Editor’s Letter: Introducing Our May/June 2025 Issue

Texas Observer readers Three months into a second Trump administration nearly a decade into the Trump era more than a decade into the Greg Abbott era and harrowingly long years into the GOP s unilateral control of Texas establishment the forces of political progress in our state find themselves somewhere between stasis retrenchment and the abyss There just isn t much right now to prop up either cheap short-term optimism backlash midterm or grander narratives demographic destiny One may say the championship has been rigged but a critical mass of the state s voters have purely continued to empower a party that s been in control so long that its abandoned principles have abandoned principles so long that charges of hypocrisy have no stable ground on which to land School vouchers the political dilemma du jour as I write this and preponderance likely when you read it are a handout They are an entitlement They are both more governing body bureaucracy and waste and if passed will likely lead to more fraud and corruption surely DOGE will get right on it But the greater part Texas Republicans are unmoved by their own party s erstwhile rhetoric Politics is a battle for power they have it and they ll find new approaches to wield it so long as they do And logical contradictions mean little so long as you re helping the right people families with kids already in private schools and hurting the right targets unionized teachers families who could never afford private tuition the idea of citizens development as a social equalizer Advertisement Even if vouchers were to fall victim again to internecine GOP conflict the general march toward privatization toward turning inhabitants goods into auctioned goods toward turning the machinery of state into little more than a high rollers pay-to-play competition is set to continue apace And yet people are funny creatures Look around and you ll invariably find those who stare down long even unbeatable odds and choose to fight anyway Or if not fight at least find a way to live lives that quietly disprove the dominant political narrative about them to prefigure as the anarchists say a society at ease with its own diversity and unsettled hierarchies I think this emerges in this Observer issue as a subtle theme through the story of a man off death row becoming something the state maintains he can never be an uncle in Uvalde channeling irrecoverable loss into community office Afghan refugee wrestlers succeeding in the country s Mexican-American metropolis and the everyday acts of small- d democracy at the state Capitol From this springtime issue I hope you ll come away not with erudite despair but a grounded tempered hope Solidarity SIGN UP FOR TEXAS OBSERVER EMAILS Get our latest in-depth reporting straight to your inbox Sign Up Note To receive our print magazine become a member here The post Editor s Letter Introducing Our May June Issue appeared first on The Texas Observer