December 1st, 2020 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin. The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party. So I tell people on a regular basis, there is still a land of opportunity in America. It’s called Texas. The problem is these departures from the Constitution. They have become the norm.

[0:00:24 Speaker 1] At what point must a female senator raised her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the

[0:00:30 Speaker 0] room on Welcome Back to the second reading podcast for the week of November 16th 2020. I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Uh, the broadcasting from the home office Yet again. I’m joined this week by Josh Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project. Also at the Home Outpost.

[0:00:55 Speaker 1] Yes, as always,

[0:00:58 Speaker 0] um, safe and sound. So today is we navigate in this strange interim period in Texas politics between the election and the convening of the 87 Texas Legislature in January 1 of the stories that’s getting a lot of attention in the Texas political world right now brings us back to the internal politics of the Texas Republican Party and and the wrinkle that the new newish but pretty new Republican Party of Texas chair Alan West, not of Texas, has played since his election. Uh, during a T Republican Party convention this summer. Um, you know there’s a big story in the Texas Tribune this morning, and we should also know you. I think Ross Ramsey wrote a column about this last week or the week before. That was also very good and interesting on this, but we’ll go with Patrick’s V. Tech story for the opening salvo and and I was gonna put together a list of how Allen West has gained attention since becoming chair. But we’ll go with Patrick’s language and Patrick writes in his first few months, is Texas GOP Chairman Allen West has sued Republic fellow Republican Governor Greg Abbott for extending the early voting period due to the coronavirus protested outside the governor’s mansion over a pandemic related shutdowns. There’s a common thread there and assailed likely next state House speaker, another, also another member of West own party as a traitor. And he could have said quote unquote, a trader, um, too many quotes inside Patrick’s quote there. So you know, you kind of get the picture from that. Since since being elected party chair, a role that is typically as his opponents have pointed out repeatedly about helping Republican candidates and kind of tending to the stores, the chair of the party West has actually been more likely to cultivate conflict and aggravated pre existing conflicts. Then he has been to rally the troops, the troops. Now, to be fair, you know, Alan West says that he was going around raising money just like other Republicans, and that he deserves some credit in the last election, etcetera. Nonetheless, uh, the more divisive activities have gotten the most attention. And as we were talking before we started, you know, that doesn’t seem to be by accident. Toe understate the case right? And this is part of the critique of ah, lot of his opponents right now, right,

[0:03:31 Speaker 1] right. That’s right. So eso West came in, you know, he’s one term congressman from Florida and he moved to Texas, you know, almost seemingly to run for the GOP chairman position. It’s kind of it’s a little I don’t know what his other motivations were, but this seems to be the thing that he talked about, Uh, you know, in the lead up to this to this, uh, you know, election, if you will, in the elections amongst, you know, delegations from each of the state Senate district. And so he had run ran earlier in the year. I believe against James Dickey, who was the former party chairman. And the basic, you know, argument that that West was making was that, you know, essentially, either Dickie was too beholden to the establishment interests in the party or that he had become too beholden to the establishment interests that he would basically, you know, retake the mantle of the grassroots and and the activist wing of the party and make sure you know, not to sort of sit back if he felt like the party wasn’t, you know, behaving appropriately. He’s certainly done that. So that that was sort of, you know, that was where he started all this, you know? And the question now is sort of, you know, So what to make of all this? And I think you know, you and I are both a little reluctant to even talk about it in some ways, um because, you know, I think for the, you know, I think for for Allen West to begin all of the attention. Really, For the Republican Party of Texas chairman to be getting this kind of attention is certainly by design. He clearly wants this attention. I mean, he’s going out, and he’s made efforts. Actually, you know what the first things he did, as I think being elected chairman was. He challenged Democratic, the Democrat, Texas Democratic Party chairman, to a series of debates leading up to the election, which he immediately refused. Not because, I mean, I don’t know what his motives were, but I mean, the kind of obviously this is like, Hey, you know, the candidates were supposed to be running where we work for the parties. You know, this is like a different sort of thing, but it really it gave a sense of the way that West wanted to approach the job. I think from go. So here we are now and we’re seeing these divisions. I mean, there’s a lot of things we could make out of this. What? What are the things that you’re making out of it? I guess.

