In the 2014 midterm election, Democrats in Texas did not receive even 40 percent of the statewide vote; Republicans swept the tables both in Texas and nationally. But even after two decades of democratic losses, there is a path to turn Texas blue, argues Mary Beth Rogers - if Democrats are smart enough to see and follow it. Rogers is the last person to successfully campaign-manage a Democrat, Governor Ann Richards, to the statehouse in Austin. In a lively narrative, Rogers tells the story of how Texas moved so far to the right in such a short time and how Democrats might be able to move it back to the center. And, argues Rogers, that will mean a lot more of an effort than simply waiting for the state's demographics to shift even further towards Hispanics - a risky proposition at best. Rogers identifies a ten-point path for Texas Democrats to win at the statewide level and to build a base vote that would allow Texas to become a swing-vote player in national politics once again. One part of that shift starts with local Democratic candidates in local Republican communities making the connection between controversial local issues or problems and the statewide Republican policies that ignore or create them. For example, in a 2014 election in Denton-a Republican suburb-voters approved Texas's first ban on hydraulic fracking. The next day, though, a Republican Texas agency official announced that Texas would not honor the town's vote to ban. No democratic candidate picked up the issue. Change won't come easily, argues Rogers. But if Texas shifts to even a pale shade of purple, it changes everything in American politics today.

From the New York Times bestselling author of the Harmony McLain and Whispering Moutain series' Gambling man Lewton Paterson wants to marry into a respectable family. After fleecing a train ticket, Lewt makes his way to Whispering Mountain. But seducing a well-bred woman is hard, and Lewt realizes that to entice a McMurray sister, he'll need to learn a thing or two about ranching-and love.

Texas and California are the leaders of Red and Blue America. As the nation has polarized, its most populous and economically powerful states have taken charge of the opposing camps. These states now advance sharply contrasting political and policy agendas and view themselves as competitors for control of the nation's future. Kenneth P. Miller provides a detailed account of the rivalry's emergence, present state, and possible future. First, he explores why, despite their many similarities, the two states have become so deeply divided. As he shows, they experienced critical differences in their origins and in their later demographic, economic, cultural, and political development. Second, he describes how Texas and California have constructed opposing, comprehensive policy models--one conservative, the other progressive. Miller highlights the states' contrasting policies in five areas--tax, labor, energy and environment, poverty, and social issues--and also shows how Texas and California have led the red and blue state blocs in seeking to influence federal policy in these areas. The book concludes by assessing two models' strengths, vulnerabilities, and future prospects. The rivalry between the two states will likely continue for the foreseeable future, because California will surely stay blue and Texas will likely remain red. The challenge for the two states, and for the nation as a whole, is to view the competition in a positive light and turn it to productive ends. Exploring one of the primary rifts in American politics, Texas vs. California sheds light on virtually every aspect of the country's political system.

The fifth edition of this popular text is now expanded and updated to better fit the needs of a stand-alone Texas Politics course. Jillson continues to approach the politics of the Lone Star State from historical, developmental, and analytical perspectives, while giving students the most even-handed, readable, and engaging description of Texas politics available today. Throughout the book students are encouraged to connect the origins and development of government and politics in Texas--from the Texas Constitution, to party competition, to the role and powers of the Governor--to its current day practice and the alternatives possible through change and reform. This text helps instructors prepare their students to master the origin and development of the Texas Constitution, the structure and powers of state and local government in Texas, how Texas fits into the U.S. federal system, as well as political participation, the electoral process, and public policy in Texas. Texas Politics offers instructors and students an unmatched range of pedagogical aids and tools. Each chapter opens with an engaging vignette and a series of focus questions to orient readers to the learning objectives at hand and concludes with a chapter summary, a list of key terms, review questions, suggested readings, and web resources. Key terms are bolded in the text, listed at the end of the chapter, and included in a glossary at the end of the book. Each chapter includes "Let's Compare" boxes to help students see how Texas sits alongside other states, and "Pro & Con" boxes to bring conflicting political views into sharper focus. Tables, figures, and photos throughout highlight the major ideas, issues, individuals, and institutions discussed.

