Lawrence Wright Talks to David Remnick About Texas as a Bellwether of American Politics

Summary

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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: Lawrence Wright Talks to David Remnick About Texas as a Bellwether of American Politics
Date: July 31, 2017
Host: David Remnick
Guest: Lawrence Wright, New Yorker staff writer

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on a conversation between David Remnick and Lawrence Wright about Texas’s unique political culture and its significance as a predictor—or bellwether—of American political trends. Drawing from Wright’s extensive reporting (and his then-forthcoming book), the discussion explores Texas’s evolution from a progressive stronghold to a Republican-dominated state, internal GOP divisions, current culture wars, voter suppression, demographic changes, and the state’s potential political future.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Texas as a Political Model for America

• Wright’s Thesis:
  • Texas “was the model for the country that we have become,” with its Republican dominance preceding and influencing broader national trends. (03:30)
  • Its political evolution and cultural struggles mirror those now playing out elsewhere in the U.S.

2. Republican Party Dynamics in Texas

• Internal Divisions:
  • The Texas GOP is split: “the conservative business oriented group and the more social cultural group” (03:47)
  • The social/cultural wing feels its agenda is unfinished and is aggressively pushing issues such as restrictions on public schools and bathroom bills.
• Governor Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick:
  • Remnick: "The governor, Greg Abbott, doesn't have much of a national profile..." (04:23)
  • Wright notes Abbott’s cautious business conservatism but says he’s “terrified of being outflanked on the right by his lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick,” who wields greater influence (04:33–05:12).
  • Patrick’s priorities are capping property taxes ("smothering public schools") and “the Women's Right to Privacy Act," or the so-called bathroom bill (05:41–06:03).

3. Culture Wars and Legislative Priorities

• Public Schools:
  • Patrick’s push for private school vouchers and property tax caps threatens school funding.
  • Wright: “He's defunding them. And, you know, that's the same thing as far as I can see.” (06:05)
• Bathroom Bill:
  • Personal testimony highlights the practical harm to trans individuals, often overlooked by legislators (06:03–06:44).
• Immigration and Sanctuary Cities:
  • Wright: “The majority of Texans don’t care about the bathroom bill... but are passionate about immigration,” especially in the suburbs. Hence, there’s bipartisan support for punitive sanctuary city laws (06:57–07:17).
  • State retaliation against Sheriff Sally Hernandez for her sanctuary stance is cited as an example (07:17–07:59).

4. Texas’s Political Shift: From Progressive to Hard-Right

• Roots of the Shift:
  • Remnick and Wright discuss how Texas, once home to progressive leaders like LBJ, shifted rightward (07:59–09:09).
  • Karl Rove’s view: Texas’s roots were more populist than progressive—"the populist believe that somebody's after them...It was the Wall Street bankers...now...it's government and government is the enemy” (08:24–09:09).

5. National Perceptions and Stereotypes of Texas

• Eastern Attitudes Toward Texans:
  • Wright addresses open disdain from coastal elites, with Texans seen as “braggarts...careless personal lives...narcissistic...” (09:33–09:54).
  • Remnick: “you refer to the Eastern attitude toward Texans as the Texans have the...they possess the nation’s id.” (10:01)
  • Wright: “The politician who most expresses that is probably Donald Trump. If he'd put on a cowboy hat...people would have recognized him.” (10:01–10:24)

6. Demographic Change and Political Future

• Population Growth:
  • Texas is expected to double in size by 2050, largely due to job growth attracting people nationally (10:48–11:14).
• Political Consequences:
  • Newcomers from the Midwest and coasts brought Republican traditions, and suburbs—now the reddest areas—swelled (11:19–12:11).
  • “Those people filled in the suburbs, and the suburbs are where the redness really gets bright.” (12:11)

7. Will Texas Turn Purple (or Blue)?

• Demographic Potential and Voter Reality:
  • Wright: “Texas would be blue now if people actually voted.” (12:24)
  • The real obstacle is low turnout among “the young, the poor, and the poorly educated”—groups Republicans actively suppress (12:32).
  • Voter ID laws and underfunded schools are cited as disenfranchisement tools (12:32–13:05).
• Are Democrats Deluded About Texas?:
  • Clinton’s campaign flirted with winning Texas in 2016, but ultimately, the Democratic Party “doesn’t even have offices in a lot of counties” and is “desperately seeking celebrities to run for offices.” (13:10–13:47)
  • Example: “Tommy Lee Jones would be top of the list for some and he’d be hard to vote against.” (13:48–13:53)
• State Party Fragility:
  • Both Republican and Democratic parties in Texas are described as “fragile” and internally divided, similar to past eras (13:54–14:08).

