Having spent most of July and August off the grid while teaching in Poland and vacationing in Canada, I missed a lot of the Great Cracker Barrel Logo Fracas. But from what little I have observed of this absurd “debate” over whether removing a white man from the company logo constituted another corporate cave-in to wokery, which was followed by the equally inane “debate” over whether Cracker Barrel’s restoration of that figure to its logo was a further step toward the end of democracy, I have to wonder whether our country has become fundamentally unserious.
War is raging in Ukraine, a beleaguered, brutalized country that looks to the United States for support in its struggle for survival — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
The educrats who design the Scholastic Aptitude Test have decided that it’s asking too much of a generation whose attention spans have been formed by X, Facebook, and Instagram to comprehend a 750-word text (like this column), and will now ask wannabe college students to demonstrate mastery of 25-150-word texts — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
Masses of elementary school children are under-performing in basic literacy and computational skills — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
It will take three times as long to rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge as it took to build the Empire State Building in 1930-31 — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
The Centers for Disease Control report that one in four American teenagers self-identifies as “LGBTQ” while the American Pediatric Association protests legal restraints on the mutilation of adolescent bodies — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
State legislatures in Texas and California take the (admittedly ancient) practice of gerrymandering congressional districts to previously unplumbed depths of partisan depravity, further undermining public confidence in our elections — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
The Secretary of Health and Human Services talks nonsense about autism and vaccines, further politicizes public health institutions, cuts crucial research funding, and vastly complicates the lives of responsible doctors by casting doubt on the most basic protocols for childhood disease prevention — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
“Influencer” Tucker Carlson welcomes discussion of the crackpot notion that the United States took the wrong side in World War II — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
Social media rants across the spectrum of political opinion define the day’s news while setting the terms of what is sometimes risibly called the “public discourse” — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
Foreign aid programs that provide critical food and medical assistance to developing countries are given the chop along with woke “aid” programs that never should have existed in the first place — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
The Voice of America is gutted; there are massive cuts in the funding of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other instruments by which the United States supports brave human rights activists in repressive countries — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
Article One of the Constitution seems to have been repealed in the minds of a critical mass of House and Senate members terrified of being “primaried” — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
U.S. defense manufacturing incapacities and clotted procurement procedures in the Pentagon combine to weaken deterrence in the Taiwan Straits and elsewhere — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
Once-great American cities descend further into dysfunction, blighting millions of lives that might have been creatively lived — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
$150 billion was spent on sports gambling in 2024 — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
Religious practice declines, the culture becomes ever more cynical and toxic, the innocence of children is destroyed by one false stroke on a keyboard — and Americans are obsessing over Cracker Barrel logos?
Perhaps I overreact. Perhaps the Great Cracker Barrel Logo Fracas was just another blip on the screens that dominate so many lives today. Perhaps most Americans pay no attention to such caterwauling, coming as much of it does from people for whom manufacturing clickbait is a “job.”
Perhaps.
But during my two months out of the country this summer, I was asked more than once, and by friends of America, what on earth is going on in the United States? Has the Great Republic lost the capacity for serious public debate? Why is American politics dominated by the screamers and the vulgarizers? Where are the adults in the room?
Those are serious questions. A morally serious country would take them seriously.
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My first thoughts are whether Cracker Barrel is a restaurant the author frequents. If it’s not a place he enjoys eating at or if its not a place his friends choose to go to, then he may be missing the whole point of the controversy.
The Cracker Barrel CEO seemed disconnected from her customers and out of touch for those reasons. Changing a logo and decor can look like canceling your guests if you’re operating from within a different bubble.
Donald Trump has his issues but he’s in touch with his base.
Mr. Weigel may be missing the fact that the battle between Good and Evil today and for a long time now has not been just armed conflict. Nor has it been just economics. Or even politics. It is the culture battle that has been central for a long time. Many conservatives. especially in the GOP, have concentrated on economics, etc. But they have missed what has been going on in the cultural front. Let us hop it is not too late to realize that. BTW, Cracker B new management did not just change the logo; it is actively involved in LGBTQ+ and other woke causes and continues to do so despite its superficial reversal on the logo issue.
Yes, I think the Establishment GOP has been just as out of touch as the Democrats have been.
