Back against the wall
It looks like the country is going to have a new/former president. Luckily, Mainers are especially suited for this kind of moment. We know all too well what it’s like to be ruled by destructive politicians who just won’t go away. Roe-ender Susan Collins’ current, fifth term is a testament to that, and one of the reasons for her political longevity is the hubris of Democrats. They underestimate her, run bad candidates and frequently misread Maine as a whole. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Maine certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on Democratic hubris.
Since the election, the media has paid a lot of attention to a place very far from here: Starr County, Texas. The rural border county is known for two things: being the “most Latino” county in the country, and its 132-year-long streak of backing Democrats for president. That streak ended last month, and in seeking explanation, Democrats have forgone introspection. Their main conclusion seems to be some combination of Latinos being too stupid to vote for their own interests and too racist/misogynist to vote for a Black woman.
Among the glaring flaws in this hypothesis is the fact there’s no such thing as the “Latino vote.” Democrats know this. Campaign strategists have been telling them for decades, but it’s also pretty obvious. According to the United Nations, Latin America consists of 33 countries. The only reason anyone would expect people from 33 different countries of origin to vote the same way is if “Latino” is a stand-in for “brown.”
Now, if finding a solution is the point, rather than perpetuating a racist framing, it might be better to take even a cursory glance at what Democrats have been doing in Starr County.
Twenty-seven-year-old Roel Valadez Jr. won the Democratic primary for Starr County Justice of the Peace in 2018. Running unopposed, the political prodigy then won the general election and immediately began building a reputation as a man of the people. Valadez was known for doing things like handing out free Christmas presents to families in need, so you can imagine it came as a great shock to Starr County residents when Valadez was arrested in 2021 on federal drug trafficking charges. He plead guilty this past March and is currently serving a 21-month federal prison sentence.
Part of Starr County is in Texas’ 28th Congressional district, which is represented by Democrat Henry Cuellar. You might remember his name from 2022, when the imminent overturning of Roe v. Wade was leaked. At the time, many Dems were angry because party leaders were putting all their efforts into keeping anti-abortion Cuellar from getting primaried by pro–women’s rights challenger Jessica Cisneros. Cuellar defeated Cisneros by just 289 votes, and two days after he won re-election, Roe was overturned. Cuellar has since been federally indicted on charges of Bribery and Acting as a Foreign Agent, but he remains in office for now.
Biden won Starr County in 2020 with 52.1 percent of the vote, but Harris lost it, getting only 41.8 percent. Why? It might be because Biden ran on “not one more foot” of Trump’s border wall, then kept right on building it. But the betrayal went much further and deeper than that.
In order to keep building Trump’s wall, Biden suspended the Safe Drinking Water Act. That’s obviously not great, but he didn’t stop there. Biden also suspended the Solid Waste Disposal Act. And the Clean Air Act. And the Endangered Species Act. And more than 20 other federal laws. These are laws enforced to ensure the area is capable of sustaining life — and even death. Among the 26 federal laws Biden suspended are the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.
Obviously, elections are complicated and there isn’t one explanation that can account for everything. All I’m saying is that party corruption and hypocrisy, the indictment and criminal conviction of party officials, and the national party leader betraying constituents and suspending nearly 30 life-sustaining laws could possibly have a political cost for that party. Or, you know, blame people for not voting according to their perceived skin color. Right now, Democrats appear to be choosing the latter.
Again, as a Mainer, it doesn’t go unnoticed that the national Democratic Party is remaking itself in the image of Susan Collins. They pretend to be mere observers of their own actions, and the predictable harms are everyone’s fault but theirs. But there is a key difference between the two: Susan can condescend and deceive and betray, producing devastating consequences for the entire country, and still win.
Samuel James also writes “Banned Histories of Race in America” at samuelj.substack.com.
