June 2nd, 2020 – Second Reading Podcast

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] welcome to the second reading podcast from the University of Texas at Austin.

[0:00:05 Speaker 1] The Republicans were in the Democratic Party because there was only one party chart. 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. At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room? Hello,

[0:00:34 Speaker 0] and welcome to the second reading podcast for the week of June 1st, I’m Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. And I’m joined today by Josh Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project Salary today, Josh.

[0:00:49 Speaker 1] Well, okay, I get s, you know, a lot going on out there. I’m not sure how I’m

[0:00:54 Speaker 0] doing in the context. That’s a trickier question, then and then normal, I guess. Although I don’t know what normal is at this point, I actually think

[0:01:01 Speaker 1] that summarizes that.

[0:01:03 Speaker 0] So the major political story everywhere this week, of course, is the wave of protests and civil unrest across the country following the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. This is including marches and sporadic clashes between protesters and police all over the country. Some of these clashes more than sporadic, actually, I suppose, Um and this is included in several Texas cities over the last few days, although by enlarge the clashes in Texas have not been among the worst. Although, ah, there probably a lot of things going on. We don’t know about it. It’ll take a few days of debriefing. Dallas, I think, has been probably the worst. Or that the site of the the most protest that in the most problems in Texas is released per what we know so far. Um, so we’re gonna talk about this some. Today’s is a hugely complicated topic. So Well, obviously just be hitting aspects of this in a 2030 minute session. That’s all we can do. Um, but chances are the nature of the thing is, such chances are very good That will be coming back to this subject sooner rather than later, given the way things look. So as we record this, uh, late Tuesday morning, the president substantively addressed the situation for the first time on Monday night, Hey, declared himself quote unquote, your president of law and order. Um, actually, I guess, he said, you’re president of the law and order in a kind of trumpian locution. But it also urged governors to deploy the National Guard to quote unquote dominate the streets. He promised that if the governor’s didn’t do that, he will have deployed the U. S military to this state’s Ah, we should note that technically, the governors have to request such a deployment under existing law. So how does this plane Texas? While Governor Abbott has deployed the DPS and National Guard to cities around the state to support local police? Ah, there were arrest in Dallas just last night after a protest that was initially being allowed at City Hall took a bad turn that’s still being investigated, and I don’t want to say too much about that, as we don’t know too much about that yet. The set up was that there had been a curfew in Dallas. There was going to be a protest that City hall that was outside of the curfew area that authorities were aware of and had had seemingly signed off on and then there wound up being arrested and incidents there and that that’s gonna be sorted out. The governor’s going to Dallas today. As of now, there will be curfew’s going through the person the next few nights, for sure, in Dallas and Fort Worth, I believe the curfew in Dallas as of now absent. Ah, further action by the City Council will go for set is good for seven days on the under the original order. Um, and how is Greg Abbott played this? I’d say he’s played it characteristically. Does that seem fair to you, Josh?

[0:04:18 Speaker 1] Yeah, I would say that seems very fair.

[0:04:21 Speaker 0] No, I mean, I think he’s been speaking to his constituency, and I mean, I don’t think anybody would confuse Abbott for a Democratic governor in the way that he’s responded. Probably. But he’s also attempted toe predict to project a kind of judiciousness that stands in in contrast with Trump. I think so, for you know, we had some excerpts from what Trump said, Ah, the governor said, You know, quote unquote, it’s necessary that all states use all law enforcement tools to make it more innocent. People are not either killed or maimed or injured. And that was his response to what he thought the president was saying. And that, even in itself, is it is a much more measured characterization of than that. Then the tone taken by the president, right?

