Texas Two-Step, One Party

 The situation in Texas is bad, and it's largely a creation of Texas' self-mythologizing and Republican one party rule. This manifests in several ways. Politicians will always deal with the imminent problem, so Texas is about as prepared as you reasonably can be along the Gulf Coast for hurricanes and in the Panhandle for tornados.  Deadly cold is not something they are prepared for. However, their desire to remain aloof from the national power grid is directly causing people to die. And the Republican fetish for deregulation has left power generators with obvious weak spots.

Several years ago, we had a massive, heavy wet snow storm strike Connecticut on Halloween, when the trees were still largely covered in leaves. We lost power for almost a week and had to move into a friend's house. Walking outside that night, you could hear tree branches exploding under the weight of snow like gunshots. As a result, Connecticut - which prides itself on its trees - began to massively cut back limbs from powerlines. It was expensive, but it was necessary.

Texas never prepared for something like this because they don't understand that a government is NOT supposed to be efficiently run "like a business."  Government is SUPPOSED to be inefficient to fill in the gaps when Black Swan events happen.

Faced with their own incompetence, Texas Republicans have been literally tilting at windmills, falsely blaming windmill freezing with the problem. (In fact, the windmills are meeting their quotas and the only reason they froze is that they weren't required to be winterized, which...back to our original problem with GOP rule.) Ted Cruz, always in the running for Worst Person Who Is Not Donald Trump, apparently scampered off to Mexico.

Obviously, I feel Texas would be better off with a Democratic governor and state house majority, but what Texas REALLY needs is to be "purple" and not just from the cold. Each party needs to fear screwing up and losing the next election. Republicans haven't had to worry about that. One party rule is corrosive of good government, and that applies to Democrats (see Cuomo, Andrew and De Blasio, Bill).