America’s Future Is Texas | Hacker News Reader

America’s Future Is Texas

newyorker.com

58 pointsdankohn1134 comments

Evan Smith, of the Texas Tribune, has closely followed thirteen legislative sessions. He noted that, even as Dan Patrick and his Republican allies slashed government services, they allocated eight hundred million dollars for border security. “White people are scared of change, believing that what they have is being taken away from them by people they consider unworthy,” he told me. “But all they’re doing is poking a bear with a stick. In 2004, the Anglo population in Texas became a minority. The last majority-Anglo high-school class in Texas graduated in 2014. There will never be another. The reality is, it’s all over for the Anglos.”
Texas leads the nation in Latino population growth.

For Wu, the sanctuary-cities bill was the natural culmination of the “bigoted, racist mentality” that has emerged in Texas, which he calls the epicenter of the Tea Party. “Trump is simply the most visible manifestation of that mentality,” he told me. “It’s been percolating up in the Republican Party for the past decade.”

I find the way this piece is written really emblematic of the sort of two-faced and bad faith style for which our urban elites are becoming infamous. We have a number of things going on in the article, but part of the core point is stated only partially, which is that due to mass immigration the demographics of Texas are rapidly changing to "majority-minority" in such a way as to almost guarantee Democratic victory in the near future.

And yet at the same time, the causes of this rapid demographic change are just barely hinted at, and mainly to not-so-subtly suggest anyone who opposes the demographic change or wants to enact policy measures to try to stop the trend is simply backwards, bigoted and naive to political realities.

Trump is president, the GOP is currently ascendent, the political divide in the country is about as bad as it's ever been and getting worse, and the New Yorker is seemingly clueless to the way it's perceived by much of the country when it puts out a barely read-between-the-lines article whose message is: we will replace your people via mass immigration and you dumb hicks aren't going to stop it.

If this becomes a country where saying "it’s all over for the Anglos" is normalized or even celebrated among urban elites, I seriously worry about our future for any kind of political peace.

The liberal rhetoric against white people has gotten alarming. Replace "anglos" in those quotes with another ethnic group and the result would be scary. Can you imagine a purportedly mainstream person cheering, e.g. the changing demographics of D.C. (where the black majority is rapidly being replaced by white gentrifiers) in that tone?

Christ, I never thought we'd cleanly agree on something, but here we are.

Can you be more specific about the rhetoric you're referring to? "Liberal" means a lot of things, and the subtext behind different mentions of "white" people varies a lot too. If you're going to wade into this particular debate, you should be as clear as you can.

It's especially tricky on this thread, because you seem to be responding to a quote expressing concern about demographic changes in Texas, which carries a weird subtext of Latinos and African Americans somehow being responsible for ensuring that they remain minorities. That can't possibly be what you mean. So, what do you mean?

I think it's easier to discuss this notion mapped to other nations, because the set of assumptions and stigma around these issues specifically in the US makes it very difficult to talk about. The US has also always been ethnically diverse, but diversity is not the same thing as to be devoid of an identity. Suffice it to say that US demographics are changing rapidly and many who see that as a good thing are going from acknowledging the change as a fact to actually openly celebrating it and predicting their own near-future cultural/political dominance based on the decline of whites to a minority status on national and state levels. Trying to point out how ... uncouth and toxic at best, this sort of rhetoric is, and the way it's heard in much of the country - simply trying to point out this interplay from an anthropologist on mars perspective - itself becomes almost impossible because accusations of racism fly immediately upon even bringing up that some people may be offended and angered when others celebrate the impending decline of their race and culture.

Let's take a hypothetic Japan, or Ghana say, facing low native birth rates and a huge influx of white northwest European immigrants rapidly changing the demographics, culture and politics in their country. You can have whatever perspective you want on whether that new diversity and demographic replacement would be a beneficial thing in a given context, but regardless can you not see how elites celebrating that cultural/ethnic change in the faces of those confronting newfound minority status would often not be taken well? If you wanted to bring about a minority-Japanese nation of Japan, a minority-Ghanaian nation of Ghana, would you do it while also high-fiving over the decline of ethnically Japanese/Ghanaian people and their culture? Would you say "The reality is, it’s all over for the Japanese" and that their complaints about said fact is "poking a bear with a stick"? Might, just might, that serve to ratchet up tensions?

Trump is sitting in office, and those of us on the left who try to point any of this utterly toxic dynamic playing out out are just routinely attacked as racist. It's a truly disheartening own-goal by those who claim to want this whole project to work out. You're not changing anyone's minds, just convincing them to keep their mouths shut and vote Trump.

In this article I'm talking about the quote generalizing about white people: "white people are scared of change..." and the callous tone of sentences like "it's over for anglos."

