The all-Republican court narrowly found that the nonprofit corporation operating the state’s electrical grid qualifies for sovereign immunity, which protects government entities from lawsuits.
The people who voted for these politicians are by and large not the demographics being fucked over by those policies. I also used to feel like the right response was to laugh at these states, and being reminded that people who didn’t want these policies are still suffering from them didn’t really convince me of anything–after all, collectively, isn’t that the community they’re choosing to live in?
What changed my mind about that is realizing the harm is disproportionately distributed. Disenfranchised people are LESS likely to vote republican but MORE likely to suffer the effects of republican government. So when “they get what they voted for”, it’s really, “the poor get what the rich voted for”, and that doesn’t make me happy to laugh at at all.
Republican actions have prevented a number of people from voting over the years, and a shockingly small number of people choose to vote even when they can. If people would just get off their asses, Texas politics would be turned on its head. Here’s some quick google results:
On December 17, 2020, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrats, 25% identified as Republicans, and 41% as Independent.
In Texas, 45.7% of the 17.7 million registered voters cast ballots in the 2022 midterm election. That’s 7.3 percentage points lower than the state’s total turnout in 2018 but higher than in every other midterm election in the last 20 years.
[In the 2022] At least 18,000 Texas mail-in votes were rejected in the first election under new GOP voting rules
this is true. i lived in a very red state for most my life, and always felt my vote didn’t matter. i went through the motions of voting, but didn’t feel i would have a real impact. i did it because i felt a sense of civic duty, but I’m a white cis dude so i didn’t feel the effects like someone else might so i cant blame them if they don’t feel that same sense of duty.
Even just somethingike working two jobs, or working while in college, or being a single parent, or being tasked with unpaid care work (e.g. taking care of a sick parent for free, and also still having to work your regular job for pay), and so on can do it, even aside from the obvious vote oppression efforts.
collectively, yes–and there are consequences which flow from that, yes, at least for some offices.[1] but in Texas alone there are five million people, before non-voters and third party voters, who voted for Biden. i’m pretty sure those people don’t deserve to suffer just because slightly more people in their state voted for a ghoul.
Texas is of course quite gerrymandered, so “vote them out” is not exactly a universal option for people. ↩︎
Even the people who did vote for this and othwr idiocy don’t deserve to die in the cold for their mistakes. They deserve to live, as anyone does, and they deserve the chance to learn from their mistakes.
yeah, that’s the corollary here: the fact that there are consequences for doing a dumb thing doesn’t mean people should inherently suffer for doing the dumb thing.
Yeah, which is why I don’t think republicans should be allowed to vote. But that opinion isn’t too popular.
And since they’ll always be allowed to vote, and people like Boebert and MTG will always be allowed to hold public office (no matter how many innocent people die as a result of their participation in government), then all I can do is laugh when they get fucked.
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Texas republican voters getting exactly what they voted for.
Pardon me while I laugh my fucking ass off.
The people who voted for these politicians are by and large not the demographics being fucked over by those policies. I also used to feel like the right response was to laugh at these states, and being reminded that people who didn’t want these policies are still suffering from them didn’t really convince me of anything–after all, collectively, isn’t that the community they’re choosing to live in?
What changed my mind about that is realizing the harm is disproportionately distributed. Disenfranchised people are LESS likely to vote republican but MORE likely to suffer the effects of republican government. So when “they get what they voted for”, it’s really, “the poor get what the rich voted for”, and that doesn’t make me happy to laugh at at all.
Yup. I didn’t vote for those fuckheads, but guess who got displaced for a week because they didn’t have power during that storm? Yeah, that’s me.
Texas republican voters don’t care, and the rest of the texans who didn’t vote for this are also the most impacted.
Texas voters: [Votes for this]
Also Texas voters:
unfortunately, what they voted for also hurt (and in this case killed) a ton of people, who now have no recourse and get completely fucked. not great!
That’s exactly what they voted for… including the no recourse part. That’s what republicans do, this isn’t a surprise.
Republican actions have prevented a number of people from voting over the years, and a shockingly small number of people choose to vote even when they can. If people would just get off their asses, Texas politics would be turned on its head. Here’s some quick google results:
makes me think that the people who don’t vote are pretty happy with how things are going.
Or they’ve been beaten into submission to believe their vote doesn’t matter. I guess that’s what happens when you live under an oppressive government.
this is true. i lived in a very red state for most my life, and always felt my vote didn’t matter. i went through the motions of voting, but didn’t feel i would have a real impact. i did it because i felt a sense of civic duty, but I’m a white cis dude so i didn’t feel the effects like someone else might so i cant blame them if they don’t feel that same sense of duty.
Or they are unable to vote. Since there are so many hurdles they have to overcome to be able to vote.
Even just somethingike working two jobs, or working while in college, or being a single parent, or being tasked with unpaid care work (e.g. taking care of a sick parent for free, and also still having to work your regular job for pay), and so on can do it, even aside from the obvious vote oppression efforts.
collectively, yes–and there are consequences which flow from that, yes, at least for some offices.[1] but in Texas alone there are five million people, before non-voters and third party voters, who voted for Biden. i’m pretty sure those people don’t deserve to suffer just because slightly more people in their state voted for a ghoul.
Texas is of course quite gerrymandered, so “vote them out” is not exactly a universal option for people. ↩︎
Even the people who did vote for this and othwr idiocy don’t deserve to die in the cold for their mistakes. They deserve to live, as anyone does, and they deserve the chance to learn from their mistakes.
yeah, that’s the corollary here: the fact that there are consequences for doing a dumb thing doesn’t mean people should inherently suffer for doing the dumb thing.
Yeah, which is why I don’t think republicans should be allowed to vote. But that opinion isn’t too popular.
And since they’ll always be allowed to vote, and people like Boebert and MTG will always be allowed to hold public office (no matter how many innocent people die as a result of their participation in government), then all I can do is laugh when they get fucked.