[0:05:08 Speaker 1] Right. Well, I mean, you know, ultimately he’s constrained by a set of attitudes here that are, you know, pre existing. I mean, this is sort of what you were kind of highlighting at the beginning in some ways, which is to say, you know, the things we’re gonna talk about feel very pressing in the in the present moment. But to the extent that political actors and protests by some political actors, I mean across the board, political actors, whether you’re talking about governors, presidents or protesters are responding to in most cases are really long standing in long term attitudes, opinions, considerations, grievances, right? And so I think one of the things that you know, you’re sort of that I think Abbott was leaning on this kid, something that constrains him. We’ll get into some of the specific attitudes in Texas, you know, that may or may not be that are partially relevant to parts of this because again, there’s a lot you know, ultimately here you’ve got a couple things going on. Historically, Republicans have tended to paint themselves as the party of quote unquote law and order. That is a term with a long and complicated history that also has, you know, that does coincide with again sort of racial animus and other things. But it’s also something that Republicans have used as a way to sort of contrast themselves with. Democrats were seen as being historically quote inclusions or soft on crime, so they want it. So don’t want extended mean Avidan. That quota is basically saying, Look, of course, we’re gonna use all of the law enforcement tools available to us to protect people because that’s what we do. That’s what governors do, Republican or Democratic. And But it’s also something that speaks to I think, you know, his voters. But the other piece of this, too, is, you know, I mean, think for Abbott in some ways is, you know, the idea of even a Republican president mobilizing the U. S. Army to go into states to provide, you know, a police force is not something that necessarily, I would say, coincides with Republican views of federalism and the role of the federal government, Right? I mean, we’ve had and we’ve had experiences like this recently that have it’s pushed back on, right?

[0:07:07 Speaker 0] Yeah. I mean, and I think that, you know, I was having this conversation, interestingly enough, with somebody else recently. And I think you know, some of the some of the polling that we’ve done in the past on how people understand these levels of government and how consistent their views are suggest that there’s not an enormous amount of consistency there necessarily. But I think you do have to notice that, you know, after you know that Republican governors are no strangers to telling the the federal government to manage their boundaries and and but out of what states are doing, um, and Trump is clearly kind of reformulating that in his position on all this, um, although it wasn’t that long ago when in response to the to the pandemic and by the way, the pandemic is still going on. Um

[0:08:03 Speaker 1] right where your masks

[0:08:04 Speaker 0] the president was leaving it up to the governor to do was leaving it up to the governors and states to take prime responsibility and to take the blame when and when he felt like it. So, you know, I think is we look at you know, Abbott’s response to this. You know, we can contrast with Trump in certain kinds of ways. It it may be, you know, part of it is substantive. Part of it is tonal. Um, you know, I think the president has been roundly criticized for really saying very little beyond a pro former acknowledgement that, uh, you know, Floyd had been killed by the police. Abbott has been mawr a little a little more forthcoming on that in the same, you know, in the same reaction to the president yesterday. Today the governor, you know, referred to Floyd’s death is quote unquote, a horrific, horrific act of police brutality unquote, which is definitely much further than the president has gone, but then pivoted in a ways you kind of imply there to the subject of criminal justice reform, but also the protection of communities from looting and property destruction, quote unquote, and so you can see the governor trying to negotiate between these poles and these attitudes. So let’s in these different attitudes that you’re referring to and it’s up, you know, it’s a political, challenging situation, you know, I think for any political leader that is trying to take a nuanced view of this and you know, just say I mean, that is not really what we’re seeing from the president. I don’t think you have to be a partisan to acknowledge that. I think the president would almost certainly acknowledge that in some ways. But it’s challenging. Is the real radical differences in perceptions among different groups. And so let’s let’s take a look at that and drill down into the polling. We’ve got a little bit. Let’s start with views of the police. So in the in the 2019 ut Texas Tribune poll, we asked about views of the police. So when you talk about that a little bit,

[0:10:08 Speaker 1] yeah, and so you know this was in a battery of institutions. So, yes, but the police, the military, federal government, state government, local government in different polls, you might have asked about, you know, the public schools or the church’s things like that, you know, And in this poll, what we found was that 58% of Texas voters said that they held a favorable view of the police, with 23% saying that they held an unfavorable view. This was the highest favorability rating given to any institution testing that polls say for the military at 71%. So it’s higher than the federal government hardened, say government, hard in local government courts in the criminal justice system as well. But you know, as you might not be surprised, learned there were significant differences by race. 67% of white voters said that they hold a favorable view of the police, compared to 52% of Hispanics and only 31% of African Americans. Only 9% of African Americans said that they hold a very favorable view of the police, compared to 24% of Hispanics and 36% of white so four times the share of lights. Then then black people say they hold of a very favorite view of the police in Texas. Getting to the politics of this, you know, partisanship, as in so many other things, also matters tears. So 78% of Republicans hold a favorable view of the police, 48% hold a very favorable view. But the same can’t be said of 39% of Democrats and only 11% of Democrats that told a very favorable view of the police souls. God. Yeah.