More generally, my circle of friends skews liberal urban professional. My Facebook feed is full of griping about "white people" being racist, etc. Supposedly respectable outlets are tweeting stuff like this: https://mobile.twitter.com/Salon/status/871028742294036480. Can you imagine Salon tweeting something that started "Memo to black people?" People callously adopt this disrespectful tone when talking about or writing about white people that they would not when discussing any other race.

I also agree with the point below about celebrating/ being gleeful about the demographic changes. It's become acceptable to celebrate America becoming non-majority white in a way that it wouldn't be acceptable to celebrate DC or Atlanta becoming non-majority black.

I don't think Salon is respectable, which I suppose means I agree with you in that regard.

I think "white" can have a bunch of different meanings. In one common meaning, "white" really does connote a sort of insular subconscious racism. There's a reason it's OK to talk about "white people" being racist and less OK to talk about Irish people being racist. I agree, in advance, that it's better to be clear about this stuff.

With regards to demographic shifts: we've spent hundreds of years openly and overtly celebrating our country's supposed shared European heritage and values. So I'd turn the question around on you and ask: what should Latinos say about their emerging demographic importance?

> So I'd turn the question around on you and ask: what should Latinos say about their emerging demographic importance?

I can't speak for Latinos. But I'm raising a half Bangladeshi/half Irish American daughter and I can say that my hope for her is to adopt those European values as her own, and not have a view of her increasing demographic importance as a non-white person.

We like to talk about those "European values", but really the ones we mean are from a very specific part of Europe. We don't so much value the Catholic church's hold on public policy the way it exists in Ireland, or Italy and Spain's record on human rights and freedoms throughout the 20th century.

To me, that suggests that the values you want your daughter to adopt have in reality very little to do with shared European heritage and culture, and more with civic norms from American culture. Which is fine: plenty of Latinos value those too!

You can call it American civic norms, but much of what I'm talking about is shared across Western European societies. E.g. Bangladeshis have very different views than Americans about what crosses the line into unacceptable nepotism. To be clear: I'm talking about norms that happened to develop in particular European societies and happened to be carried to America by migration. Anyone can adopt them.

My concern is that unfocused derision directed at "white people" can (purposefully or inadvertently) become an attack on those norms. When we attack "old white guys" you're not just stacking Mike Pence, you're attacking John Locke. Attacking the majority ethnicity and culture is in tension with the goal of assimilation and integration.

I'm not pushing back on American norms, which, especially having read your comments for so many years, I'm inclined to agree are superior in many ways to those of Bangladesh.

But it's also the case that the Italians have very different ideas about corruption than the Germans do. We don't talk about our shared Germanic thrift and work ethic, or our shared English political tradition; we talk about a "European" culture, because it's politically convenient for us to fold the Spanish and Polish into a cultural bloc with the English and Germans, lest they otherwise side against us with the blacks and Latinos.

That's the problem with "white people" as a rhetorical concept. A lot of what we claim are "white European values" are nothing of the sort, and what we're really doing is ratifying the idea that those values --- all laudable! --- are somehow alien to Mexicans. Which is, of course, horseshit.

... belatedly: to put it simply, I think the notion that mainstream liberalism is rejecting Locke is far-fetched, but the notion that "white" concerns about demography are evidence of virulent and systemic racism are... not.

I think the focus on skin color in the "white people" construct is apt and points to a very important truth. A certain type of American only consider you to be a 'real' American if you're white. And, not to only beat up on white people, lots of black Americans only consider you to be a real American if you're either black or white.

The focus on values really is horseshit, you can comfortably substitute "white intergenerational wealth" for that and get a much better fit for meaning.

I want to be clear that I don't think the values Rayiner appreciates are horseshit, just their framing as something intrinsically "European" --- a term that really doesn't mean that much. If we're going to be intellectually honest, we should refer directly to the specific European culture whose values we're claiming. If not, we shouldn't frame those values in such a way as to exclude Mexicans.

The values themselves are, I think, super important. Americans should aspire to American civic norms, not those of Bangladesh, or Mexico, or Italy or Greece.

That belief, I think, puts me to the right of some vocal leftists. Which is what, I think, Rayiner is talking about. But I also think that segment of the left is on the fringe.

Inherently any discussion about human cultures and values is going to fail a fully reductionism approach. But to be more specific one might refer to Northwest Europe, inside the Hajnal line, arguably creating institutions and cultures encouraging an interlocking and self-reinforcing set of values like universalism, non-consanguineous marriage, anti-nepotism, rationality, individualism.

These values do not "belong" to Europeans or any specific group of them, but if one looked at the cluster of societies in which those values were most strongly supported one would find a high degree of correlation to ones relative closeness to a NW European population.

If you want to say that the Spanish, Italian, Greek, and Polish cultures aren't crucial to what we consider idealized American values, I will not agree with you (I think the idea of tying those values to geography is inherently silly), but at least it's more intellectually honest than pretending that all Americans of European descent share a set of "western" values that Mexicans lack.

