Braddock, co-host of Texas Take , the Houston Chronicle’s politics podcast, and editor of Quorum Report , a newsletter as pugnacious as the Texas politicians it covers.
Could you start by giving us an overview of Texas’ political situation with the coronavirus?
If anybody thought that this would not devolve into a full-on culture war, then I would like to welcome them to Texas. Stay awhile! This is what we do around here.
It’s happening in other parts of the state and other parts of the country as well. But I think it’s extra pronounced here because of the kind of politics that we have. When someone says Texans can’t get their hair cut or can’t their nails done, the first thing people here think is “Come and take it!” That’s Texas.
Last week the governor of Texas and the state attorney general were threatening the Montgomery County judge, saying that if the county didn’t keep hair salons and gyms shut down, etc., that people could be prosecuted. The governor was trying to use a heavy hand and say that from his office, he’s able to mandate certain businesses be shut down.
Basically, the governor and the attorney general were saying, “People might end up in jail if folks don’t do what we say.” Gov. Abbott was saying this was all about doctors and data, what’s good for people and keeping people safe.
In the meantime, political pressure came to bear. As soon as somebody actually went to jail up in Dallas, it was like they never said that. Conservative activist Republican lawmakers spoke out, defending the salon owner, Shelley Luther, and this became a national story.
Luther was sent to jail for contempt of court because this is a civil matter. You almost never see people in civil court go sit in the jailhouse, but she was going to have to do that because she refused to follow the order. The judge said that if she would just apologize and shut down her hair salon, he would let her go. How many criminal defendants would love to be in that situation? To just say they’re sorry and not go to jail?
But instead, Luther said that she would go to jail. Because this is a civil matter, she could only be held for seven days.
There was a quick court action at the Texas Supreme Court. The court said that Luther could be free for now, while this is all worked out.
And the governor and attorney general have demanded that she be released. The governor has completely backed off what he said. A couple of weeks ago he was saying that he’d have local jurisdictions enforce stay-athome orders as they saw fit. Then he was saying that they needed to lock people up. Now he’s saying, retroactively, that people shouldn’t be locked up for violating these orders.
So this has turned quickly into the kind of politics we’re used to in Texas: the Tea Party-style, don’t-tread-on-me, libertyover-safety sort of messaging.
Though Abbott has talked about doctors and data publicly, we’ve heard different things from him privately. Could you talk about the recording that was leaked?
Over the last two months, Texas government has really been conducted largely in secret, with the governor convening most members of the Texas Legislature along with members of Congress on massive conference calls, and telling them his version of events in private. The media is not allowed to listen to these calls.
Some audio leaked from Abbott’s conversation with lawmakers last Friday in which he said something different from what he has said publicly. Jeremy Wallace at the Houston Chronicle had reported very well on that. Publicly the governor has been saying that we’re going to see a spike in COVID-19 cases because we have more testing going on. And that makes sense, right? The more testing we do, the more positives tests are going to come up.
But that was not said what he said to lawmakers in private. He said — this was the quote — “It’s almost ipso facto, the more that you have people out there, the greater possibility there is for transmission of the disease.”
What he’s saying is that the more you open up business, the more the disease will spread. That’s not at all what he had said publicly.
The president and the governor and other elected officials all over the country are all talking about this in different ways.
Texas’ governor and the president have been talking about it sort of like they can wrap a warm blanket around everybody and act as if they can have everything — that people can have their cake and eat it too, that we can have a robust economy and go back to the way that it kind of was, and not be putting people at risk of catching this nasty disease.
And that’s just not true, according to the science.
After Abbott’s comments were leaked, Republicans said to me, why didn’t he just say this in his initial announcement about opening the state up for business? Why didn’t he just say that, yes, we are going to be putting people at greater risk of transmitting the disease and catching the disease by opening up business. That way, at least people could make informed decisions for their own health, for the people in their lives.
Trying to keep people from catching the disease is a community effort. It’s not just about you individually and whether you would get the disease, but whether you would carry it to other people.
For instance, a lot of folks are sheltering in place who don’t necessarily care if they get the disease personally. But they think that if they get the disease, and are an asymptomatic carrier, they could give it to one of their elderly relatives.
But the governor has not, in public any way, been straight with folks about that — that as business opens up, there’s more of a chance that people will track in this disease. But it’s certainly what he said when he was on a private conference call.
I’ve been interested in the symbolism of face masks. We don’t see Gov. Abbott wearing a face mask in his press conferences — but you’d think that to keep businesses open, we’d want to do everything we can to prevent transmission. Do you see a split there?
It’s interesting, the political science about way that our elected officials appear. Officials in the big cities, like Houston mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, wear masks when they do press conferences, and they make the point that people should wear them.
Lt. Governor Dan Patrick wears masks when he goes to certain photo opportunities. He sends email to supporters that include photos and media clips, and I saw that when he was in East Texas, he was wearing a mask when he was out and about with just regular folks. But in other instances, he does not.
I don’t think I’ve seen Gov. Abbott wear a mask once during this entire thing, and President Trump doesn’t wear the mask. The elected Republican leadership seem interested in saying that they encourage people to wear masks. But Democrats are the ones showing people that they are wearing masks and leading by example.
The politics of the mask is fascinating. It’s a standup-and-be-counted moment. If you’re wearing the mask, everyone can see that you’re doing it right.
It’s interesting to see how angry some people are about it. The thing in Texas is, it’s redneck politics:
We have such an independent streak. People just don’t like to be told what to do.