[0:11:30 Speaker 0] Yeah, well, so I think Well, so I mean, I think what’s interesting about this or one thing to pause on that about is that, um you know, in some ways, this confirms the preconceptions of people on polarized sides of both of views of the police. So if you are somebody that you know is arguing that you know from a conservative or very pro police perspective that you know people don’t respect them or don’t have regard for them or don’t trust them, You know, there’s empirical confirmation of the fact that that’s the case, right from the other, you know, from and then from a mortgage critical side from the side. It’s more critical of the police or or trying to point out just how different views on how different these experiences are for different social groups. One can say, Well, sure, Look, of course, you know, people respond differently to the police. They have did they have different views, but what other polling that we’ve seen shows that that view is rooted in experience, right?

[0:12:42 Speaker 1] That’s right. So in a survey that I conducted for the Texas Lyceum in 2016 among Texas adults, we asked whether or not people could recall a specific experience in which they had felt that they were discriminated against by the police based on their race or ethnicity. And what we found in that poll wasn’t again. This is because adults is actually a broader group. More represented the entire state. What we found was one and 20. White Texans say that they have felt discriminated against by the police. One in four Hispanic Texans feels that they’ve been discriminate against by the flu, please. And one in two African Americans in Texas say they can remember a specific instance in which they felt discriminated against by the police. And so ultimately, you’re right. I mean, what we’re talking about here is a totally different experience, and it’s something I, you know, someone who studies behaviour and attitudes and people. And it’s something that I think you know, we all kind of lose sight of oftentimes is the extent to which, you know our social networks are extremely homogeneous, which means they’re usually very similar. So ultimately, you know, you and most people spend time with people who are like them. And that includes, you know, sort of their socioeconomic background of the socioeconomic backgrounds of their families, their education levels, their political views. And so really, you know, these this idea. I mean, I think this is one of the most you know, I would actually, in all of the survey work I’ve done over the last decade in Texas is with one that sticks out to me because you so rarely see such amazing experiential differences here. But the idea here for you, especially a lot of, you know, white people in particular, a lot of white Republicans, they’re not having the same experience with police that black people are. Now I know that’s that’s kind of obvious, but the data point paints is very, very clearly Ah, you know, in a way that’s important. I think going back to the last, you know, just to the result before that about, you know, the favorite units are positive affect, you know, less positive affect towards the police. Ultimately, you know, police reform is, you know, police or criminal justice. Reform is one route to potentially address some of these grievances. But as you against at the top, you know, these grievances air are much bigger than that, have a much longer life in history and are actually much more present. Pervasive than simply police practices is, I think, what a lot of you know, people who are pushing for social justice reform would say generally. But the idea is that when you then go and begin with police reform and start sort of talking about, well, what can we do differently with police officer? What people have to realize is that there’s a large share of the population for whom the idea that the police are, by and large, doing a great job. But for a few bad apples, that’s a very strong argument, because that lands with how they feel about police. And ultimately we all want to confirm our beliefs, and so that just makes it a very difficult path. I think you know politically for you know, anyone, let alone a Republican, go ever in a dominantly Republican state to pursue with too much bigger given again the way that their voters feel.

[0:15:37 Speaker 0] Yeah, And I think that, you know, in terms of how the this evidence ways into that discussion, um, you know, I mean, I think a lot of the a lot of the rhetoric winds up settling on groups, accusing the other of having beliefs that are about, you know, something abstract. And it’s about you don’t have regard for me or my group or, you know, in the case of the police, my profession, um, and it’s seen. Is this these kind of free floating attitudes and ideas that people have that are either right or wrong. And, you know, I think you’re right to be proud of that polling result because it it really underlines something that keeps coming out in these discussions. But they tend to come out on Lee under times of crisis, which is, you know, it was black. People say I have a very different experience on a day to day level in my contact with the police and in the larger world with discrimination than you do when they’re talking to non white to non black audiences. Um, and you know, that experience is a different level of discussion that because of some of the sociological dynamics you’re talking about, you know, in group and sword social sorting, if you will, that I think people don’t enter into the discussion very frequently, you know, in part because they don’t have the opportunity to and in part because, as you suggest, it’s it’s in conflict with their predispositions. And it’s not confirmatory of what is more comfortable and more, you know, cognitively deeply rooted for them.