Cards on the table: I am happy to see work done to undo the false coalition of "whiteness" our culture constructed 100 years ago to oppress black people (and, now, Latinos). Let's see the Scandinavian- and German- and Anglo- American population continue trying to run the table on "American values" with the Polish working arm in arm with blacks and Latinos, instead of against them. :)

It sounds crazy hyperbolic to write it out like this, I know! But, from what I can tell: this is what actually happened.

We're pretty deep into a tangent on this thread --- embarrassingly, as was pointed out way up top in response to your original comment, none of this is even what the article is about --- so I'm happy to leave the discussion wrapped up here.

You don't seem to want to have this discussion in good faith and want to continue returning to reductionist "gotcha! we have non-NW Euro cultures too!" when I explicitly prefaced and qualified what I was saying multiple times to try to avoid these pointless gotchas. You obviously have an agenda you wish to push, and whether or not that agenda has a lot of support from science or history doesn't seem of interest to you, so I too will leave the discussion here.

I'd argue that very much we see the shared English political tradition (Common Law is celebrated, especially compared to, say, the weird history of law in Louisiana) and the German work ethic and religion. Also, I think you're whitewashing (ugh) the Polish and Catholic thing a bit.

At least through the mid 20th-century, those other groups you mentioned (Italians, Spanish, etc.) were just not heavily represented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_immigration_stat...

In what sense am I glossing over anything? Obviously, Poles have a strong Catholic tradition. But so do Mexicans.

Late to this thread so you may or may not see this but I do think that Locke's ideas are being attacked by the left. Perhaps not the "mainstream" left but certainly by the more radical left. Neoliberalism is practically a dirty word, the value free trade is doubted by many, property rights are seen as suspicious. How far any of these arguments will get is certainly in doubt but my sense is that they have more power now than at any other time in my adult lifetime (admittedly a short window).

Further I think that people who have this worldview see demographic change as a strong force in support of their views. A changing electorate will lead to changes in leadership.

There are definitely people who think this stuff and they are very loud. I would suggest that the results of the 2016 primary show they are not as powerful as they'd like to think they are, especially in minority communities.

> Can you imagine Salon tweeting something that started "Memo to black people?" People callously adopt this disrespectful tone when talking about or writing about white people that they would not when discussing any other race.

I think if you want a public dialogue that's not completely vapid, you're going to have to accept this kind of double standard. There is a class divide here in the US, and that divide squares up precisely with race. Speaking to one side of a class divide in a certain way becomes more or less acceptable over time.

I mean, like it or not, white people have built up generational wealth on the backs of black people. This continued long after slavery ended and we subconsciously will do everything we can to maintain that wealth. This tone might look and feel disrespectful, but what it is is a memo to white people that if they don't wake up, they're going to lose it.

> There is a class divide here in the US, and that divide squares up precisely with race.

No, it doesn't. Race is a social divide which correlates with, but does not align perfectly with, class which is also a social divide.

I don't understand your distinction or the underlying mental model you're using. I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape. A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide.

For example, in ancient Rome slavery was widespread, but there was no skin color distinction. Slaves differed from free mostly by clothing. Once they were free, they could change clothes and change their lives. That didn't happen in the US, and as a result skin color discrimination often got written right into the legal code. Such a thing would have been impractical in many regimes in which slavery was practiced.

> I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape.

Race is a social construct, not a biological fact. (This is evidenced by the fact that racial identities shift, both “organically” and as the result of deliberate societal engineering; the effort in revolutionary México typified by La Raza Cósmica is an example of a (significant in effect, though incompletely successful) attempt at the latter.

Now, it's true that both of these processes tend to be slow, and the context of race in which you were born is likely (providing you don't move to a different part of the world) to be the one in which you live your whole life, or at least the variation will be small, but that's not because race is inherent, just that the socisl attribution of race evolved slowly most of the time.

> A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide.

Racial identity is always a social divide; it may or may not be a significant social divide in general, in specific, concrete terms in the modern US, however, it's the second most significant such divide, behind that of economic class.

>* Race is a social construct, not a biological fact.*

Odd, given the known epidemiology of sickle-cell anemia and other known issues like the alcohol flush reaction (Asian glow).

> white people have built up generational wealth on the backs of black people.

This is quite the claim. Some did, say owners of textile mills, but rednecks and white-trash and crackers haven't really gotten much there--since they didn't have much generational handovers to begin with.

Blue-collar tradesman didn't exactly make out well over the exploitation of blacks either.

> I mean, like it or not, white people have built up generational wealth on the backs of black people. This continued long after slavery ended and we subconsciously will do everything we can to maintain that wealth. This tone might look and feel disrespectful, but what it is is a memo to white people that if they don't wake up, they're going to lose it.

I absolutely agree with this. But it's completely possible to talk about these issues without being flippant, dismissive, and disrespectful of white people. Indeed, your post does so.