8. Wright's Emotional Take

• Disturbed, Not Hopeful:
  • Wright candidly concludes: “No, I’m not hopeful. I’m upset...Texas is a marvelous, dynamic entity...but it’s not going to be wonderful if we don’t educate our children and if we don’t take care of the health and welfare...That’s where the state’s falling down.” (14:13–14:42)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Texas as a National Model:

  • “Long before the country became as Republican as it is now, Texas was that in a way, it was the model for the country that we have become.” – Lawrence Wright (03:30)

• On GOP Internal Feuding:

  • “The only party in Texas, really, the Republicans, are splitting in half...” – Lawrence Wright (03:39)

• On School Funding Battles:

  • “[Dan Patrick’s] defunding them. And ... that’s the same thing as far as I can see.” – Lawrence Wright, on Texas public schools (06:05)

• On National Perceptions:

  • “When people think of Texas, they think of us as ... braggarts ... up and down narcissistic and caring only about ourselves...” – Lawrence Wright (09:33–09:54)
  • “You refer to the Eastern attitude toward Texans as ... they possess the nation’s id.” – David Remnick (10:01)

• On Trump and Texas:

  • “The politician who most expresses [the Texas id] is probably Donald Trump. If he’d put on a cowboy hat rather than a gimme cap, people would have recognized him.” – Lawrence Wright (10:01–10:24)

• On Voter Suppression:

  • “There’s an effort by the Republican establishment to keep those people from voting...this is a total effort at disenfranchisement.” – Lawrence Wright (12:32)

• On the Future:

  • “No, I’m not hopeful. I’m upset...it’s not going to be wonderful if we don’t educate our children and if we don’t take care of the health and welfare...That’s where the state’s falling down.” – Lawrence Wright (14:13–14:42)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Texas as a National Political Model: 03:23–03:39
• State GOP Internal Divisions: 03:39–04:23
• Governor Abbott’s Cautious Politics: 04:23–05:39
• Dan Patrick’s Political Priorities: 05:39–06:05
• Bathroom Bill and Personal Stories: 06:03–06:44
• Immigration & Sanctuary Cities: 06:57–07:59
• Why Texas Turned Right: 08:24–09:09
• Texas Stereotypes and The 'Nation's Id': 09:33–10:24
• Texas’s Population Boom: 10:48–11:14
• Suburbs and the Red Shift: 11:19–12:11
• The “Purple Texas” Dream: 12:11–13:16
• Hope for the Future: 14:08–14:42

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Tone and Style

The conversation blends dry humor and intellectual rigor, with both Remnick and Wright balancing anecdote, analysis, and personal reflection in a conversational and insightful exchange.

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[End of summary.]

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

My colleague Lawrence Wright has covered some particularly intimidating topics. He wrote a fantastic book about Scientology, something the Scientologists themselves did everything they could to prevent. And he spent some time in the Middle east and wrote about Al Qaeda in a book called the Looming Tower and that won the Pulitzer Prize for his most recent work, though he barely had to leave home. We had what is very formally called an editorial conversation about, I don't know, a year, year and a half ago. And it went a little bit like this. Why don't you write about Texas? And Larry said, yeah, maybe I will. And then no more conversation. And a year later you came back with a manuscript, essentially a book, and it'll be a book in March and we'll talk again at that time.

[C]

But my memory of that conversation, David, is you asked me to explain Texas and I Reminded you that I get paid made by the word. That's a very big question you just asked.

[B]

Well, I got what I deserved and thank God for it. Okay, explain. Texas is not as dumb as it sounds, especially to those of you who live there. Larry lives in Austin, and what he set out to do was to look in great depth at what happens in the Capitol, where every statewide office is held by a Republican and has been for quite a while. Larry's article in the New Yorker is called the the Future is Texas. And by that he meant our future, the whole American future. Larry, I've got to ask you right off the bat, it sounds to me in the era of Trump, we've got two political polls that are establishing themselves independent of Washington. You've got California, which wants to be the kind of liberal opposite of everything Trump, and then you've got Texas.

[C]

Right.

[B]

How is Texas establishing itself as a political center and how is this happening, taking shape?