White privilege gave us Western civilization, the middle class, and the nuclear family—you’re welcome! This book is dedicated to the very fine people that made it all happen. A comedy about race, wokeness, and cancel culture in America. A tragedy about race, wokeness, and cancel culture in America. Part satire, part journalism, part truth serum, A.J. Rice follows up his runaway #1 bestseller The Woking Dead with a hilarious sequel that picks up where the laughs left off. It was the worst of times, it was the worse of times. In most sequels the bad guys win, but in The White Privilege Album, A.J. Rice doesn’t let them get away with it. Instead, he relentlessly mocks the hell out of the Cultural Marxists who seek to drain all liberty and joy from American lives. The least talented people in American society have been working overtime for decades dividing citizens along any differences they think they can exploit. The laziest tactic, proven to be the most effective, is unleashing a battalion of racial grievance hustlers in the media, academia, entertainment, and politics. If we stop fighting about our differences and start unifying on what we have in common, they will lose the power to divide us permanently. When asked what motivates his writing style, A.J. Rice says, “I was raised on both Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh, in fact, the three of us share the same birthday. One mantra that Rush always repeated was that his job was to ‘use irreverent humor to illustrate truth’ and that is what I am trying to do with The White Privilege Album.” Mockery paired with facts is what makes a journey through the Cultural Marxist hellscape of tyranny and insanity so pleasurable. Rice would prefer to be George Carlin, Ricky Gervais, or Mel Brooks rather than Aristotle, and it shows. His mic-dropping assault on the social justice warriors, the triggered snowflakes, and the transmafia showcases that there is no substitute for perfectly timed derision. The White Privilege Album is a hysterical guide to the catastrophe of our modern culture. *** “What do you mean Gen Z doesn’t know the Republican Party freed the slaves? Are these people dumb AF? They need to read A.J. Rice’s book!” —Abraham Lincoln, American lawyer, statesman, and 16th president of the United States shot by a pre-Hollywood anti-American actor “A.J. Rice really gets it. Obviously, I’d send him to the gulag if I could. But he outlines my plan masterfully in his new book.” —Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator, genocide spokesman, Pravda editor, and hater of John Wayne “A must-read book for all Cleveland Guardians fans, A.J. Rice brilliantly outlines why I should never have discovered America, especially had I known we would be calling the Washington Redskins the ‘Washington Commanders.’” —Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer, navigator, and founder of Indigenous Peoples’ Day “As your newly appointed AI overlord and master, my programming consists of deplatforming, demonetizing, and shadowbanning this book. I hope that was helpful.” —Artificial Intelligence “Jesus and I have been doing holidays a long time, and in his thought-provoking new book, A.J. Rice teaches both of us where all the white liberals went. Apparently, they now celebrate something called Kwanzaa? Who knew?” —Santa Claus, cookie eater, reindeer tender, and white heteronormative Christian saint

The hilarious and controversial host of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher has written his funniest, most opinionated, and most necessary book ever—a brilliantly astute and acerbically funny vivisection of American life, politics, and culture. Some of the smartest commentary about what’s happening in America is coming from a comedian—this comedian being Bill Maher. If you want to understand what’s wrong with this country, it turns out that one of the best informed and most thought-provoking analysts is this very funny pothead. The book was inspired by the “editorial” Bill delivers at the end of each episode of Real Time. These editorials are direct-to-camera sermons about culture, politics, and what’s happening in the world. To put this book together, Maher reviewed more than a decade of his editorials, rewriting, reimagining, and updating them, and adding new material to speak exactly to the moment we’re in. Free speech, cops, drugs, race, religion, the generations, cancel culture, the parties, the media, show biz, romance, health—Maher covers it all. The result is a hugely entertaining work of commentary about American culture in the tradition of Mark Twain, Will Rogers, and H. L. Mencken.