[0:17:31 Speaker 1] Well, and, you know, I think you hit the nail on the head there, right? Which is obviously which is, you know, we have to do that. Sometimes it’s in my contract, uh, you know, But obviously in your service, your highlight the fact that people have, you know, because of their group memberships, you know, they just have different experience of the experiences of these things. And even this idea about you know who faces discrimination is something that there’s actually a lot of disagreement on in our polling. And so we’ve done a bunch of polling on attitudes toward discrimination in society. Uh, you know, and you know, some reactions that are kind of expected, and some maybe that are a little bit less expected So, you know, on the one hand, there is an overall perception that there is, you know, racial ethnic discrimination in society. That’s not something that, you know, people are blind to our don’t understand exists. But one of the things that we wanted to do and we’ve done this a couple times in our polling is we basically want to get person, you know, basically, Texans perceptions on the relative discrimination that different groups in society face. So what we do is we ask about how much discrimination a list of groups in society that have, you know, in some cases, tend to be marginalized or claimed to be facing a lot of discrimination by political leaders. How much discrimination those groups are facing in society today, according to Texas voters, Are they facing a lot of discrimination, some discrimination, not very much or not at all. And then once we go through all the groups, then we asked which of these groups faces the most. The idea. This is a considered opinion. Now you’ve raided the amount of discrimination that everybody has faced, and then you say, Well, who faces the most? So the last time we did This was in June of 2018 and we found, Ah, that 68% of Texans that at that African Americans face a lot or some discrimination. 67% said that Hispanics face a lot or some discrimination in America today, compared to 39% who said the same thing about white people. So we know that there’s an understanding, broadly that there are different experiences of discrimination. And when we asked, which replaces the most discrimination and we included, those groups mentioned Asians, women, men, gays, lesbians, transgender people, Christians and Muslims along with whites, African Americans and Hispanics. The plurality of Texans, 21% said that African Americans face the most discrimination. On the other hand, perceptions of discrimination against one’s own group are actually the most apparent. So we asked. So we look at just the responses of African Americans. 59% say that they face the most discrimination in America today, followed by the LGBT community combining some of those responses a 21

[0:19:59 Speaker 0] percent within the perceptions of African Americans,

[0:20:02 Speaker 1] right? So that’s among African Americans. 59% say that African Americans face the most discrimination among Hispanics, 26% say that they face the most discrimination. That’s the plurality, says the most. The

[0:20:11 Speaker 0] day the share

[0:20:12 Speaker 1] of any right Muslims were second among Hispanics and then African Americans. Among white Texans, 22% said that Christians face the most discrimination America Day. That was followed by Muslims, a 21% then transgender people at 14% then white people at 14%. And then African Americans at 12%.

[0:20:35 Speaker 0] Just let’s stop there in just underline that that, you know, I mean, there’s any number of things We could probably talk for another half hour about that result itself. But, I mean, there’s a couple of really interesting things going on there. Right one. The displacement of race by religion among white folks, Right in that, you know, race sort of moves out of the number one position, race or ethnicity that it occupies among minority groups and is replaced by a religion and be the religion that is most frequently embraced, broadly speaking by white people.