[0:05:26 Speaker 0] Well, I mean, You know, I think there’s an interesting dimension here. There’s kind of a Z you mentioned, you know, I was reluctant to some degree toe use him is the hook for this discussion of overly talk about him because it feels like, just basically acquiescing to his media strategy, which has been thus far fairly successful. Um, in the sense that, you know, say whatever you want about James Dickey from either an external or an internal perspective. You know, you never really got the impression that he saw the job is a vehicle for his own self promotion. And I say that, you know, look, did he think he got something out of it? Like everybody thinks they get something out of most things they do to some degree. Yeah, sure. But you know, you never got the impression that James Dickey was out trying to make headlines. And as you say, this seems to be part of what Allen West is trying to do here. You know? I mean, you know, what do I make of it? I mean, I I think that, you know, it invites attention to something that we’ve talked about for years and a lot and and deservedly so, Which is, you know, just what is the ideological kind of nature of the Republican Party of Texas. I mean, what do we really talking about here? And and, you know, what do we make ideologically of the internal conflicts that sometimes seem to be factional conflicts with Onley minute overall distinctions in overall ideology and where you would put people on a spectrum. And I mean, I think if you look at the narrow band of some of them or quantitative, you know, looks at this you kind of see that, you know, and also just what other axes of conflict are going on inside the Republican Party. I mean, as simple as you know, ends and outs. And that’s not to say that there aren’t ideological distinctions. But, you know, these things become so personal ist ic and so factionalized that it creates the raw material for the kind of political entrepreneurship that you see here. So, you know, the first thing I make of this to step back from all of that gobbledy goop is you know, I I flagged this in the mailing we did last week to the people that, uh to our to our email list. And if you’re not on the email list and you’re hearing that if you go to our website, there’s a need. There are multiple places to sign up. There’s a There’s a place on the block poster you could just email us, um, at Texas politics. What is the

[0:08:04 Speaker 1] L A T E s u Texas? Yeah, we’re just find one of us on you.

[0:08:11 Speaker 0] Just find one of us and will add you to the list. But, you know, you know, there was a story in the Tribune last week on Allen West being opposed and saying that day, feeling the speaker apparent of the Texas House was, as we said in a quote unquote trader, that very drolly and it kind of just declarative, sentence said, You know, the chairman of the public of the Republican Party does not get a vote on the speaker of the House, and I think as we move into legislative mode, I think we can expect a certain amount of pushback against Allen West. Should he continue to take this tact during a legislative session. Now there will be he will have ideological allies in the party. You know, that will be, you know, to my mind, the usual suspects that will support that. But for the most part, you know, it will be interesting to see whether you know, I mean, and I don’t wanna steal your lining. You can develop this. But, I mean, you know the idea that, you know, I was talking to some other observers of politics this morning about Donald Trump, and this will be relevant in which, you know, one of one of the things that’s really notable about Donald Trump, I think, is his ability to look at some of, you know, the basic features of self interested politics. Bond then extrapolated them to some extreme application or to some extreme point that other people are sometimes inhibited from extrapolating. In other words, Well, you know, if I’m expected to be self interested, what I’m just gonna be self interested in publicly so to an unbelievable extent. And I think there is a little bit of that going on with Allen West here, where he’s kind of he’s testing the limits of that melding of highly personal ist ic self interested politics with a with a Republican Party that now seems opened up to that in some ways by Donald Trump, a za long as you do that in the name of conservative purity,

[0:10:13 Speaker 1] whatever that means,

[0:10:14 Speaker 0] whatever that well, I mean. I mean, what you do is I mean, yeah, I mean, I think I think you know what that means is, you know, I think point well taken what that means. But I think e What’s interesting about it is it’s using its leveraging that personal is, um in that in that personal power to define that through agenda control. And we’ve seen that in the recent past. Look, you know, the problem is that is a short it has a shelf life, and it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

