Mama Tried …

There’s been a lot of talk about a big blue wave in Texas. And candidates like Beto O’Rourke have captured national attention — everyone, it seems, is rooting for him.

Woodrow Wilson. His sister. I’m not saying his sister IS Ted Cruz, but …

I mean, it doesn’t help that Ted Cruz has been rumored to be both the Zodiac killer and Woodrow Wilson’s sister and he ate a booger on live TV, but the guy is just so damned likable. And not even likable compared to Cruz (face it, the bar is low in that regard), but just generally a likable guy who occasionally cusses and can ride a skateboard and play a guitar and is seemingly impervious to the potential ravages of Whataburger grease.

But I need to ask something of all you folks who don’t live in Texas. And don’t think we don’t appreciate your support and interest, but I need you to lean real close to your computer or smartphone screen and read this super slow:

If he doesn’t win, please don’t talk smack about how horrible Texas is, and how we should all leave it.

It’s classist. It’s snobby. And it’s demoralizing. To be anything other than red right now in Texas can be a hard slog — even in a county like mine that is mostly blue. And never in my entire time of living in this state have I seen people of all stripes, previously fairly apolitical or at least more private about their political leanings, work so hard to get one guy elected.

If this goes the other direction and we’re stuck with the do-nothing booger eater, we’re gonna be tired. We’re gonna be sad. And we’re probably going to track you down and punch you in the face if you come at us with this whole, “Texas is horrible” bullshit.

Because it isn’t. And the difference between us and you, if you’re saying bull-ish like this, is that we realize that Texas can be great for some of us, but not that great for others, and we’re working to make it great for everyone.

If you think your state is great for everyone, you probably don’t get out much.

We’re working as hard as we can. And we don’t need you sitting from your perch of superiority in Portland or wherever telling us how you’d abandon this state if you lived here.

Because we realize that some of the people that are most impacted by chuckleheads like Ted Cruz are the people who can’t afford to leave this state, who are marginalized, who will have a hard time being heard.

We’re staying for them. Because many of us live privileged lives and realize it, and realize that as long as we’re around to be loudmouths about what’s going on, it gets to be a little harder for bad things to happen in the dark.

And we’re staying because this is our state, too. And if you think Texans abandon their land when things get hard, well … you probably need to study your Texas history.

So in short, if things go south on Nov. 6, we need to hear about how you appreciate how hard people worked. We need to hear how you’ll be here to amplify when we say things are not right in our state.

But you can keep your pith and your blame.

Mama tried, y’all.