Has made it seem hopeless. The GOP mantra has been since Bush that Texas would become a one-party state, and that it would be GOP forever. Tom Delay helped the local troglodytes and fundies to take over through gerrymandering with DHS interference in the Bush years. I watched that miserable thing carried out from afar. The loss of Ann Richards to Bush was the beginning of the end of Democratic parity in the state of Texas, and then they went nuclear on everything. Many people I know down there just gave up, unable to fight back the fundies and the brazen arrogance of the repugs. That and the appeal of the conspiracy king in Austin, a regular online industry, which created the Ron Paul zealots and the Tea Party. Texans that don't want to go there are given little choice. The Democratic Party has been bombarded there since the 1990s when I was there with right radio calling for their extermination. So I wouldn't put down the Democratic Party in such a complex and toxic environment. A number of Latinos have not gotten involved because of the racist sentiments of the English-only crowd that took root in some areas. It remains to be seen if Latinos think their road to success is in the Tea Party with Cruz, or the Democratic Party with Castro. Naturally, Houston is almost a nation unto itself, but it's gone much more in religion than ever at my last visit, and some people there I know have just turned off in disgust at the GOP shenanigans and think that it's just hopeless. It will remain to be seen what path Texans will take in the coming years. Without any media voice, as the Democrats don't have one in Texas, it's almost impossible. When I was growing up there, it really was 'liberal media' but that also meant allowing the right as well. The right does not possess that sense of fairness as they fought the Fairness Doctrine when it allowed them to argue their case on the airwaves and people didn't buy it. Now it's just right, far right and batshit crazy right from what I've seen in the venues.
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