[C]

Well, long before the country became as Republican as it is now, Texas was that in a way, it was the model for the country that we have become. And what's happening in Texas is that the conservative agenda has largely been accomplished, has been years ago, and now the party, the only party in Texas, really, the Republicans are splitting in half between the conservative business oriented group and the more social cultural group. And that side has not yet enacted its full agenda. And they are really on the warpath. I have a feeling that, you know, this is kind of model for what's happening right now in Washington because the Democrats, just as they have been in Texas, have been sidelined in Washington. And the argument really is between two wings of the Republican Party.

[B]

The governor, Greg Abbott, doesn't have much of a national profile like, say, Scott Walker or Jerry Brown. Where does Abbott stand politically?

[C]

Well, until this current legislative session, Greg Abbott was seen as a kind of business conservative and a cautious figure. He's popular in Texas and in part because I think he's quiet and, you know, he doesn't raise quite a lot of ruckus. But he's this session. The word that I got when I was doing this story and spending a lot of time in the Texas legislature is that he has been terrified of the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, running against him. And Patrick is a formidable, probably the most powerful political figure in the state.

[B]

He's terrified of his own lieutenant governor.

[C]

And even though Patrick said at the beginning of the session he was not going to run against Greg Abbott, Abbott's behavior has been such that he is constantly fe fearful of being outflanked on the right by his lieutenant governor. So whatever Patrick does, you know, Patrick had a list of several bills that he wanted the governor to pass. He demanded that the governor call a special session, which the governor did.

[B]

What did he really want?

[C]

Well, there are two things that he wants. One is he wants to have a bill that would cap property taxes. And property taxes is the main way we finance our schools in Texas. It's a way of smothering public schools. In Dan Patrick's world, you know, we'd be moving to private schools and vouchers, but. And that's something that he's fought for very long.

[B]

He wants to crush public schools.

[C]

Well, he's defunding them. And, you know, that's the same thing as far as I can see. And then the other thing that he's avid for is a bathroom bill, as we call it. He calls it the Women's Right to Privacy Act. Now, I spent a lot of time listening to the testimony. I can tell you that there were trans people coming in who, you know, for instance, people who had been girls when they were born, with full beards and male pattern baldness. You know, where are they supposed to go to the bathroom? And there's not much time spent on taking care of their concerns.

[B]

Now, is this what their constituents want? Is this what suburban Texas constituents want above all from their legislators? Or are these legislators going above and beyond their. The cultural call of duty?

[C]

No, the majority of Texans don't care about the bathroom bill. The Republicans, especially in the suburbs, are passionate about immigration, however. And so, you know, the sanctuary cities bill is very popular in the suburbs. You know, there's a lot of feeling that they know that. And this is where the.

[B]

It's to punish sanctuary cities in some way.

[C]

Yes. And our sheriff, who was just elected, Sally Hernandez, had campaigned on a kind of sanctuary cities platform. And the governor withdrew a million and a half dollars of state funds immediately from Travis county, which is Austin, and been lampooning her on the, you know, he calls her sanctuary Sally and so on. But they passed a. A law that would imprison somebody like our sheriff if she refuses to hold in jail a person that the immigration officials might be interested in.

[B]

Now, Larry, if I remember right, you were born in Oklahoma, but you've lived in Texas virtually your entire life. But we both were born at a time when the most liberal inheritor in the presidency of the FDR New Deal model was Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Texan. So how do you view the evolution of Texas politics? Why did it get so conservative? What happened in Texas?

[C]

Well, you know, I had this conversation the other day with Karl Rove, who I have a regular breakfast group on Monday and Carl comes, sits in every once in a while. And I was asking him about how Texas turned so red, given that it had a very progressive background. And, and he said he didn't really think of it as a progressive background, that it was more a populist one and that the populist believe that somebody's after them. And the Texas populists of old believed that it was the Wall street bankers that were screwing the little guy. But that's changed now. They believe that it's government and government is the enemy that's taking advantage of the little guy.

[B]

Here we're sitting here in New York where you, thank God, come visit us every once in a while. President Johnson once complained that the greatest bigots in the world are the Democrats on the east side of New York, especially when they're thinking about Texans.

[C]

Right.

[B]

You get that a lot. Do you feel, do you feel that the rest of the country, particularly the big bad east, during elites along the Amtrak corridor look down on Texas?

[C]

Oh, they do. It's not a feeling, you know, it's openly expressed. But I've often thought, you know, when people think of Texas, you know, they think of us as, you know, braggarts, as, you know, kind of having careless personal lives and, you know, up and down narcissistic and caring only about ourselves and so on.

