Sadly, nobody is going to pay attention to an essay in a journal or an opinion piece in a newspaper. Twitter gets attention.

This is probably especially true in Texas where one of the defining characteristics of the controlling party of the one-party state (thanks to intense gerrymandering) is anti-intellectualism. They not only won't listen to "liberal academics" or opinion pieces in "liberal newspapers", they'll actively oppose whatever they say on the simple basis of who said it.