[0:21:13 Speaker 1] Right? And so, you know, the other constraint we’ve been talking about here is the partisan constraints that are going on. And so, you know, we could talk specifically about the overlap between race and ethnicity and party, but for the purposes of sort of understanding, government action or inaction, or what kinds of actions we will or will not see. This is kind of important. So a plurality of Democrats 35% say that African Americans face the most discrimination in America today. Among Republicans, 31% said that Christians face the most discrimination, followed by whites. Among Republicans. That 17% 17% Republican said that whitespace the most discrimination, 14% said that Muslims face most discrimination. 10% said that transgender people face most discrimination and then 7% so that African Americans face the most discrimination. So ultimately, I mean these two efforts. You know, there’s a summary points to this. I think, you know, I want Jim dead on, but something strikes me in this. That’s kind of, you know, important and sort of thinking about these attitudes is that you know, ultimately, if you thinking about thes thes protests produce some kind of change, right? And I mean, we’ve talked about this before, Jim, but you know, may agree or disagree, but it seems to me they’re sort of two broad pads one could think of. There’s a sort of a narrow path that says, Well, let’s focus specifically on police actions and criminal, maybe criminal justice reform more broadly. But this is about reforming the way that police do their policing right. Another side of the argument would say No, this is about systemic racism. This is about long standing, Ah, inequities. Sometimes you know, government sponsored discrimination and it all kinds of government programs housing other things worth looking into, right, that that basically have distributing its African Americans, you know, for centuries, right? That’s a pretty big policy area. And ultimately, you know, one would you know the police reform would be let’s focus on police practices. Sort of systemic racism is actually much bigger. It would require wholesale shifts and you know, all kinds of policy and redistributive policies. Uh, ultimately, what these two results show us is the one on the former. There’s not a lot of appetite amongst white people and amongst Republicans in Texas to criticize police or to criticize police practices on the other side. On the argument about sort of, you know, systemic racism, there’s not really up a large share of belief amongst whites in general. But Republicans, in particular in Texas that African Americans are discriminated against very much in

[0:23:54 Speaker 0] protecting I mean, you know, at a real basic level, if you say to a large group of people and frankly, within the terms of the Texas political system, at this moment, let’s talk about discrimination. What this suggests is that the majority party 1/3 of them the first thing they’re gonna want it, they’re gonna be triggered on on. That is not discrimination against African Americans. Discrimination against Christians.

[0:24:20 Speaker 1] Exactly. And actually, we’ve seen a lot more action in the last couple legislative sessions trying to protect the rights of Christians from discrimination than we have for African Americans. Just in all reality,

[0:24:32 Speaker 0] right, So So I think that, you know, if you go back to where we started, in a way, um, you know this this helps us fill in, You know, why were you know what the political roots are, if you will, of the different responses that we’re seeing in and the from different, very high profile political leaders in and how they are framing this? Um, you know these things you know, if you just sort of step back and think about the public is a as receiving messages, if you will, in a in a given moment from political leaders, when those messages go out there landing very differently among different people. You know when when you know Donald Trump makes a speech from the Rose Garden, uh, talking about supporting the police, support, restoring law and order and doesn’t really mention in any, you know, sustained way the grievances of the of the protesters, peaceful or not, or the incident that triggered this and kind of re raised all these issues in in such a dramatic way. Uh, and you know, people that do not see discrimination against blacks is a fundamental problem. Where is a widespread problem are going to receive that much more positively than people that do not. I mean, this is sort of being overly simplistic, but I mean just to break it all down in a very you know, what public opinion is telling you. Here is what the field of reception is like and how it’s going to vary

[0:26:15 Speaker 1] well the very least. I mean, amongst the president’s base of supporters, it’s not going to feel is, though, something was missing, right? I mean, the thing that you’re saying was not said the idea of, you know, any sort of discussion about what the grievances are or what kind of reforms you know the government might spearhead or even potentially talk about is not there because ultimately you know it. It’s not something that you know, his base is ready to hear now looks ultimately what you could argues. That’s what leadership is. Leadership would bring people along and sort of say, Well, no, but, you know, this is actually important, But the point here is, you know, to the extent that his communications have been criticized by some for not including these messages are not, you know, reaching out to sort of heal these wounds. The reality is that, you know, as you point out, that message is going to land perfectly fine along amongst a large share of the Republican base, At least in Texas.