Nowhere as much. Name a real Republican who favors mutilating children and approves of not apprehending rapists, murders, and sex traffickers.
Mr Baker, first we’d have to define a “real Republican “.
Before Donald Trump came along the Establishment GOP accomplished virtually nothing as far as overturning Roe. Prolife postures scored them elections but they never had to produce any results. They could play that same hand of cards for decades and blame the Supreme Court. When Trump changed the deck of cards and Roe was thrown out the Establishment GOP never forgave him for that.
Yes, you are right. One instance among many in the Culture Wars: about the sort of indoctrination that has been going on for years in the schools, HS, and colleges the Establishment GOP has done nothing, at least until recently (when someone like the extraordinary and even heroic Charlie Kirk came along to fight the Culture Wars on the collage campus; but the poisoning at the lower “educational” levels goes on unchallenged). Not to mention the capture of Hollywood, or of the Establishment Media by the forces of Evil. These have been the fronts in the Culture Wars that were neglected, again until recently.
It disturbs me that so many young people cannot do simple math in their heads, like computing sales tax and change. Also, they cannot write in cursive. They write “sentences” without verbs. And we wonder why the Chinese are eating our lunch?
I’ve read that cursive is being taught again in some school systems. Our state already made it the law several years ago.
Why does it “disturb you” since you are so opposed to the countering forces to the liberal establishment that has dumbed down the young based on presuppositions of leftist mythology?
Leftist mythology? Such as? How would right wing creationist ideology bolster education and critical thinking?
There is no such thing as “right wing creationist mythology.” The very notion of a “right wing” in a single wing political spectrum of leftism, is a bigoted projected fiction contrived in hatred to demonize those who defend immutable truth from religion hating ignorant and moronic intellectuals.
And you are clearly devoid of any knowledge of science and an ability for critical thinking to contend that indisputable proof of intelligent intent in the fundamental structure of the universe and the biological realities of life, impossible to occur by random accident, as you are devoid of self-awareness in your own hatred of religion. The young should not be subject to crippling ignorance.
Suggested reading, new from Word on Fire: Darwin and Doctrine: The Compatibility of Evolution and Catholicism, by Daniel Kubler.
So the earth is 6,000 years old? Is the earth the center oftge iniverse? Are these nonsensical ideas immutable truths?
Also, you’re sort to personal insult as do so many commentators on this site. I know nothing of science? How do you know? Regurgitating old right wing bromides is not critical thinking.
Could you please define: “right wing creationist ideology” ? Thank you.
William: No reply button in your last response, so my response is here:
It is not insulting to respond negatively to a continuous onslaught of insults directed towards those you continuously call “right wing,” a connotative reductionism towards those who do not accept that humanity can be their own savior. It is not an insult to comment that someone who displays a politically biased approach to science is precisely that. When did I express your projection of the earth as 6000 years old?? Projections from assumed caricatures is morally wrong.
The earth, as the only life sustaining planet in the universe, where God created his only creatures, aside from angels, can most certainly be viewed as God’s center of the universe, rejected only by those who share atheistic presuppositions, such as those who view a nebula as more significant than a human being.
Consider not being so quick to talk down to a man with a doctoral degree in physics while you frequently display demeaning characterizations towards counter-cultural faithful Christians, rather than demonstrate an honest knowledge of what they actually have to say about science or politics.
Our creation is unique in the universe. A man may decide to remain unreflective concerning Old Testament references to our uniqueness, but anyone can decide to apply real science to understanding the razor’s edge of more than twenty interactive physical variables that are necessary to sustain life on a habitable planet. These include a planet of the exact gravitational mass; an oxygen rich atmosphere; liquid water and large continental land masses; a G2 dwarf home star of the right temperature and mass; an orbital path that is neither too close nor too far from the star; a single moon able to stabilize the tilt of the planet’s axis and the movement of its tides; a magnetic field strong enough to deflect the star’s harmful radiation; and a position in the very narrow habitable region of a spiral galaxy. All the necessary factors for life appearing at the same time on the same planet are one in ten to the negative 23. The possibility of even a single inhabitable planet other than our own in the entire universe is almost non-existent.