[0:10:42 Speaker 1] I mean, do you think this is really about agenda control? Or do you think this is about you know, I don’t want I don’t want to say Alan West’s ambitions, because that’s not really, you know, I mean again, I think that I think that’s in some way limiting this discussion. I think I mean it. It’s fair, but I think it’s actually limiting the discussion a bit too much. I mean, you know. I mean, the sort of discussion of self interest taken to its extreme obviously goes back to his self interest. But I also think it is. You’re kind of going through the list about the idea of, like, you know, staying in one’s lane, you know, and the idea that you know Alan West, GOP chairman of Texas, is saying, Hey, House members, you know your traders if you vote this way and you know the idea that he’s going to the governor of Texas, you know, certainly a conservative and certainly, you know, pretty, you know, well thought of conservative amongst conservatives and saying, Hey, you know your trader if you close down the economy, you know, and it’s kind of like and I mean, there is something that was in all of this, which is sort of like, you know, and I kind of mentioned at the beginning how the Gypsy chairman gets elected, but sort of like this is the Republican has been elected by the fewest people off any Republican that he is telling what to dio. And I think there’s something about that stylistically, you know, again outside of self interest, that in of itself is sort of an interesting, you know, circa 2020 kind of pieced all this. Let me ask you another question that I think is related to this too, though which is, you know, I was thinking about the disbandment of the Empower Texans. Was their political action committee recently. Right? And, you know, this is something that you know, there’s there’s sort of a right now element to the South and West thing we could look at their sort of historical, long term thing that you had alluded to. I believe in the gobbledygook portion of the discussion, as you called it right, which is, you know, this idea that there has been this axis of tension within the Republican Party between the activists, who we could classify any number of ways. But I think for the, you know, maybe the most important ways to say, the group of people who regularly show up in Republican primaries or the group of people who regularly make up a majority of the people who show up in Republican primaries, whether statewide or in legislative district and the extent to which you know the parties, the whole was reflecting the most activist elements you know, basically of their party for, you know, at least you know, I’ve been watching this now for like, a decade for a number of years. It was basically a lot of a lot of the angling a position, especially in legislative politics. But statewide politics was around. This concern about, you know, not being Sina’s sufficiently worthy amongst this group of voters. 2018 happened. You know, the elections were much, much closer. All of a sudden you had a reluctant Republican. Officials say we’re focusing on public education, property taxes, big issues you care about. You know, we’re not trying to get bogged down and stuff that’s gonna make a lot of, you know, bad will in the Legislature the sort of thing that we focused on, and we move on, you know, and then you get here. And I think what’s kind of what’s interesting to me on the Allen West piece of this and sort of his movement, both before the election and after is you know, we’re kind of in the period right now where everybody’s trying to interpret the election results, and I don’t mean that is like a a fair interpretation like there’s plenty people trying to fairly interpret what happened. But there’s a lot of interpretation going on by interested parties, and I mean, you know, at the national level, you could say Donald Trump is interpreting the election is one that he want And that is still a dispute. That’s, you know, again, interpretation. Election actually probably hurts Republicans in the long run not to look at and say like, Hey, we keep losing the popular vote by a lot and you know, we should evaluate that kind of thing, right? Biden is interpreting the election is decided and that he’s moving forward. And then you’re here in Texas and I’m kind of still wondering right now, like Okay, you know, Republicans, you know? I mean, everything kind of stayed more or less the same, but within a trajectory of, um, or competitive political environment. So the question I kind of have going forward in the Island West thing, I think, really, you know, points to this is like So So what happens now? You know, do we see a legislative session in which you know Republicans, You know, I think having held their ground and knowing that they’re going to get to do redistricting. Sort of push ahead towards more of. You know what we’ll call the formally, you know, whatever you wanna call it the movement, conservative wing or the, you know, the activist wing or whatever you know, is there more about making sure that they take care of the those people in This is really the people that you know. I think Alan West is tryingto speak for Or do they look at the election and say, Hey, you know, number one? We’re gonna really tough sessions. Well, actually, the tough session, actually, maybe would make it easier to do more conservative like social issue type things. But let’s say do they say should we move? Should we stay on the trajectory we were in in 2019 and 2021? Or we gonna snap back to more of like a 2017 2015 style session? And what I think is interesting is you know, to the extent that I think you know, you know Donald Trump has become such a force in this number one. The extent to which Republicans you know, we’re much more serious about appealing. I think the independent, moderate voters in 2020 after 2018. You know, it seems to me that West is trying to fill a spot. It seems like he’s trying to fill a position that may or may not exist here, Uh, you know, in the electorate, but he’s doing a pretty effective job. But I wonder, you know, at this point, and we kind of go back to this and I’ll pass it back to you. But, like, I mean, how much is this even about ideology? I mean, you know, in the sense of I mean, what I would strikes me most about West in some ways is how personal ist ic. His approach to this job already is, even though he’s actually working is like, you know, technically, you know, for the party, right? I mean, he supposedly trying to, you know, advance the interests of the party, but the individual approach to it and the sort of you know, I don’t care what Lane I’m in. I don’t care who I’m telling what they should or shouldn’t be doing. I’m looking for conflict. I’m looking for headlines. It feels very familiar. And I think you have a discussion we might be having right now and in normal elections, I could be like so So where does the Republican party go next? Right after losing the national popular vote again and losing the presidency after one term would be the question. And I’m trying to figure out how I vector, you know, sort of west into all this, even though I don’t think that in the long run, he’s necessarily important player in this discussion. But he’s an interesting example of the moment that we’re in right now. I think

