Texas Monthly looks at the recent spate of rallies and visits to Texas elected officials’ events and offices to see what’s up.
John Simpson and Mark Leech had never participated in a protest before last month. In fact, the couple—who got married in Temple last June—wasn’t particularly political before the 2016 election. They became concerned, though, that there would be new challenges to their marriage as Donald Trump began issuing executive orders (there have been reports that the administration is drafting an order on religious freedom, which concerns Simpson and Leech). Simpson was also concerned about Trump’s appointed Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, the border wall, and the suggestion of new tariffs on Mexican imports. And so, together, they started making phone calls. A friend told Simpson to call his senators, but when he tried, he kept getting a busy signal. Then, when the couple learned that Texas U.S. Senator John Cornyn would be speaking at the Temple Chamber of Commerce on Friday, January 27—as the keynote speaker at the annual Salute to Business banquet—they decided to show up in person to voice their concerns.
They weren’t alone, either. They were joined by their neighbors in the community—the Bell County Democratic Party, an older man in a suit and tie with a sign that read “This Is What A Liberal Looks Like,” a retired National Guard member—and by dozens of people from Austin and Waco. All told, there were about seventy people waiting outside the Temple Convention Center that evening, starting around 4:30 in the evening and sticking around until seven, waiting for their Senator to arrive and chanting slogans like “What do we want? A town hall! When do we want it? Now!” and “Pick up your phone!”
The demonstration wasn’t made up of seasoned activists and full-time ax-grinders; there were college students in the crowd, but also retirees. “We’re the moderates,” the retired National Guard member explained. Simpson, who voted for Cornyn in 2014, said, “I didn’t know what to expect. This is my first protest.”
Cornyn. Ted Cruz, and Mike McCaul get most of the attention in the story, which is worth your time to read. I’ve been kind of amazed by the number of people I know who have been energetically calling and rallying people to call over this bill or that confirmation hearing – Betsy DeVos was a particular point of interest – these past few weeks. Many of them were not visibly active in politics before this. More than a few are people whose political orientation had been unknown to me before now. It may well be that all of this burns itself out at some point – November of 2018 is a long way off, and there are going to be far more losses than wins in the interim, given the current nature of Congress and the Capitol – but it’s equally plausible that the energy we’re seeing now builds on itself, with real infrastructure emerging to sustain it. I have believed all along that the political climate in 2018 will be different than what it was in 2010 and 2014. This has been mostly predicated on the sense that Republican voters won’t have the unifying villain of Barack Obama in the White House and will have to deal with their own inevitable disappointment in their elected heroes and their feet of clay. It’s clear there’s another side to that coin, where Democrats have the bulk of the enthusiasm. If this continues – and let’s be clear, it may not; see above about how far off the next election is – then we could be in for quite the year next year. In the meantime, keep calling and showing up. It’s working.