Unfortunately dog-whistling pays off.

It's unfortunate that those who most vociferously propose politically correct speech abandon it when it comes to the working class and specifically working class whites.

There is no shortage in media of the stereotypical fat lazy uneducated white worker who disrespects women.

It's unfortunate because it causes even further division and actively drives this class of people towards the Trumps of the world. I say the world because the same happens in Western Europe.

This isn't dog whistling. For the love of G-d, someone look up Evan Smith and tell me he's a jaded NYer tweeting from a loft overlooking the Hudson eating brunch with his brown comrades plotting the overthrow of Real America.

As we dismantle the institutions of racism, white people will no longer be the only ones to enjoy a multitude of subtle, pervasive privileges. E.g. being the default image of "an American" or the hero in an Western-centric movie, book, story etc. Or a person who doesn't look like they're up to no good.

Note that this isn't an attack on white people, but a natural consequence of equalization. For there to not be special treatment on one ethnic group, we must either remove that treatment or distribute it among all. America is moving in the direction of the latter.

White people are afraid of this distribution: they fear it will cheapen their special status and errode their identities. However, this is irrational: fully including everyone doesn't cheapen, errode, or otherwise destroy anything. It's a prehistoric, childish emotion: to horde something and play king of the hill.

Note: I am a white man.

^^^^^ Truth!!!! Couldn't have said it better myself. Welcome to the America the non-white people have been living this whole time.

The factor behind the Latino population growth rate is now no longer immigration but a high birthrate.

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/09/08/latino-population-grow...

With all due respect - very little indeed is due your tone, so I'll give a bit more than that - as the child of a naturalized immigrant and native-born American, may I kindly ask what policy measures, precisely, you'd suggest were warranted or in any way defensible to "stop the trend" of my inconvenient citizenship?

Like it or not, I'm here, and I'm also American.

edit: also, I've got kids. Who are also American.

Yeah, it's essentially "People who want fewer brown people should not be called racist, bigoted etc. because wanting a permanent white majority is a respectable position to have"

It's a position people have, and I don't like to use labels myself, but I see no reason for worrying about changes in the ethnic distribution of a population aside from deep seated biases.

This article was not about the changing demographics of Texas, but, as the subtitle says, about the "crackpots and ideologues has fed its [Texas'] reputation for proud know-nothingism and retrograde thinking".

The part you chose to quote was from a small part of a very long article on Texas crackpots. So, no, the author did not go in to depth as to the reasons for or implications of this demographic change. That's not what the article was about.

Thanks for taking the time to post this. I was beginning to feel like I was the only one who actually read this article.

There's a reason Evan Smith, who, despite this bizarre attack, is manifestly not some kind of anti-white race warrior, used the word Anglo. Texas is very much a melting pot, and even more so between Northern European settlers, Spanish settlers, and Mexican Americans. Anglo is used because more than a few people who are spanish-speaking descendent identify as white. I know this is shouting in the hurricane, but it might do you good to actually check out who it is your complaining about before you lob something like this out there. I'm also curious what your opinion is on "the causes of this rapid demographic shift" that are "barely hinted at"?

Another point worth saying is that, its not the "urban elites" (wtf does that even mean) who are trumpeting the decline of "the anglos". Its the Daily Stormer. Its Breitbart. Its The Blaze. And, of course, its Fox News. I've stated elsewhere in the thread, I'm Texas born and bred. I've watched the descent into the maelstrom of Texas politics. Pieces sneering at Texas are a dime a dozen, this isn't one of them.

I'm also curious about this line:

"And yet at the same time, the causes of this rapid demographic change are just barely hinted at, and mainly to not-so-subtly suggest anyone who opposes the demographic change or wants to enact policy measures to try to stop the trend is simply backwards, bigoted and naive to political realities."

What exactly are you trying to say here? Because, yeah, any attempt to some how shore up a white demographic majority is, yeah, racist.

> We’re forming a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations that is eroding the Texas model.” He warned that the “Texas miracle” could become a “California nightmare.”

There's a reason this resonates with voters. As a California resident I can't stand these things. The desire to legislate everything to a centralized and partisan ideal. So many rules and so many laws.

And because of the same gerrymandering that the article complains about giving Republican majority in Texas, there will be nothing new here.

You're saying, from California, that Texas has the overwhelming desire to legislate everything?

No, he said that over-legislation was one of the things he hates about California. And then he says that Democrats in California are pulling the same gerrymandering shenanigans that they did in Texas.

Oh, understood. HN gets so vitriolic these days that I have a hard time imagining anyone is doing anything except bragging and distancing themselves from the problem.

I guess even I have to take a step back to make sure I don't become a bigot too.

In fact, California did the opposite and voters passed a nonpartisan election commission.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Citizens_Redistri...

Going to put this at the top first, we'll see if it has any effect...