[0:16:38 Speaker 0] I would go back to what I thought was the question about the agenda and say, While the two things one, you know, I mean, I I think the question of you know, agenda control is less to my mind about from West perspective. Probably anyway. Or so it would seem, is more the kind of public agenda that gets attached toe the Republican Party in the way that you know, Republican elected officials sort of identify with that. And I think that all is implicated in in what you’re talking about. In terms of the fight over briefly put 2019 legislative session mawr of the same or you know, how do we interpret the mandate, you know, on the in the legislative piece? And I think that does come back in a what the public agenda is for Republicans, and that’s a little bit about, you know, the slot that the West is inserting himself into. And I think that when you say he’s playing a role and you mentioned the Empower Texans thing, I mean, I think it’s not a coincidence that, you know, if you look behind West and that’s not to say he’s a puppet. But it is to say that he has collaborators in all this. There’s a political economy toe. All this that is helping empower Allen West and there. And he and the people that helped fund those lawsuits against Greg Abbott are some of the same actors that we have seen occupying that that space in previous agendas. And I would go back and even think about. You know, there’s always this sort of interface or interaction between what the legislative agenda is and what the public discursive agenda is. So you know, you were mentioning 2015 and 2017 if you go back to those periods that were essentially the years of Strauss speakership. And you know, the big fights, you know, with groups like Empower Texans and again the funder of the people that were funding them and their allies within the Republican Party. You know, there were there were frequently compromises in those agendas. And if you go back and you look at what they got accomplished in those years, they got some of the conservative legislation that they wanted. They didn’t get a lot of what they wanted. And during that same period, you know, we did get again as we talked about on here before, you know, we got some big transportation legislation, we got water legislation. And so that was the stuff that was not so much part of the public agenda, but was was still running through the process at the time. So, you know, when I talk about the agenda, it’s It’s sort of like, what is it that defines the Republican Party? You know, for these voters and for the public profiles that the members are having to kind of assert to get re elected on DSO, You know, we’re How does Allen West playing the all that? I mean you know, in some ways he seems, you know, remarkably like more of the same. And the other piece of you know and the piece of that, you know, we’ve we’ve done work on. I mean, I think the kind of overall arc that I drop Allen West into right now is kind of this notion of, you know, that we’ve seen in the polling in a couple of different ways, one of which I’ve got right in front of me, which is, you know, this idea that we’ve asked people we’ve asked Republicans, Do you think that Republican elected officials or conservative enough to conservative or not conservative enough and regularly? About half of Republicans say conservative enough and exactly half said that in our October poll and 34% in October said not conservative enough Now that not conservative enough action, a zai recall bubbles around that level. You know, around a third, sometimes a little less, you know, and that’s yeah among Republicans, and that’s just enough to make sure that this is a perpetual problem and not enough to resolve it Now. The other piece that I would actually then bolt onto that is you know, toe hearken back to the days of old and think about the tea party. And, you know, this is all something I think that is, you know, a new expression of that same impulse. Yet in different historical conditions in the present, we saw a similar thing, you know, with the tea party right in which active tea party identification peaked at what, about 40% or so, Maybe low forties of people that when offered the option of identifying with the tea party or not identifying with the tea party, I think it ever hit half

