Columnists
'Don’t California My Texas'
By Henry H. Bucher, Jr., Faculty Emeritus in Humanities, Austin College
Aug 25, 2025
Print this page
Email this article

Henry H. Bucher, Jr.
In mid-August, while in line outside Arby’s takeout in Sherman, the vehicle in front had a sticker on the back window: “Don’t California My Texas.” On August 22, our Texas Senate passed a new Republican gerrymandered map that may add five more Republicans to the Senate.   The first state to promise to “fight fire with fire”* was California which could add five more Democrats to the Senate. Californians could sell a car sticker that said: “Let’s Texas our California!”—with regard to gerrymandering.

 

Other Blue/Democratic states are considering imitating California. Other Red/Republican states are going to imitate Texas. It appears that another non-volent (we hope) “political civil war” is in process in our USA. Southerners say that our first civil war(1860s) was about states’ rights—not slavery. Correct, but southern states were fighting for their right to continue slavery. We hope that our pending  ‘political civil war’ remains political, but many of the issues in it mirror issues from the mid-1860s.—race is a major one but more subtle. The central issue is whether the USA will remain consistent with our Constitution’s rules for a democratic country with freedom and justice for all; or become an autocratic nation—as are many others today.

 

Perhaps we should create a sticker to offer to all fifty states: “Don’t Russia our USA!!”

 

*Gerrymandering is not considered legal by some, but due to the serious move toward autocracy, “fighting fire with fire” has become an excuse by many including Governor Newsom of California.