Alot of the toplevel replies to this are so tone deaf and ignorant its mind blowing. For starters, the author is a native texan, as am I, and grew up not far from where I was born and partially raised. He's well known for his work, so the sighing and gnashing of teeth about "liberal New Yorker..." is just dead wrong. He lives in Austin, as well, so this wasn't filed from the fever swamp imagination of Brooklyn (or whatever ppl visualize when they complain of NY).

Its also important to note, guessing that many people didn't bother to read such a long piece, that it dwells almost exclusively on Republican politics in the state. And not from some inherently antagonistic place. One of the main interlocutors is Joe Straus, a jewish republican, who is regularly targeted for replacement by his more radical ostensible colleagues for....wait for it.....being a Jew in a position of power in Texas. Pretty sure this is so well known there was a Daily show bit about some years ago.

The title is also quite apt. The condition of Texas demographics, not just along lines of race but urban/rural, income, education is also representative of the country at large. As is the vituperative nature of hyper-partisanship. Many of the points the author raises are similarly covered by other Texan journalists, like CD Hooks at the Texas Observer (who is excellent btw). And while other people are savaging Evan Smith here in the thread (wrongly) as some kind of anti-white race warrior, you could do far far worse than his work as well. I was born here (I'm here now, actually) I went to college here. I have family in Texas going back over a 130 years. This is a good piece, covering an especially bad period in Texas politics(the most recent lege session has been almost univserally savaged as reactionary, racist as hell and utterly broken). I hope if anyone bothers to find this comment and is actually interested in Texas and the state of its politics they'll give it a read.

Okay. Here's something that may or may not be relevant.

I'm a non-native English speaker who have been learning and speaking English professionally for 8 years and I had no problems reading BBC or CNN. However, this article was just beyond me. I struggle to understand many long and convoluted sentence with words that I had never seen before.

I don't know if this is a pattern associated with this particular press or not, but I really couldn't bother reading this beyond the first few paragraphs.

I heard these days that New Yorker is the magazine of the "illuminated" liberal Americans. I guess this image caption proves it: "Texas is as politically divided as the rest of the U.S., but a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed its reputation for proud know-nothingism and retrograde thinking."

LOL... yup, that's typical New Yorker writing. I am college educated and I have a hard time reading it, so it's not just you.

No, you're not alone. The New Yorker is famous for using big words to try to sound smart.

These two sentences, for example:

> Fairly considered, the Texas legislature is more functional than the United States Congress, and more genteel than the House of Commons. But a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed the state’s reputation for aggressive know-nothingism and proudly retrograde politics.

As far as I can tell, even though they are in the same paragraph and nominally about the same topic, and joined together with that "But", they have nothing to do with each other. To me it looks incoherent.

The sentences fit together just fine, but you need to read the whole paragraph.

Frederick Law Olmsted wrote in 1853 that he thought that the Texas Legislature was more respectable (for its “manly dignity and trustworthiness”) than Parliament or Congress. Lawrence Wright is agreeing that if we examine the three bodies impartially, the Texas legislature is more “functional” than the US Congress and more “genteel” than the House of Commons, but that still Olmsted’s characterization is unusual because the Texas legislature has historically been known for its crackpots and ideologues and proud anti-intellectualism.

The “but” is contrasting Wright’s caveat (that if we consider it “fairly” the Texas legislature isn’t as dysfunctional as Congress) with his main point about the Texas legislature’s long-standing negative reputation.

I'm also not clear on whether "functional" and "genteel" in this context are literally talking about the facade on the buildings, or their collective temperament?

No he’s saying that the US Congress is literally less functional: has more internal strife, gets gridlocked, fails to pass essential legislation, gets sucked up in scandals, etc.

And the House of Commons is less genteel: people shout at each other, interrupt each-other, call each-other names, etc., rather than acting like polite and formal “gentlemen”.

It's talking about the people in the legislature and how it, as an organization, functions.

"Genteel" is always used to describe people (similar to polite or well-mannered).

This is a pretty uncharitable comment. A nicer (and, in my opinion, more correct) take would be that their articles are written for people that enjoy reading and language.

And the sentences you cite make perfect sense to me: the legislature may be relatively functional and courteous, but it still has many irrational members who are ignorant and backwards.

Honestly, to me it makes complete sense in context. I'm sorry you were confused.

It is funny that in your example of "using big words to try to sound smart," the biggest word used is "know-nothingism."

But seriously, is it bad that a non-native speaker who is comfortable reading CNN has trouble with the New Yorker? I'd never heard the too-many-big-words criticism of the New Yorker before, but CNN is certainly the direct opposite.

And 'know-nothingism' has a specific historical meaning, one that makes perfect sense in this context.