[0:21:26 Speaker 1] among Republicans

[0:21:27 Speaker 0] among Republicans. Yeah, but what it did do was always bubble bubble in this in a very similar range. I’ll be it a little bit a little bit lower because and I think that’s just branding. Frankly, Um, but what we also saw is that when we ask people, you know, do you think that you know about the impact the tea Party was having in their influence? Ah, large number of these Republicans who thought the party was conservative enough still had an approving attitude mawr less towards the tea party, as in some senses. And I’m extrapolating here But I think it made sense the guarantors of that conservatism. And so I think that’s the That’s the problem that we have here is that there’s an inside outside dimension here in which you know the people like Alan West and Theo Empower Texans. Factions of the world know that they can strive. Thio exercise a kind of veto power, but they’re never really in the driver’s seat

[0:22:28 Speaker 1] directly, that’s and

[0:22:30 Speaker 0] that again. That’s ideological. But that and that’s goes back to the gobbledy goop. There’s clearly a kind of ideological dimension to that that has to do with, you know, the Republican Party is the chosen vehicle of self identified conservatives, but there, But the anti institutional element does have some kind of limit, particularly when you’re when you own state government. And I think that is, that’s the limiting factor on its why to my mind, it’s why, ultimately Theo empower Texans brand and the you know their desire to take over quote unquote. The party, you know, never quite worked and petered out is the political system got more competitive, but there’s always but there’s still the raw material for analys West or a political entrepreneur toe work with and it comes back to where we started. And, you know, if your if you’re Allen West, then you’re looking around or your anybody doesn’t have to be Allen West and you see oh, in terms of, you know, one of your favorite themes modeled behavior. And you look at Donald Trump and say, Well, this guy can go out there and just kind of say, f you to whoever he wants Democrat Republican John McCain whoever. Well, you know what’s stopping me from protesting outside the governor’s mansion? Nothing. You know, at least in the short term. But, you know, not everybody is Donald Trump, and I mean, I you know, it may very well be that Donald West is no is No Allen West is no Donald Trump. But

[0:24:07 Speaker 1] it s so it’s not clear. And it’s also not clear, you know, for Allen West, what has sort of short, medium or long term play is right here, right? I mean, ultimately, he may only be concerned about the short term at the moment. That’s interesting. I mean, you know, some of the subjects of their I think it was pretty interesting, you know, particular Yeah, I know. You try? Um, well, I was just thinking, you know, I mean, I think that’s an important point here. Is that, you know, even in the height of the tea party, days when you know, tea party was really was really visible in pushing, you know, even among these sort of non tea party identifying Republicans, there was generally, you know, a sense to the existence of the tea party within the Republican Party. Generally, the idea that, you know, they’re probably doing good. It’s probably for the better. And, I mean, you know, I’m not sure if I’m willing to go so far as to say, you know, that they guarantor piece of that, but also by the other side of it to that, I think is sort of important is you know, you say, you know, the Republicans have no desire. Thio really squash this conflict per se. But it’s kind of I think about, you know, you ask the democrats how, you know, successful. It was trying to kick people out of their party, you know, And that was sort of the end of the, you know, at the end of the beginning of the end of democratic control again. The other side it was the middle is a little bit different. But ultimately, you know, you can’t really scoff it. You know, a third of your party, right? I mean, I think

[0:25:26 Speaker 0] you know absolutely.

[0:25:27 Speaker 1] What I’m curious, though, about is, you know, I mean, I mean, what is the Yeah.