[B]

I think you refer to the Eastern attitude toward Texans as the Texans have the. They possess the nation's id.

[C]

Yes. And I've thought the politician who most expresses that is probably Donald Trump. And if he'd put on a cowboy hat rather than a gimme cap, I think people would have recognized him in a way. But I do wonder, will Manhattan ever be held to account the way Texas is for his political figures? I haven't seen it.

[B]

Well, I think. Isn't he getting held to account Trump.

[C]

As expressing a Manhattan cultural ideal? I don't think so.

[B]

No, you make a good point, Larry. You've written that Texas bears the responsibility of being the future. What is it about the state that makes you think it has a certain kind of destiny, political or otherwise?

[C]

Well, for one thing, it's growing so fast, it's outsized growth and it's expected to double by 2050.

[B]

Why is it growing so fast?

[C]

Well, jobs mainly. It's been a tremendous job center. It hasn't necessarily produced the kind of good paying jobs that one would Hope for, but still it has a tremendous amount of opportunity.

[B]

And how will the population boom in Texas affect its politics, do you think?

[C]

Well, immigration in Texas is one of the things that turned it red initially. You know, it was in migration of non Texans into the cities from the Midwest and from the coast who had different political traditions than the kind of progressive Democrats that we had in office in the 50s and early 60s. They brought a different tradition. And it was Dallas, where I grew up, that became the first Republican city when it elected Bruce Alger, a real right wing congressman. And John Tower then became our first senator. And that was a break with the past. It's interesting now. You know, those people filled in the suburbs, and the suburbs are where the redness really gets bright.

[B]

So when people talk about and have written about the coming purple Texas, a political transformation of Texas, this is kind of stars in the eyes in the Democratic Party about Texas. Do you believe it?

[C]

Well, you know, Texas would be blue now if people actually voted.

[B]

Why is that?

[C]

Well, it's been said that, you know, because it's ethnically, you know, the Mexican Americans don't vote. But the truth is the people who don't vote are the young, the poor, and the poorly educated. And that's what we have in abundance in Texas. And there's an effort by the Republican establishment to keep those people from voting. The voter ID laws that have been enacted repeatedly and repeatedly overturned by the Supreme Court, you know, this is a total effort at disenfranchisement. There's very little money put into the schools.

[B]

Hillary Clinton made a big ad buy, thought she had a shot at Texas, at least for a while. Thought she had Texas.

[C]

She was shot by one point. At one point. And that was.

[B]

But was she deluded?

[C]

Yeah, I think, you know, her campaign manager, Gary Morrow, said Texas is not in the balance.

[B]

You think it'll be in the balance in our lifetime?

[C]

Oh, yeah, I think it could be. I think the thing is that both parties in Texas are fragile. You know, the Democratic Party doesn't even have offices in a lot of counties.

[B]

And Texas, the portrait you paint of it is that it's disorganized, depleted, leaderless.

[C]

Right wings and they're now desperately seeking celebrities to run for offices.

[B]

Who does it want to get?

[C]

Tommy Lee Jones would be top of the list for some and he'd be hard to vote against.

[B]

You know, he does have that craggy look.

[C]

But the Republican Party is also divided in a way. It's akin to what the Democratic Party in Texas was decades ago. Go, which was really two parties.

[B]

Do you feel hopeful about the direction of all of this for Texas?

[C]

No, I'm not hopeful. I'm upset. You know, as a citizen of Texas, I'm disturbed at the direction that it's taking. You know, Texas is a marvelous, dynamic entity, and it's got tremendous resources and great people and, you know, and a possible wonderful future. But it's not going to be wonderful if we don't educate our children and if we don't take care of the health and welfare. Welfare of our citizens. And that's where the state's falling down.

[B]

Larry, thanks.

[C]

My pleasure.

[A]

That was Lawrence Wright talking with David Remnick. I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's global editorial director.

[B]

I'm Michael Colory, Wired's Director of consumer Tech and Culture.

[A]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show Uncanny Valley is all about the people, power and influence of Silicon Valley. At Wired, we're constantly reporting on how technology is changing every aspect of our lives. So each week on the show, we get together to talk about one of the biggest stories in tech.

[B]

Right. So whether we're talking about privacy, AI, social media, or a major tech figure, we will always explain the Silicon Valley forces behind these stories and how they affect you.

[A]

Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[B]

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