>is it bad that a non-native speaker who is comfortable reading CNN has trouble with the New Yorker

Not especially - they have different audiences: CNN targets a wide demographic and the NYer targets older, affluent liberals, who tend to have advanced levels of education. And I'd argue that even their readership might find some of the stylistic choices made in the NYer annoying - eg: spelling out numerical amounts rather than using Arabic numbers.

I don't see how those don't fit together perfectly well. The first sentence describes the smooth operations of the Texas legislature, and the second sentence describes the group that threatens this efficiency, and embarrass an otherwise-well-run state.

You may disagree with the thesis and the choice of flowery language, but I dont' see anything incoherent about it.

The New Yorker is well-known for this, and its tradition for using obscure words is long-running. It goes at least as far back as 1969, when "Business Adventures" was written by John Brooks, a long-time New Yorker author. I had to read that book with a dictionary, and used it every couple of pages. I still remember learning the word 'eleemosynary' from it.

BBC and CNN are both intentionally written with an accessible and simple style, sticking to common words and simple grammar. Motivated 10-year-olds should be able to read them without much trouble, or a busy adult should be able to skim their stories while doing something else.

The New Yorker is written for a much more literate audience and the goal of its essays is to be engaging to that audience, not just share the daily news.

(Note: there’s nothing inherently bad about either of these editorial choices.)

Thanks for the reply. Clearly I am not the intended audience for this piece of essay.

Just out of curiosity, can you gauge how many percent of the US population would find such essays engaging? Not to start a flamewar, but I am genuinely curious.

The New Yorker has a circulation of about 1 million, which is about half a percent of US adults. The potential audience they’re aiming at is maybe more like 5–10% of the population. The archetypal New Yorker subscriber is a professional with a postgraduate degree who reads high-brow fiction as a hobby.

You can push a button in word and it will tell you the grade level of reading to understand a piece. I think there are a few differnent algos for this.

Different news orgs tend to have different grade levels of writing. You tend to write towards your target demiograph. The new yorker is aimed at college educated white peopoe I suspect, so would be at a higher level than a paper aimed to the masses.

the writing actually runs pretty straight. the sentence structures employed are simple and the choice of words are idiomatic in contemporary English. i wouldn't consider it long or convoluted. if you want to see what convoluted American writing is, try 19th century literature - HDT, Herman Melville, etc.

English is not my native language either, and when I was learning it, I'd challenge myself to read more and more complicated writing, and eventually things considered "hard" by most native English speakers.

I learned a lot more that way than I would have had I stuck to reading only what I found easy. I encourage you to persevere.

I always say: English-speaking countries tend to be monolingual... so because Anglophones aren't learning many other languages, we instead invent more and more English to learn.

Basically this article is a boring recount of the history of politics in Texas. Everyone needs a mantra I guess, Texas has its own thing, like putting the Texas flag everywhere for example. In Boston and MA, they are obsessed with their sports teams, in Texas they are obsessed with Texas.

Doesn't it also address gerrymandering? Do you think gerrymandering is good and/or boring?

Boston is also characterized by its lack of interest in becoming a truly international city. The prefer to be regional and provincial. I respect them for rebuffing the Olympics.

Duplicate. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14692859

The downvoters have really come out of the woodwork on this thread to protect the idea that it's okay for the Texan Republican party to gerrymander itself into permanent majority, drive elections off of social wedge-issues instead of real policy, and to use anti-science rhetoric to abandon any sane environmental policy.

Really makes you question their commitment to free speech.

I don't doubt their commitment to free speech. HN does not owe anybody a megaphone. I doubt their commitment to rational thought, to democratic representation, to a long-term functionally-habitable planet. But not to free speech.

You may all go to hell... I'll be here in Texas.

The downvotes obviously don't know the original quote:

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas" - Davy Crockett when he lost his congressional bid in Tennessee (the exact circumstances of this quote vary, made a bit more grandiose over the years)

I knew it. I downvoted because it didn't contribute to the discussion.

That makes sense, and I agree. That said, it does seem extremely jarring if one doesn't know the context.

Gone to Texas was hardly original to Crockett.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_to_Texas

True, but that particular quote ("You may all go to hell...") apparently is.

Pretty sad as well that this is now flagged or throttled off of the front page (and three following pages as well). Its a good piece.

sigh, and now I miss Molly Ivins again.

The usual wide-eyed New Yorker "ain't no one here but us liberals" tone, where simply listing the actions of the other side is assumed to elicit shock and horror. A bit tiring.

If those actions happen to be blatant gerrymandering, it sounds pretty justified to me.

"Listing the actions" is also known as reporting. It's a style of journalism — devoid of emotional editorialising and outright fabrication — that remains popular amongst at least some of us liberals.

> He then watched helplessly as the truck rammed into a bus carrying members of the First Baptist Church of New Braunfels. Thirteen people were killed. [some stuff deleted] The accident was one of many that might have been prevented had Governor Perry signed the 2011 texting bill into law.