[0:27:07 Speaker 0] Yeah. And you know, certainly that’s what our data tell us. And I think that, you know, I would be surprised if the president is not getting, you know, advice. You know, from ah looking out at the national perspective. It’s telling him the same thing, and I think that’s one of the reasons that they’re approaching this the way they are, however much there being criticized by those who are not part of their coalition. And I think even from a you know, there’s plenty of ground from a but the practical and unethical perspective to criticize this approach. But the president is ever mindful of his 2020 election effort, and he and supporters and his advisers have a theory of that election. I think, and I think that theory is that they need. They need to maintain their base and build outward from that and then before in his base is mostly white, mostly conservative, mostly older. And this is accentuated by the president’s personal political style, which is one that ops whenever possible for aggression and for activating the negative emotions of his base. That’s from the very from the campaign to the president’s inauguration speech, the now famous kind of American carnage speech, which was really about anger and fear and disappointment and a promise Teoh, you know, overcome that. I think that promise has really been mawr kept in terms of continuing to reference those fears and anxieties than, actually, you know, remedying that situation. Um, back in Texas, it looks very different. Greg Abbot’s not on the ballot in 2020. He’s in a state in which the dominant kind of partisan political narrative of the last two years mawr less has been that the state is becoming more competitive among Republicans and Democrats and that the conventional Republican strategy of appealing only to the base may you know that has worked here for for a couple of decades may not work as well in the future, particularly if you’re a legislator, a member of Congress, Greg Greg Abbot’s not on the ballot, but he wants to. You know, he is mindful of being the leader of his party, and he’s also in a situation where the protests have not quite being quite so visceral and had quite the impact in the state. And he’s taking a different approach and it’s a it’s. I think it’s a matter of degree not kind, but it is different.

[0:29:55 Speaker 1] Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, old, I mean, ultimately you’re right. I mean, I think Abbott not being on the ballot makes a big difference. But also, you know, the thing that sort of, you know, I think people no, you know, they know this, but they don’t really incorporate it into their views of Texas. Is the rally that, you know Texas is an extremely diverse state, right? I mean, this is not the, you know, The stereotype of Texas and Greg Abbott is not, you know, is maybe more a stereotypical Texan in some way than that actually matches Texas Room is the promise stereotypes. Sometimes they would actually match the reality. Texas is a majority minority state. Ah, you know. And

[0:30:28 Speaker 0] when it’s an urban state

[0:30:29 Speaker 1] and it’s an urban state, that’s right. It’s an urban majority minority state in which, you know about 60% of Texas adults over the age of 40 are white, and about 60% of adults under the age of 40 are not white. And as you get younger, you’re getting more and more diverse. You’re closer to about 70% of Texas. Population is non white. If you look at under 18 year olds, and so you know, ultimately, you know these grievances are going to have to be addressed some way somehow when I say these grievances, I’m almost I’m kind of taking the catchall. I don’t even me just these specific remands. I mean, sort of the bucket of grievances that this is actually probably bringing together here, which is goes beyond simply, you know, simply, you know, the killing of George Floyd. Or, you know, even more localized police killings or police practices in general, to the disparate impacts of the Corona virus pandemic. You know, among communities of color, the disparate impact of job losses. Ah, you know, because of the economic downturn in communities of color, the slower recovery from economic crises that are experienced by communities of color. And on top of all of that, the fact that especially for younger people in Texas, who again are, by and large, non white this is actually a new economic crisis on the on the heels of the 2008 economic crisis, of which the younger generation in Texas and elsewhere has never recovered. There’s a lot going on here, and as we said, we can only talk about a little bit of this.

[0:31:59 Speaker 0] Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, what you’re saying, I think you know. And I think this is right is that these moments of when the vast differences in the across the board experiences of Americans of different races surface in moments of crisis like this and they’re brought to the fore and the frustration and the frustration with with the pace of progress. And just as we, you know, we talked about lived experience a lot in this and just the the experience of that. They erupt almost uncontrollably and they come. They fall outside the lines of the day to day institutional politics. And I think that there is something about this moment, the confluence of it that does seem, you know, I don’t know what the word is. I mean, you were kind of getting at this. You know, this sense that there’s something that is out there now that, given not just the very deeply seated problem of racism, is a systemic feature of American politics and racial racism in its various nuances, but also the fact of that this is now intertwined with the economic difficulties that are accompanying the present moment. And, you know, who would have thought we’d be doing upon cast and not really discussed the pandemic at all. But as you say, that pandemic is also brought out these racial disparities and it’s, you know, there’s a critical mass here. Um, that, I think, is one of the things that is sustaining the protests. And, you know, I mean, typically, I think our expectation is based on history. These things happen. They go, you know, you have civil unrest, you have protests that goes on in it, and it kind of just dissipates after a few days. This has been going on for a week, and I also think that you know, it’s that it there’s no normal to go back to because of a number of reason. The economic dislocation, Ah, pandemic. And, you know, frankly, the tone in the approach of the Trump presidency, which does not seem and thus far at trying to, um, diffuse it, but is actually stoking

