As usual, I agree with your sentiments.

Texas is a facsimile of Afghanistan. Kabul has become a thriving cosmopolitan metropolis (probably not for much longer unless a resistance grows against the Taliban, but that's another story), and the countryside is a bastion of fundamentalism.

Same is true in Texas. The rural areas rule a state that has thriving metropolitan areas like Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso that literally keep the rest of the state alive.

These are blue islands in a red cesspool.

We are starting to see the spread of rural influence in non-southern states now, too. Ohio wouldn't be as red as it is were it not for its rural areas and decaying mid-size former manufacturing towns.

I will continue to argue for Democratic economic policies that address the decay of rural America.

I realize that it's hard to be sympathetic towards bastions of misogyny and racial prejudice . But my motives aren't out of sympathy.

It's about the simple practical matter of turning around the vote so that rural voters vote in their own self interest, which they would if Democrats would enact something like a WPA 2.0 to put these people back to work.

And maybe enact something like the Fairness Doctrine or find some other way to shut up Fox News, which is a 24 hour propaganda machine that fuels rural American politics.

There are practical solutions we can look at, too. One of them is to flood rural areas with poll watchers from the cities.

Does anyone think the average Texan rural voter can read the constitution, much less interpret it?