Suggesting that Perry not signing the bill into law and killed 13 people isn't emotional editorialising?

People who text and drive are bad at risk assessment. People who are bad at risk assessment are more likely to ignore laws like this. So what is the fking point of this paragraph except to create a link in the reader's mind that Rick Perry literally murders people with his veto pen?

Distracted driving was already a crime in Texas. So a texting law is technically redundant. People want feel-good headline friendly laws, not actual enforcement of the laws that already exist.

Really good point. By the same token, someone should let Dan Patrick know that it's already illegal to surveil and harass people in bathrooms.

> The eleventh largest is Austin, the capital, where I live.

I think I see the problem...

Do you? Austin is 4th in Texas. It is 11th in the US, as the paragraph makes clear.

Austin is known for being different, not just in Texas but nationwide. (e.g. "Keep Austin Weird")

I think you're missing the point. He's saying "lol, it's an Austin writer, not a real Texan".

This, 100% this. Austin is seen as some kind of burden to borne by the rest of G-d fearing, gun toting Texas. IE, not a real Texan. The writer actually discusses this, at some length, in the piece. "Do you smell that? Its freedom." Abbott, in the piece, on leaving Travis County.

And the name-calling as evidence and proof of superiority:

> Texas is as politically divided as the rest of the U.S., but a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed its reputation for proud know-nothingism and retrograde thinking.

The author is proudly preaching to the liberal New Yorker's choir.

When I see articles discussing how Texas has sizable influence on textbook content and their Board of Education pushing for creationist or anti-evolution content to be taught; or when I hear Alex Jones is promoting some new conspiracy theory; or that the actual Governor of Texas has called out the state troopers to keep an eye on the Army's Jade Helm training exercises...

Look, maybe the sources I rely on are biased, but I never hear about stuff like this from other states. When your governor starts buying into conspiracy theory material, and acting on it, I start to feel that "know-nothingism and retrograde thinking" may actually fall a bit short.

Sorry to tire you, snowflake.

We've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break HN's guidelines with.

says the guy who posts Infowars "articles" on the reg here. I'd be shocked if you actually read the piece at all since this is such a content free comment on a nearly 20,000 word piece of extensively researched journalism.

The Putinbots - they're HEEEEERE!

Just because it's critical of a large group of people doesn't mean it's wrong.

Please don't post unsubstantive partisan comments here. They wreak tremendous damage.

Apologies.

It was supposed to be a substantive meta-comment about New Yorker reportage, which I think is on the same level of partisanship as the Huff Post (which I thought was banned here).

Why is the assumption that replacing whites with Hispanics is good for the country? Seriously.

I will respond seriously. Firsf of all, it has nothing to do with "replacing" and everything to do with "accepting them also". Despite rose-colored glasses, America has a long tradition of despising every wave of immigrants that has come to the country. From the "dumb Pollacks" and the "dirty Italians" to the "lazy Hispanics" and "terrorist Muslims", Americans have always looked at immigration with fondness from afar and revulsion up close.

Over time, that "otherness" has always baked itself into the fabric of our country over a couple generations, but there are some particular challenges for this wave. Mainly skin color and strong religious differences (for Muslims).

The whole "Spanish language everywhere!" problem is generational. First wave Italians didn't speak English either, but their children did.

So I think the anti-immigration vibe is nothing new and part of the process. Liberals might be making things harder by pushing for cultural preservation/independence rather than (through indifference) encouraging assimilation. I don't think supporting different cultures living side by side ever works out long term. If we either side can stop being so extreme in their approach, maybe we can continue our national process of assimilation and (begrudgedly) open arms to immigrants.

We actively preserve Irish, Italian, and Polish culture. We have parades for them. We have sections of cities dominated by them, with language-specific signage. How is this different from what Latinos and Middle-Eastern Muslims are asking for?

There is nothing in American anything like the segregation North African Muslim immigrants face in Europe, even in the densest Muslim communities. That's what "independence" looks like. What are we so afraid of here?

When I said "replacing", I meant the proportion, i.e. majority/ minority change, as the article suggested.

I think you understated the similarities between Americans and Irishs / Italians, and understated the differences between Americans and Hispanics / Muslims. Not sure whether you did this intentionally, but it is so obvious that Americans / Irishs / Italians are part of western culture, they have differences, but they belong to one big group. On the other hand, Southern American / Middle East belong to non-western culture. The latter is even worse, it is anti-western culture. When you look at the countries, US / UK / EU countries are similar, but Southern America countries are different from US / UK / EU countries, and Middle East countries are extremely different. Did you intentionally blind yourself?

Also, we lived in a different time with two important changes: 1. welfare state. 2. far-left ideology (multiculturalism, post-modernism, etc.) becomes norm

What shared heritage do the Irish and Italians have that the Irish don't also share with the (overwhelmingly Catholic) Mexicans? They don't eat the same food. They don't speak the same language (in a linguistic sense, Mexicans have more kinship with most of Europe than the Irish, who preserve a Gaelic tradition as well). They don't listen to the same music. They don't live in the same places. They don't grow up hearing the same stories --- outside of the biblical stories that they share with the Mexicans. They don't have the same kinds of governments.

