Headline on an editorial-page essay in this morning’s NYT:
From the essay itself:
In the presidential primary on Tuesday, Texas Republicans seem set to throw themselves behind the two candidates [Trump and Cruz] who are doing all they can to stress the seams, pop the rivets, blow apart whatever counts as unity in 21st-century Texas...One way or another, it looks as if white grievance will finish first and second with the Texas G.O.P.
But on a trip across southeast Texas on the eve of the primary, I met voters who — with an exception or two — did not seem to think they were near any abyss, as Mr. Cruz has warned. At a nostalgically 19th-century event — a rodeo parade on Saturday in Houston — Texans seemed perfectly at ease with the times.
Political rhetoric suggesting that the country is on the verge of collapse, and meanwhile a city-by-city, person-by-person sense that the apocalypse is still quite some distance away — yes indeed! That sounds very much like the country my wife Deb and I have been reporting on and trying to describe in our pages.
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This passage by Lawrence Downes resembled many other moments across the country through the past few years:
I watched [the parade] for a while with Kemal Anbarci, a 52-year-old petroleum engineer, born in Turkey, who loves Houston. “I really feel American,” he said. “I feel like I belong here.” He said he voted Republican when he lived in California, but was waiting until after the primary to see who is the most unifying candidate. He called Houston “a wonderful place to be if you are not native-born.” He observed that the riders in the parade were ethnically diverse, but rode in segregated groups. “It’s wonderful,” he said, “but they are in chunks.” He laughed.