[0:25:32 Speaker 0] I mean, e just wanna flag. I wanna put a pin in a point you made there that I think is really important because I think that this is where one of those, like you know, there’s a There’s gonna be a temptation of people, I think, to misinterpret the history in a way where Well, look, you know, the Democrats will kick people out. You know, the Democrats kicked the conservatives out, and you know, the look what happened to them. The Republicans are not going to kick the far right of their party out, even though some of them would like Thio and and And the conservatives are gonna be mawr determined to fight for their position in a Republican party. That they see is their natural home. And however much they may be dissatisfied with centrist or three establishment guys or the ends versus their own outs. You know they don’t have any place to go.

[0:26:21 Speaker 1] Well, I think that I think that’s the key point. And I think that speaks to sort of the limitation of the Allen West approach to all this, which is that, you know, ultimately, you know, there’s a lot more in group love than out group hate most of the time. And, you know, in politics that may or may not be true, but ultimate. What I really mean by that is it’s really it seems like very often people on one side with you on the left of the right tend to see the divisions of the other side is being much larger than they are. And so, if you are, you know, let’s say a less overtly conservative Republicans really easy for Democrats to say, Well, how do you How do you How do you How are you in concert with these guys? You know, how are you? How are you a party to this without really realizing? Look, they, you know, they probably agree on 90 to 95% of things, and it’s really maybe just a matter of intensity or how far one would go on a policy or whatever. It’s not about really scream. It’s the same thing on the other side. The idea that you know, less progressive or less overtly liberal Democrats are gonna walk away from the Democratic Party because there’s an active progressive wing that basically wants to push policies that, you know, they you know, again, the moderates probably mostly agree with, but to lead to an extent or a level that maybe they’re a little bit uncomfortable with but ultimately doesn’t mean you’re gonna start voting Republican and and that’s that’s the thing here. But, I mean, I do sort of wonder in all of this. You know what? Maybe this doesn’t really matter. I’m just sort of curious, you know? I mean, there are other people who could be taking up this mantle. I mean, I’m thinking about you know, I mean, it’s not like Greg Abbott is some moderate. I mean, he’s been a very conservative governor. I think he you know, you know, I think he establishes his conservative credentials regularly and as needed. Um, and I wonder to what extent he’s been hamstrung. You know, I think partially by the election, probably almost more so by the pandemic in terms of his ability to kind of focus on, you know, some of this intraparty stuff. And then you’ve got Dan Patrick. Oh, I think you know, has really said probably a lot of the same things that Allen West has, you know, been saying and, you know, maybe some less aggressive ways. But it’s certainly, you know, questioned. You know, closing the economy is certainly, you know, made some aggressive discussion about election. I’m sure he would like Toa put his finger on the scale in terms of how the house is gonna elect a speaker if he could. But he seems to be a little bit more constrained again by being, you know, again in an elective position being in the Legislature. I mean, it’s simply that West is just unconstrained by his position. Or is it the fact that you know the position is open, and so he’s taking it. I mean, some ways, it’s kind of impressive. I mean, we’re talking about him.

[0:28:46 Speaker 0] Yeah. I mean, like I said it being Yeah, I mean, look, you know, it’s worked for him in the short running, you know, And, you know, you were saying earlier the short run thing is an interesting question. And, you know, and Patrick and Dan Patrick is an interesting comparison. And the it wasn’t all that long ago that, you know Now, you know, I think this was sort of a mistaking a misreading at the time, but it certainly, you know, in the same way, you know, you know, this reminds me of Dan Patrick, you know, on the cover of Texas Monthly magazine is the most powerful man in Texas, you know, And I think it’s easy to miss, you know, to misunderestimate thes things is the former president would have said, um, in the short run, mhm and kind of missed the structural dynamic at work here, which is, you know, where we started the nature of the Republican Party and the fact that you know that this is partially a function that of the ideological sorting. And I think this is another piece that’s different than thinking back to the analogy of the Democrats, and their evolution in the late 20th century is I’m just thinking about it, you know, is that you know, at that point, the Democrat. The Democratic Party was really a broad coalition party, and it was just too broad thistles. Not like a problem of broadness. This’ll is a problem of factionalism within a much more ideologically sorted environment inside the party. And so it’s it’s by by its nature. There are things about it there that I think make it a different kind of problem. I mean, it’s not completely, but I mean, it’s all coalitional problem. But the coalitional politics play out differently. You know? I mean, and I think in a lot of ways in both parties thean eternal politics almost or not, even the politics, some of the politics. But the, you know, the rhetoric of the party’s reflects a reality that’s that’s from last generation, which is like you don’t belong here. You’re really a liberal. When is you’re saying like if you really step back and look at it, you know, And this is true on both parties, you know, the people that the progressives and the Democratic Party are calling really conservatives, you know, are not really conservatives. Just like you know, the people that you know. Alan West is calling traders. And you know crypto. You know, he’s all about calling people crypto socialists or something. I mean, it’s not,

