Texas is enigmatic, a love/hate thing. The greatest American novel, Lonesome Dove, is quintessential Texas and Texans. Woodrow Call and Gus McCray are the greatest characters ever put to a page. Ditto Giant, the Edna Ferber masterpiece and Hollywood classic. Yet for every Bick Benedict there is a Jet Renk, for every Molly Ivins a Louie Gohmert. When I worked on the mountain in Breckinridge, CO renting skis back in 1984, oil prices were sky high and Texans were easy to spot by the full length fur coats worn on the slopes… honest to God! Yet I also worked with John Miller, born and bred in Arlington, Texas, and as folksy and wise as anybody I’ve known. Mixed bag.
Nothing would salve our wounded republic like the election of Beto O’Rourke to the US Senate. And nothing will clarify our ruin more than his quixotic quest coming to naught. That’s how high the stakes are in Texas; it’s all or nothing. Either glorious redemption of the promise we possess, or sad confirmation of the morass we have become. A referendum on the future, not only of America, but the world we once led, and are now becoming irrelevant to at astonishing speed.
Anyone watching the first O’Rourke-Cruz debate without a jaundiced eye was impressed by the contrast between candidates, straight out of Hollywood casting really. At one lectern was this ball of enlightenment. Handsome, intense, thoughtful and well spoken. Each answer he gave went to a frustrating extreme trying to avoid partisan tropes. Two obsessions emerged consistently in his responses: the overarching need for more empathy regarding fellow citizens suffering at the whims of an indifferent, sometimes even malevolent, political and economic system; and the related theme of unifying as one country, one nation. Thoughtful as they were precise, O’Rourke’s answers evaded nothing, electoral consequences be damned.
On the other side of the stage was a carnival barker, disingenuous as his opponent was sincere. If O’Rourke hobbled his performance by refusing to gorge on partisan red meat opportunities, Cruz compensated; in fact, stripped of worn out campaign falsehoods, the Senator has little to say. Nobody orates more but actually conveys less. If O’Rourke is a disciple for substance in our national discussion, Cruz is an oily televangelist passing the plate to his faithful, offering less while taking more.
Two issues best spoke to the chasm between the candidates and the views they represent… immigration and police-African American relations.
On immigration, perhaps the most important question to Texans, O’Rourke made clear the preeminent fact politicians from both parties avoid like the plague… the “border has never been safer.” Meanwhile, speaking for those with property lines at stake, most misguided enough to have supported Trump and now rueful of that decision, the Congressman pointed out how eminent domain will seize and partition their land to fulfill the President’s outlandish scheme. O’Rourke also unapologetically stated what we all know to be true: Hispanic immigrants perform our economy’s most thankless jobs without complaint, grateful to have a small foothold on the American dream we are supposed to offer.
Cruz never met an issue he didn’t want to glean for white resentment; immigration is no exception. Without challenging O’Rourke’s guiding tenet that no emergency exists, Cruz simply barreled ahead as if it was a given. The wall is the answer, and not deporting 11 million people is unfair to his father, who came and waited in line. Family separation as basic fairness, that’s the ticket. O’Rourke cares more about illegals than he does about us – i.e fearful caucasions, bent on nastiness. To hear the grievance flow effortlessly out of Cruz’s mouth is to understand the fundamental pitfalls of pluralism.
On September 6, Botham Jean, an African American 26-year old, had the deadly misfortune of occupying the wrong apartment. Despite being farsighted enough to place a bright red welcome mat in front of his door, Jean unfortunately left it ajar, allowing an apparently drunk Dallas police officer to consummate her inability to locate home. Jean, understandably reluctant to follow orders from a stranger in his own apartment, was promptly shot and killed in an “unfortunate misunderstanding,” so said the initial department press release on the matter.
Cruz, given first stab at the event and its ramifications, proceeded apace with a Tucker Carlson script, immediately slandering O’Rourke by falsely declaring he equated police with Jim Crow. The accident was sad BUT, insert long list of fallen police officers and the assumption that pursuing justice for Jean is tantamount to spitting on their graves. As on immigration, O’Rourke favors “them” more than us, I go to police funerals, he doesn’t. And did I mention that cops are killed in the line of duty and are brave? Indulging the basic civil rights of a class of our citizens necessarily insults and undermines police who, did I make clear get slain in the line of duty?
O’Rourke was having none of it. Unlike so many of his congressional colleagues, wasting debate time to mindlessly establish pro-law enforcement bona fides is not Beto’s thing. Whether or not Texans recognize the failure of departments across the country to discipline their own as a crisis, he does and will lead on the matter. Even in a vacuum this tragedy would be outrageous. On the heels of countless other fully documented, mostly unprosecuted, nationwide police shootings of unarmed black men, it’s nothing less than a defining travesty. O’Rourke cited the damning numbers of African-American per capita misery related to being legally shot, as well as incarcerated for non-violent offenses. Above all, he implored voters not to view the issue through a partisan lens; basic justice and fairness should not be political.
It’s a function of the true awfulness of Trump that he has so completely eclipsed Cruz as the embodiment of hateful opportunism. Before The Donald, nobody was more overt in their disdain for the intelligence of the GOP faithful than Cruz, his shamelessness seeming to reach new lows every other news cycle. Yet and still, even with our President firmly establishing no human being approaches his wretchedness, Beto O’Rourke’s tireless campaign reamplifies how ugly and insincere Cruz’s guiding ambitions are.
Some have said O’Rourke’s efforts have already produced a victory, forcing Texans to question themselves and at least consider the pros of empathy and the cons of blind tribalism. Even if he fails in November, he’ll surely break through eventually, the optimists maintain. But after the other night’s debate, such thinking seems nonsensical. If an all important state, supposedly comprised of genuine articles, can’t reward so unique a campaign with a chance to reform our addled legislative branch, choosing instead its most acute malady, the country’s second worst person, then maybe things are hopeless. The battle for America runs through the Lone Star this year…. failure can’t be an option. BC