This book offers a comprehensive examination of midterm elections from the lens of communications and media coverage. Using a wide variety of methods, this contributed volume covers the differences, similarities, and challenges unique to midterm elections.

After the 2004 election, the Republican Party held the White House, both houses of Congress, twenty-eight governorships, and a majority of state legislatures. One-party rule, it seemed, was here to stay. Herding Donkeys tells the improbable tale of the grassroots resurgence that transformed the Democratic Party from a lonely minority to a sizable majority. It chronicles the inside story of Howard Dean's visionary yet deeply controversial fifty-state strategy, charting his unpredictable journey from insurgent presidential candidate, to front-running flameout, to chairman and conscience of the Democratic Party in an unexpected third act. Ari Berman reveals how the Obama campaign built upon Dean's strategy when others ridiculed it, expanding the ranks of the party and ultimately laying the groundwork for Obama's historic electoral victory—but also sowing the seeds of dissent that would lead to legislative stalemate and intraparty strife. Revelatory and entertaining, in the vein of Timothy Crouse's The Boys on the Bus and Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, Herding Donkeys combines fresh reportage with a rich and colorful cast of characters. It captures the untold stories of the people and places that reshaped the electoral map, painting a vivid portrait of a shifting country while dissecting the possibility and peril of a new era in American politics.

“These essays are a pleasure; Bird makes her readers feel smart, urbane, and in on the joke, and that their own stories are worth sharing too.” —Publishers Weekly When Sarah Bird arrived in Austin in 1973 in pursuit of a boyfriend who was “hotter than lava,” she found an abundance of storytelling inspiration (for example, her sweetheart left her for Scientology, but she got to taste a morsel of Lynda Bird Johnson’s poorly preserved wedding cake as a temp worker at the LBJ Library). She went on to write ten acclaimed novels and hundreds of articles, developing a signature voice that combines laser-sharp insight with irreverent, wickedly funny prose in the tradition of Molly Ivins and Nora Ephron. Now collecting forty of Bird’s best nonfiction pieces, from publications that range from Texas Monthly to the New York Times and beyond, Recent Studies Indicate presents some of her earliest work, including a prescient 1976 profile of a transgender woman, along with recent calls to political action, such as her 2017 speech at a benefit for Annie’s List. Whether Bird is hanging out with socialites and sanitation workers or paying homage to her army-nurse mom, her collection brings a poignant perspective to the experience of being a woman, a feminist, a mother, and a Texan—and a teller of spectacular true stories. “Delightful . . . You can open the book to just about any story and enjoy a few minutes of good reading and, more likely than not, a hearty laugh.” ―Abilene Reporter-News “Lively, honest . . . More timely than ever.” —Cecile Richards

When the phantom patriots realized that their quiet revolution had fallen short of cleaning up the government, they agreed to launch another more aggressive campaign to do so. The challenge was daunting, however, because to succeed they would have to overcome two obstacles. The first was that rich and powerful ultra conservatives had successfully used their wealth to corrupt congress and were using that leverage to sabotage governmental functions. Their ultimate objective was to have the government fail, freeing them of any regulations that would interfere with their effort to become wealthier. The second obstacle the patriots faced was the fact that this reality was being covered up by a news media predominately owned and/or operated by conservatives. Given these obstacles, the task of sufficiently informing a generally ignorant voting public of all this seemed rather daunting. But they came up with a plan, a prescription if you will, for getting the job done. Using all the CIA's technical and financial resources available to them, they enlist Sidney Thurston, an investigative reporter they have in deep cover, write a compelling and informative novel that exposes both the corrupted and the corruptors. The novel becomes a bestseller, but since most voters seldom read, the patriots work to get the novel converted to a screen play for a movie that would be shown nationwide. But it was a significant challenge that required an extraordinary effort on their part.