[0:31:07 Speaker 1] you know, I mean, I

[0:31:09 Speaker 0] mean I mean, in 1960 1960 or even 1970 you could legitimately stand in the Democratic Party and go, Hey, you know what? You’re a conservative. You don’t belong here. And it was sort of objectively pretty arguable. You know, I’m pretty true. I mean, there’s a strong argument in a lot of cases. That argument is not quite doesn’t quite have that legitimacy now that it does, because we’ve gone through a generation of sorting.

[0:31:33 Speaker 1] Yeah, I wonder. Well, I mean, it’s interesting because, I mean, I think one of the things that I’m having difficulty settling on here is is the E, because is the extent to which you know what we’re witnessing right now is a reflection of, you know, how sorted and how fixed the ideological points of sort of the parties and their partisans are, or the fact that it’s completely unfixed. And I don’t know which the answer is. I mean, on the one hand, I think there’s evidence to say it’s fixed. I think that’s part of the whole. This is more of the same. You know, we’re seeing the same conflict manifests itself that we’ve seen before under different names, different actors, whatever. I mean, there’s part of me that’s not ready to dismiss the argument, although I’m not sure I believe it. Which is to say, you know, after four years of Donald Trump at the helm of the Republican Party, which really, you know, again, not a traditionally conservative Republican, not a traditionally conservative president or president, period. And now we’re in this sort of the beginning of the after period. And, you know, it seems to me that there is space for entrepreneurs to come out political entrepreneurs to come out and say, No, this is what this means. This is what it means to be a Republican in Texas. E

[0:32:39 Speaker 0] guess So, I guess what I would do is I would the way that, you know, just using the language you use there. I mean, I would say that the points aren’t fixed, but the bounds are are more fixed and, you know, so that maybe like a relevant for the you know, and so you know where the point is might be a relevant for the conflict within the bounds. It’s just that the bounds have become more clear and, you know, and then you know, it’s interesting hypothesis whether you know, that engenders mawr less intense conflict. I mean, in and of itself. It’s probably not determinative, but I think that is kind of the situation we’re in and that the bounds arm or clear and Anna And it’s a reasonable hypothesis to say that Does that make you know and people there’s work on that? I guess. But what is that? You know, how does that affect the dynamics inside the party in terms of gravity?

[0:33:26 Speaker 1] And I think you know, the other

[0:33:27 Speaker 0] thing we have toe. I think that has to be remembered here. That gets lost too much. And I certainly forget to pay attention to it, frankly, because pay so much attention to public opinion now. But is that you know, there’s a very intense elite level of politics going on here. Allen West would not be a successful, is he waas? Did he not by successful I mean it gaining attention? Did he not have powerful, well funded allies? Now I’m not saying that that’s three only driver, Alan West, clearly has been able to understand media. And, you know, they’re they’re things about this that have enabled his success. But the fact that there are people with, you know, practically you know, at least you know, practically speaking in a political sense, you know, infinite amount of resource is to put into the kind of stuff that you know, the kind of positions that he’s taken in his entrepreneurialism. He has sponsors.

[0:34:24 Speaker 1] Yeah, and that’s really his main weapon, right? I mean, I mean, ultimately, you know, I mean, what I’m thinking is you’re talking about that. It is. You know, it’s interesting to see how this is going to play out in the medium to long term. I mean, I’m very I’m curious and all this stuff, but I’m super curious for this Just because, you know, at some point, you know, generally is the party chairman. You know, you’re not really in a super powerful position. You’re not the governor. You’re not Lieutenant Governor. You’re not even the chairman of a major committee in the Texas house. Right? And so eventually these stories, we’re going to get old for reporters. You know, the idea of him picking fights with people. I mean, I think they’ll still covered because it’s still fun. But then But you’re right, though. Then what are his weapons, right? I mean, he doesn’t have actual levers of power, but what he does have is you’re pointing out is he has re sources, and he has the same resource. Is that the same people who have been, you know, exercising these conflicts have been using. Yeah.