Apart from a shared complexion --- a complexion, by the way, that we used to dispute was "white" in the case of Italians --- what ties a Irishman to an Italian?

Are you trying to tell me "western culture" or "western civilization" is a fake concept? If you don't see Ireland and Italian belongs to one group, and Mexico belongs to another, I don't see how we can communicate. Our worldview is just too different.

I feel like the questions I just posed left you a whole lot of room to rebut me specifically. Can you do so?

You want me to tell you what is western culture ?

As I said above, I would like you to spell out what elements of culture Italians share with Irishmen, but not with Mexicans.

They do not exist. You win.

Then what are you referring to when you talk about "western culture"?

Start with the fact that "white" doesn't mean what you think it does. It's only been in the last 100 years that Irish and Italians have been assimilated into "whiteness". "White" used to mean something narrow, and evolved, as the Irish, Italians, Polish, and Jews made common cause with the Germans and English and Scottish, to mean "not black or Latino".

In those terms, talking about the offsetting "whiteness" with Latinos takes on a more sinister meaning --- albeit one I'm sure most of us never consciously intend. What it really means is "why can't we just keep keeping disfavored ethnicities out?".

America's future is splitting apart into several geographic and autonomous regions with a centralized military.

That's a great idea. We should call them States.

I was thinking more like regions composing several states. As a New Englander like hell I want people south of NY making political decisions for me. I don't feel a strong association or any affection for the South, Midwest or West. They're places with their own problems none of which I care about.

Heh, in my experience most of new england geographically feels that way about Boston. People can feel disillusioned, alienated, and isolated at any level. There's no natural state size.

Totally agree that Boston dominates New England. As someone who grew up and lived outside of the Boston metro people always complained about Boston's dominance of local and regional politics. That said, there is a very strongly shared cultural identity throughout Massachusetts and New England that unites us far more than the cultural and linguistic identity that exists between more geographically distant areas.

The only thing I can tell you that I have in common with the average Georgian or Texan is that we probably both speak English, enjoy hot dogs, and watching Football and Baseball. That's not much of a strong reason for us to both be in a strong political, economic and militaristic union.

You're right, those aren't strong reasons at all because they're entirely self-centered. Here's a hint -- our union wasn't founded and littered with blood and bodies on the basis of trying to make sure everyone had the highest possible match percentage on eHarmony.

You mean like Federalism?

More like a Confederation which is what we originally had before the Constitution.

Doesn’t anyone ever complain about “left wing zealots?” The Berkeley government is filled with them but publications such as the New Yorker rarely bat an eye.

Texas does have Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee who famously inquired about the flag on Mars the astronauts left as well as being the worst boss in Washington among congressional staffers – yet the New Yorker wrings their hands about “right wing zealots.”

Ignorance ought to be condemned regardless of political party.

They do, there is a lot of complaining, however considering the mainstream media has a left-leaning bent, if not outright preference, there may be a reluctance to eat their own. So to speak. Thus the only time you hear about “left wing zealots” is from right-leaning media, of which there really isn't a strong, mainstream presence. Fox news did this for a long time but they've lost a lot of their shine and power.

> the mainstream media has a left-leaning bent

The facts have a well-known liberal bias.

The conservative side is today associated with blue colar jobs and the poor (especially white poor).

People doing journalism, especially in large cities like NY, would not want to be seen dead among those people.

And yet somehow I see stories in the media about the working poor, coal communities, rural medicaid recipients, etc, pretty much every single day.

Those with old-school leftist leanings will report ON them, but not OF their opinions (except to sneer them, from the viewpoint of "I know what's best for you").

Others, who have left such old-style leftist leanings behind, will just sneer at them or report what they know: their urban upper/middle class echo bubble and white people's problems (of which, high on the list is a paternalistic concern for the lives of non-whites).

NPR had an entire show about coal-country, where apart from some setup, the whole thing was local people speaking for themselves, about their personal concerns. Their own voices.

It was a interesting show, and the opposite of sneering.

NPR is not the New Yorker or tons of other similar outlets (including most major newspapers)...

Do you find any sneering in this New Yorker piece?

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-lives-...

Search for 'working poor' in the NY Times:

https://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&co...

Top hit headline: "How Child Care Enriches Mothers, and Especially the Sons They Raise"

and the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/search?q=working+poor

Top hit headline: "The High Cost, For The Poor, Of Using A Bank"

Sneering?

You mean like the "old school leftist leanings" that was winning primaries with the Sanders campaign? That cared quite deeply for persons of color, coming from that well known urban upper/middle class enclave known as Vermont?

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