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It's not you, it's them. But we need to properly identify who they are and what they stand for; it's not religion, and it's not democracy. America needs a big dose of truth serum because we are awash in lies and we see them playing out in Texas and other states. These barbaric fascists want to control wealth, power, and freely operate a racist, white supremacist society. To do that they must undermine American institutions and its people.

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Jim, Welcome to Texas where folks cross the Red River to meet the redneck. You are every bit as Texan as Sam Houston, Austin, Travis, and the rest of those rascals. Besides, I bestowed the title of True Texan on you decades ago. Bruce Bryant

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Well, if I pass muster with you, amigo, I consider that a pretty high bar and, perhaps, I have made the club.

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We knew we had moved to Texas when our young son Tyler’s elementary school class had a unit listing one fact about each of the American Presidents. Jimmy Carter’s fact was “Gave away the Canal.” We knew we were in Dallas when a woman in the supermarket remarked on our daughter’s very striking red hair and asked, “Is it natural?” “Huh, she’s five!”

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Yep, that is pretty much the Texas ethos.

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When you consider the second person in the line of succession is now a White Nationalist, anti-everything good, leading proponent of the 18th century social standards, election-denier, there is little to be surprised about how here in Texas we have the cruelest of the cruel republiKKKLans the state...IIRC, Kruschev said Russia would beat America without firing a shot or firing a missile...and here we are...I'm fairly certain the people in 1930s Germany and Italy were saying the same thing...how did this happen(?)...

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It ain't you JB. I've got parents, grandparents, great grandparents back to when they came to Texas, from Mississippi in wagons, buried under Texas soil. I'm sure all of them are turning in their graves. Democrats to the last of them. Brunt of Will Rodgers gags, farmers and dairy men, all of them. My father's generation moved off the farm after WWII. His family had eleven kids. (Thirteen if you count the two that died in the flue epidemic.) All of them scattered to the wind. All of them Democrats from birth. What happened? I don't know. I'm still Democrat. Where did the Republicans come from? Money, maybe? Nah. Some of my kin did quite well and didn't turn rabid Republican. But, they started out with mud between their toes. Maybe that's it. Is it the dirt poor beginnings? Honest hard work? Working toward an honest belief? As opposed to a make believe lie. Who BELIEVES any of this school voucher, protect the border bull crap? Who is that STUPID? Where did the Republicans come from? And more importantly, where did the Democrats go?

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Great essay, and great comments from some of your readers.

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