Roadmap to Victory: Rebuilding Progressive Power in Texas

Vol I

What if I told you that Texas—a state now synonymous with conservative politics—was once the beating heart of the modern progressive populist movement?

With the resignation of Texas Democratic Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa, a new State Chair will be elected on March 29th (to learn more about this election, click here). Over the next few weeks, I’ll post a Roadmap to Victory: Rebuilding Progressive Power in Texas. This series will be about building a powerful movement to return Texas to its (progressive) roots.

For Volume I, we’ll go over the suppressed story of how progressivism was born in the Lone Star State, its impact on the national stage, and why reclaiming that legacy is essential to building a better future.

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Birthplace of Progressive Populism

Texas began the modern progressive populist movement, and it's up to Texas to finish it. Our history has been erased in recent years by Right-Wingers so that they can maintain their power. They know controlling our past narrative is the best way to influence the present.

In 1875, a group of Texans met in Lampasas County (just a few miles away from my family’s ranch) to protest the growing power of the railroad and other robber barons. This group became the National Farmers Alliance & Industrial Union, a nationwide network of progressive populists outraged at the growing corporate power. As they were called back then, Alliance Men traveled across the USA advocating for community solutions to corporate power. From co-ops to better deals with the railroads, the Alliance fought for its members.

By the 1890s, realizing it needed political power, the Alliance transitioned to the People's Party, often called the Populists. The Populists were very popular in Texas, especially in the Hill Country. The Populists called for collective bargaining, federal regulation of railroad rates, direct election of the US Senators, shorter workweek, a national banking system administered by the federal government, and more.

The Alliance led to the People’s Party, better known as the Populists. Their platform called for revolutionary ideas at the time:

• Collective bargaining rights.

• Federal regulation of railroads.

• Direct election of U.S. Senators.

• A 40-hour workweek.

• A federally backed and administered banking system.

Radical ideas, I know.

After several failed attempts to run their national candidates and realizing that third parties don’t win in a two-party system, they sought a new way to obtain political power. They found it by building the Democratic Party from within.

Once the progressives within the Democrats had sufficient political power, our ideals became a reality through FDR's New Deal, JFK's New Frontier, and LBJ's Great Society. None of these actions, which lifted millions out of poverty, including my own family, would have happened if Texas hadn't planted the seeds of the Progressive Populist Movement.

This is our true history. Texas went from a hotbed of progressive populism to a state of, by, and for Big Business. They tried to erase that history. It’s time to reclaim our history and fix past mistakes by rebuilding our power.

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Texas Deserves a Strong Party

Many Democrats talk about the need to build power. However, when it comes down to “how do we actually do it,” our solutions often fall into what we can call “White Knight” Syndrome—we are always just waiting for that right candidate or organization to come along to save us.

The truth is that if the 2022 and 2024 statewide Democratic candidates, with well over $100 million in their various war chests, could not flip even one seat, the problem isn’t the candidates or lack of money.

To quote Congressman Greg Casar, “Texas isn’t a red state; it’s an under-organized state.”

While many see Texas as purely a red state, and while that is (currently) true to an extent, Texas is much more diverse than most folks expect. More Democrats live in Texas than in New York. According to the Cook Political Report, in 2020, Biden received 5.2 million votes in New York, but he received 5.3 million in Texas. Based on these numbers, it stands to reason that the Democratic Party in Texas should be as strong, if not stronger, than the Democratic Party in New York.

And yet, fear, hesitation, and infighting run rampant within our Party at all levels. You can see it from certain elected officials being meek. You can see it when candidates are afraid to stand up for basic Democratic principles. You can see it when Democrats spend more energy fighting themselves than they do fighting the GOP.

As a rancher, I know that you must first diagnose and understand the problem before fixing a machine. So why are things this way?

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Overcoming History

For nearly 150 years, from 1846 to 1994, the Democratic Party never had to work to win in Texas. There's a reason they were called Yellow Dog Democrats. Voters would "vote for a yellow dog before voting for any Republican."

The Party never needed to fight Republicans. It only had to fight itself with who would control the Old Machine.

The Party Apparatus in Texas (as well as most of the South) has no generational memory of how to work together, build a comprehensive coalition, and fight Republicans. Old party bosses never needed to expand their political machine, they only had to lock out the competition from within. Its 150-year domination has taught it nothing and left only bad habits.

When LBJ was a young Congressman, he saw this firsthand. Party factions would fight tooth and nail with each other. Vengeance and backstabbing were common. While LBJ was able to maneuver around the factions (usually getting them to fight themselves for his own benefit), this legacy is an obstruction for us today.

As Democrats, we sometimes overly focus on the system while ignoring the culture. We often think that making systematic changes will inherently be enough, but they are not. We must change the culture too. Case in point, look at our anti-monopoly laws. Congress passed the Packers and Stockyards Act in 1921 to prevent monopolies from rising in our meat industry. These laws were vigorously enforced from the New Deal era to the 70s. However, the culture changed under Reaganism, and thus, all meaningful enforcement stopped. The rules are still in the book, but the monopoly-busting culture is no longer there to cause the rules to be enforced.

How often have we seen county parties and local clubs fight each other? How often have you seen suspected backroom deals about how you would get power? How often have left-leaning organizations smear each other over their perceived “fiefdoms?”

While I would say things are getting better, at least at the state level, we still have a ways to go.

It will not be easy overcoming this history. If it had been easy, it would have happened. You can see some progress in certain areas, where Democrats focus more on working together than quarreling with each other. But in other areas, you’ll see infighting and people putting their ego above all else.

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Coming Next

In this Roadmap to Victory series, we’ll cover the following topics:

• How do we destroy a political machine

• How power is made

• What is our action plan to build power

The Democrats saved millions of us from poverty—my family included, as both sets of my grandparents lived in absolute poverty until the Democratic New Deal gave them the bootstraps they needed to pull themselves up. We owe it to ourselves to save our movement, to build it to reach its true potential, and to have it as the means to achieve our collective destiny.