Trivializations of those you dismiss, those who choose to engage the critical thought you claim to extol, know that religion haters are not as knowledgeable as you might assume they are, and cultural debates, in which religion haters take refuge for the purpose of ego-enforcing exoneration from immorality, are not truthful.
a lot of smart people can’t do math in their heads because they can’t see the numbers/carries by memory to calculate against – and have to etch it out on paper and pencil – the kids it’s all electronics – if a young clerk is not busy I’ll sometimes show them how to count the change back like we used to – they find it interesting
(Never got the chance to finish my thought before the internet shut down this site).
Back to mayor Giuliani: Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001 and is associated with the “broken windows” theory, a policing philosophy that advocates for addressing minor crimes and disorders to prevent more serious criminal activity. Under Giuliani’s leadership, NYPD adopted a “zero tolerance” approach based on this theory.
George, the Cracker Barrel issue is similar. If you don’t address the seemingly insignificant matters that signal the loss of foundational shared culture values, you’ll have no chance to tackle all the larger issues.
And it is not such a small issue. What is the purpose of this article other than Weigel, who, as a continuously obsessive Pollyanna towards the state of the Church, a profoundly serious matter, insults his presumed inferiors for “obsessing” over a logo that is an obsession only in the minds of those obsessively dismissing the concerns over blatant cultural assaults that attempt to remake a traditional rural themed restaurant into a liberal propaganda palace. It wasn’t about the logo, George. Actual listening to presumed inferiors is never a part of the listening synodal Church, including, in this age of Trans, male Karens. Until some alien took over your mind George, during the Francis pontificate, you used to display outrage towards those who symbolically undermined traditional American values.
Need I remind Brother Weigle that the main reason we are in this terrible shape he bemoans is because SOMEONE changed the menu at the first eating place?
Barry Gregory: Brilliant!
“The Secretary of Health and Human Services talks nonsense about autism and vaccines, further politicizes public health institutions, cuts crucial research funding, and vastly complicates the lives of responsible doctors by casting doubt on the most basic protocols for childhood disease prevention…” Statements like this reveal once again that George is still the same old neocon, interventionist, corporatist, country-club, establishment Republican, without a clue as to what the real issues are.
Better a “country club Republican” than an ignorant redneck.
You know, speaking of demeaning rural & working class people…
So we are “ignorant rednecks” if we do not endorse the views in this article? My immediate family is typical of Republicans who disdain beltway golfing buddies like George Weigel and George Will and George Bush. We have about fifteen advanced college degrees among us, and all are highly successful professionals or business owners. Go on and tell us all how “educated” you are.
I live in a rural area & probably am one of the least formally educated commenters here but I wouldn’t identify as “ignorant.” I don’t believe my neighbors would either.
Ignorance comes in many guises & it’s not restricted by class or higher degrees.
Are you trying to persuade people with this manner of speech that you are somehow not an ignorant man?
Weigel reflects, “perhaps I overreact.”
Maybe not, but if we can retain the original “logo,” maybe this is a baby step toward also remembering The LOGOS.
Great column!
When my late husband was alive, we used to go to Cracker Barrel every Saturday evening after the evening Mass. My parents-in-law would go to breakfast there on Sundays and sit and read for a few hours. It was generally packed and back then, it was our “expensive” meal of the week!
I think that Cracker Barrel is merely trying to avoid being forced to close because of the proliferation of hundreds of new restaurants that are battling for sovereignty. The “sit-down and eat a meal” restaurants are really struggling right now–most of the entrees cost at least $12-$15 dollars (or more!), and many Americans can’t afford to drop that much cash on food.
Another issue is that many Americans prefer to just stay home send out for food from various delivery services and eat it where they have privacy while streaming movies, playing computer games, etc.
And there are the Americans who are trying to get back to basics and attempt to lose weight and get healthy–limiting their restaurant and takeout meals, eating their own home-grown vegetables, trying to get back to basic food instead of preparing recipes that take so much time, eating less meat and sweets, and drinking water. For many Americans, this has a lot to do with their finances as much as anything–feeding a family of four at restaurants like Cracker Barrel can easily cost over $100 (especially if the family members want to buy something from the gift shop!).