[0:34:35 Speaker 1] it. What’s right? And I think that’s also the thing that makes this feels, you know, So different is the fact that there is, I mean, not to be like a total Debbie Downer here, although I don’t see any problem with it in the current moments, you know, there is no release valve for these tensions. There’s no you know, he said. You know, people were kind of saying over the weekend, you know, when is the president gonna come out and make

[0:34:58 Speaker 0] sure there’s no institutional release?

[0:35:00 Speaker 1] There’s no institutional release, the institutional recently, but ultimately this

[0:35:04 Speaker 0] is I think we’re seeing what release valve has been left.

[0:35:07 Speaker 1] I mean, me look, but ultimately we’re talking about institutions. I mean, you know, I mean, you can go and find lists of every business that hasn’t has not made a statement on racial equality this morning very easily. You know, what you can’t find is federal or state governments with any particular response to this. Now, again, it’s a lot harder. Ah, but ultimately it’s hard to even imagine what that release valve looks like. Right where you know, you imagine it institutional response that allows protesters people who agree or disagree, you know, with the protest and the protesters themselves to be able to say, Okay, we’re going to do this thing now. We’re gonna have, you know, some sort of process, or we feel like we’ve been heard and something’s going to happen, you know, may take Well, it’s hard to imagine what that’s gonna look like in the near term, and part of that is both. You know, these underlying political attitudes were talking about the difficulty of the issue. But the fact that we’re also facing now three major crises at once and there’s only so much resource is to go around. I don’t mean money. I just mean attention. I need political capital. I mean willpower to deal with these things. And I think history is any guide was to say, I think if history is any guide, you know, focusing on on the grievances of non white people is probably not going to be the top of the list

[0:36:27 Speaker 0] of certainly ah track Coalition and

[0:36:31 Speaker 1] yeah,

[0:36:33 Speaker 0] in the in Washington D. C right now And, you know, elsewhere. Um and so yes. So what the You know what the what? The response that makes people feel heard and is a credible response, I think, as has remained aloof. So I think on that No, we flagged the economy. Ah will probably come back and talk about that Texas, You know, in a thing that sounds very mundane compared to the both difficult and deep structural problems we’ve been talking about. Tax revenues are very low in this state right now, and this is going to feed into these other problems that that news came out this week. Ah, and also the pandemic numbers in in Texas right now are deeply ambiguous. Some elements of the political leadership or cherry picking some of those numbers and saying that things were getting better and to be fair, um, you know, others are accentuating the negative, but they’re very ambiguous. The seven day moving averages, depending on what you look at in terms of infection and and positive tests, look at best flat, you know?

[0:37:43 Speaker 1] But it’s also tell something. But again, the whole thing about the testing is, and I just throw this out there, is it? It’s not a random sample of the state, and again I’m being all of statistics and this kind of stuff. But these tests are not being just randomly distributed across the state to people and just to see whether they have it or not, to give us some sort of sense, you know? I mean, I think we had the highest number of new infections on Sunday. Maybe because they went and they tested a prayers and that had a ton of infections. Right? And so ultimately, you know, those. I mean, those data are very difficult. Unpack for a lot of reasons.

[0:38:16 Speaker 0] Yeah. The tests are not random and compared to other states, I think as of yesterday, Texas was 43rd in the 50 among the 50 states in test per 1,000,000 people. And you know all the state as a little bit, you know, touch and go. It’s it’s flowing in a different times people. But, you know, Texas has never been I don’t think for more than a day or so any within the top 40 of the 50 states. So not only is the testing, not random, there’s not much of it going on. Um, so on that we will believe Italy. End this, and we will see you next week. Uh, take care and stay. Well. Second, reading podcast is a production of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.