[0:35:19 Speaker 0] Yeah. And and those forces have been relatively creative in their ability to find vehicles for their desire to push their own agendas, their own profiles and to try to impact the process. Right. So, you know, we will find out, and I would say, two months, but really probably in about three months. Just how successful Allen West can be in making himself seem relevant in the midst of a legislative session. A lot of that is gonna be about how you know how reporters you know what they do. I mean, his agency in this Allen West has agency don’t want to take that away, but also, you know how how the press, you know, response to him and whether people he he continues to generate coverage, you know, in a different news environment. And, you know, you see, I mean,

[0:36:10 Speaker 1] yeah, let me say one thing. I mean, I think we should wrap up soon here. Probably. But, you know, I mean, raises a really good point. It’s sort of, you know, thinking about this in the summation, this conversation there’s sort of, like, you know, and Alan Westmore of the same kind of kind of argument here. But it is interesting in the sense that you know, if it is more of the same eventually, you know, if Alan was kind of continues down this path, so they begin to the legislative session and he’s, you know, trying to be real active about what the Legislature should and shouldn’t do. And let’s even say even, probably even how they should go about doing it or not doing it, as he’s already kind of get involved in. And ultimately, those legislators, for the most part are gonna ignore him. But it’s gonna be interesting to see I mean again, you know, because of the nature of of the of the conflict, it’s gonna be hard for reporters not to write about it. And look, I mean, hey, I’m reading about it. It’s fun. I mean, it’s It’s interesting. It’s fun. There’s, you know, again, these are the sorts of biases we talk about, like, you know, again, if you if you start to see what people study the media talk about, the real bias in the media is not partisan. It’s actually just a bias towards conflict towards things that are sexy towards stuff like this, honestly. But the question becomes, you know, the more he tries to kind of light a bag filled with poo on the doorstep of the Legislature, you know, to no effect, which is basically, you know, kind of what the story has been, and not because the Republican Party doesn’t listen to conservatives. It’s because they do. And they’ve continued Thio that eventually, does this kind of just Peter out Or, you know, is he Does he have a way to kind of keep the momentum of this going once? There’s a lot of stuff to talk about it, you know, and it’ll be interesting to see because ultimately I don’t think that, you know, I think from an objective and just you know it’s not objective. I mean, just from a unformed subject of standpoint, there’s no reason for this story to go on that long. Having said that, West is clearly, you know, a pretty talented political entrepreneur. And I think the real question that everyone is also talking about is, you know, what is the goal of this? Is that, you know, make sure the Republican Party of Texas is pure or is it too advanced? Allen West to some other job?

[0:38:04 Speaker 0] Yeah, I would say I would say the key question right now is he’ll have made him, You know, he’s made himself radioactive in the governor’s office. He’s made himself radioactive with incoming speaker. How often is Allen West talking Thio, Dan Patrick or Dan Patrick’s team? Shall we call them? And will Allen West be useful in the House, Senate politics and the politics of Of the Big Three going forward? Will he be useful to Dan Patrick? That would be my big question. So, yes, what’s my everybody making this? That’s my question, for the moment is you know how much is Allen West talking to people that talks directly to the to the lieutenant governor to the lieutenant governor himself. And how useful will he will he be to him going forward? Because if he could be useful to him, then it’s fine. But you know, that also speaks to wear Allen West ambitions. And, you know, as you say, I think you know the assumption is he wants to run for office. How continent or dissonant is that with lieutenant governors plants would be my question. Fair enough. And with that, that will be it for this week’s highly speculative version of the second reading podcast Data data. There was some data in this, thanks to Josh, for being here, thanks to, as always, are excellent technical crew in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin, the liberal arts development studio, thanks to you for listening and will be back next week. Second Reading Podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.