As someone who spent quite a few years in the state legislatures wrestling with this, a huge part of the answer as to why red states have squishy, awful Rs is corporate capture. Not the obvious kind of corporate kickbacks one could rail against (although that definitely happens 💯) but the deeper and more difficult to excise kind, because most red states are heavily dependent on these corporations to keep the economics of their states sound and growing. They fundamentally cannot afford to flip corporate America the bird, and it’s a problem. One important and overlooked reason DeSantis is able to do more in Florida is that Florida is a big, economically diverse state that can afford to play brinksmanship games with these people.
In the specific case of Texas it’s somewhat self-imposed. Politicians there, for many valid reasons, are addicted to the explosive growth of welcoming fleeing corps with sweetheart deals. And these deals have been good for Texas, economically. Culturally, they’ve cut off the legislature’s balls. It’s clear to me there needs to be some kind of red state cooperative to hold the line on immigration and cultural issues that prevents corporations from playing one low-tax environment against another and pushing their leftist cultural conditions on every red state in turn.
You want a perfect encapsulation of what’s happening (and another demonstration of how Nikki Haley is not just useless but will actively undermine the right on any fight worth having), see how she gleefully jumped in during the FL vs woke Disney battle: “SC would love to have all those Disney jobs, come on up!” This is happening behind the scenes every day. foxnews.com/media/nikki-ha…
And yes, @JesseKellyDC has been consistent on this problem for years. And he’s also right that underlying the problem above is a voter problem - R voters have to be more demanding in primaries from those who claim to represent them. 💯
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
