Today, Mimi Swartz, the estimable Texas journalist, published an incisive opinion piece in the Times. She lays out the surreal realities of Texas politics and politicians, the reason why I find myself frequently muttering, “Texas. It’s always Texas.”
For me, the most significant paragraph was this one:
In a state of almost 30 million, roughly 17 million are registered to vote, but only about two million voted in the past two Republican primaries — and those who do vote dependably are older, white and far to the right. In this year’s primary, a Republican candidate could have won the nomination with under 4 percent of voters.
So in the heavily populated state of Texas, the avatar for all things politically and culturally awful in this country, those stunning numbers make for good news.
For a few years now, I’ve tried to soothe my distraught friends and relations with some numbers I’ve extracted, numbers which indicate support for the GOP, and the particularly MAGA-crazed wing of the GOP, are much lower than the 30 or so percent a lot of people believe. I’ve come up with numbers as low as 20 percent.
But here is Mimi Swartz telling us the number supporting the worst of the GOP could be as low as…well, read it for yourselves.
Tyranny of the minority? Yes, but even in Texas, it’s a very very small minority.