A compelling, if disjointed, survey of contemporary Texas politics.
A veteran Texas journalist and political commentator compiles his recent columns and editorials in this excoriating anthology.
“Texas is now a joke,” writes Bills, who laments that the Lone Star State has become “synonymous with shameless cretins, imbeciles, sexist morons, or chauvinist losers.” As a once-proud Texan, the author recalls that it was not so long ago that the state “used to be the exception” in the South, having elected a liberal Democratic governor (Ann Richards) and the nation’s first Black congresswoman from the South (Barbara Jordan). As long ago as 1925, Texas boasted the first state Supreme Court composed entirely of women. But the state that produced national treasures from Willie Nelson and Janis Joplin to Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather is now, per Bills, “a laughingstock,” best known for its reactionary politicians like Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and Greg Abbott. A seasoned freelance journalist, the author has dedicated much of his recent writing career to speaking out against the direction his state has taken through editorials and columns published in the Fort Worth Weekly and other local periodicals. In this collection of 25 pieces, mostly written since 2021, he tackles Texas’ “despicable and dangerous” political climate, which, he observes, has led the nation in policies that include government-mandated censorship of libraries, a statewide ban on abortion (even for victims of sexual assault), and a xenophobic immigration policy. As the author of multiple books on Texas history and politics, Bills is a keen observer of state government and supports his well-argued editorials with more than 50 research endnotes. Taken individually, each chapter is consistently thought provoking, providing a concise, effective, and alarming introduction to Texas politics—but the work could have used a more thoughtful structure. While loosely organized by theme, the chapters often jump timelines and topics. Bills’ engaging writing style blends accessibility with learned analysis, and his text is accompanied by full-color photographs, historical paintings, and other images. An appendix featuring the manifesto of El Paso mass shooter Patrick Crusius offers a frightening reflection on the link between rhetorical and physical violence.
A compelling, if disjointed, survey of contemporary Texas politics.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9798218342722
Page Count: 178
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.
Helping liberals get out of their own way.
Klein, a New York Times columnist, and Thompson, an Atlantic staffer, lean to the left, but they aren’t interrogating the usual suspects. Aware that many conservatives have no interest in their opinions, the authors target their own side’s “pathologies.” Why do red states greenlight the kind of renewable energy projects that often languish in blue states? Why does liberal California have the nation’s most severe homelessness and housing affordability crises? One big reason: Liberal leadership has ensnared itself in a web of well-intentioned yet often onerous “goals, standards, and rules.” This “procedural kludge,” partially shaped by lawyers who pioneered a “democracy by lawsuit” strategy in the 1960s, threatens to stymie key breakthroughs. Consider the anti-pollution laws passed after World War II. In the decades since, homeowners’ groups in liberal locales have cited such statutes in lawsuits meant to stop new affordable housing. Today, these laws “block the clean energy projects” required to tackle climate change. Nuclear energy is “inarguably safer” than the fossil fuel variety, but because Washington doesn’t always “properly weigh risk,” it almost never builds new reactors. Meanwhile, technologies that may cure disease or slash the carbon footprint of cement production benefit from government support, but too often the grant process “rewards caution and punishes outsider thinking.” The authors call this style of governing “everything-bagel liberalism,” so named because of its many government mandates. Instead, they envision “a politics of abundance” that would remake travel, work, and health. This won’t happen without “changing the processes that make building and inventing so hard.” It’s time, then, to scrutinize everything from municipal zoning regulations to the paperwork requirements for scientists getting federal funding. The authors’ debut as a duo is very smart and eminently useful.
Cogent, well-timed ideas for meeting today’s biggest challenges.Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781668023488
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.
A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.
To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.
Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9781982181284
Page Count: 688
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
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