This Year's Midterm Gains For Liberals Mirror An Earlier Time In Texas Politics
It’s nearly a week after midterm elections, and the dust is still settling. Many are calling Election Day 2018 a historic moment.
But Texas Christian University history professor Max Krochmal, the author of “Blue Texas: The Making of a Multiracial Democratic Coalition in the Civil Rights Era,” says that while this year’s elections were historic because they represented a shift toward more liberal-leaning politics, the results weren’t unprecedented. During the civil rights movement era, liberal politicians made their presence known in conservative Texas. But also, the conservatives and liberals in Texas, at that time, were all Democrats.
“Fifty, 60 years ago, the politics of Texas was different,” Krochmal says. “It was a solid Democratic state, but there was, within that, a liberal faction of the Democratic party that was multiracial, multiethnic, and it was committed to civil rights, to liberal politics and to labor rights.”
Krochmal says being a Democrat in the South in the mid-20th century “could mean anything, really.”
Read more: http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/this-years-midterm-gains-for-liberals-mirror-an-earlier-time-in-texas-politics/