I wouldn’t worry about it, and I think this hoopla will all quickly pass. I think a lot of it is due to media coverage, and when they realize people aren’t interested, it will fade out. I have to admit that I miss the “country” atmosphere at Cracker Barrel, but I know it was all “fake” country, and I am fortunate enough to be from a farm family who has owned our family farm for 3 generations.
I would worry more about all the world issues that Mr. Weigel brought up. God help us all!
What part of Cracker Barrel did you think was “fake country” Mrs. Sharon? I wish I had more opportunities to eat there but I never saw much that seemed fake. And I live on a farm.
My children always enjoyed the decor & recognizing the old tools & implements hanging on the walls.
Following Covid, many restaurants have struggled & food costs keep getting higher but the last time I went to a Cracker Barrel with my cousin we had great service & a good meal. I love the gift shop, too.
Are you really oblivious to the underlying venomous hatred that elitists have towards anything traditional and their obsessive need to find symbolic targets attempting to satisfy this hate?
The culture wars matter. To believe it doesn’t is like saying there is no connection between pornography and abortion.
Vaccine advocates (also) cannot isolate the medicine’s actual power to confer protection. How could they? with miriad other possible factors and influences… the vaccinati use the very same argument against the vaccine questioning! But Mr Kennedy is right, the Federal statutes lay bare the facts, no vaccine has ever been tested against a true placebo. Ever. What we have is the accident of vaccines appearing to work without anyone’s ability to explain how it works separated from every other possible influence. Meanwhile there is in fact an autism epidemic and no one can explain why. Fascinating truth, for the most advanced nation on earth…
We have gone from one child with autism out of 10,000 births to one in 31, and several in my extended family. The Secretary of Health and Human Services wants to study whether the explosion in the number of vaccines given to children may have something to do with it, and Mr. Weigel obsesses over this.
Billions of dollars have gone to foreign aid that has lined the pockets of dictators and gone to fund anti American programs, and Mr. Weigel obsesses over cuts to those programs (even though they are funded by money that we borrow). And on and on and on.
One never has to read very far in one of Mr. Weigels articles, no matter the subject, to get to the TDS portion, no matter under what phrases.
Thank you Crusader. I wonder about not just how many different vaccines but the total number of vaccines given to an infant or young child in one visit. I really do think it’s more about checking off the compliance boxes than about what’s best for the individual patient.
When I vaccinate my cattle I try to get the most vaccines in them at one time because rounding them up a second time will be *much* harder. Cows have longer memories than we think.
That’s fine for cattle management but human children aren’t cows. A child’s best interest comes before compliance protocols or efficiency.
Mrscracker – have a grown-up on a small farm I really enjoyed your comments.
Thank you Crusader.
🙂
Bingo!
So being opposed to anti-vax nonsense is TDS??? Make Measles Great Again, I guess.
You know, measles can be quite serious, even lethal for some children who contract it. We used to believe that contracting & surviving measles was a once & done thing but that’s not the case. Measles can “erase” the immune system memory. That sets you up for other serious infections. (Ask me how I know that.)
So it’s not something you want to acquire.
Merck used to offer single doses of the measles & mumps vaccines for parents like me who objected on ethical/religious grounds to the rubella component in the MMR shot but wanted their children protected from the other diseases.
Last time I checked, that option is no longer offered by Merck or any other US pharmaceutical company.
People can reject vaccines selectively for any number of reasons. Unethical manufacturing is one of those. As a prolife Christian I don’t believe that’s nonsense.
Perhaps the author should review the guidance within the Serenity
Prayer…..we that are called to the active life-style do the best we can when we can without bully pulpit of politicians or academics. Ee celebrate little victories within our span of control in hopes that they all added up some day to a major victory however dismissive by the elites.
I think Weigel is missing that Cracker Barrel, an old-timey restaurant serving mostly conservative customers, had been slowly transforming into another woke corporation for years. The logo change was merely the last straw and served to grab the public’s attention. The backlash didn’t only save the logo, it reversed years of woke DEI policies the company had been promoting.
This was another important victory conservatives have won recently on the DEI culture war, largely thanks to Chris Rufo and Robby Starbuck who are millennial aged conservative activists. No thanks to Weigel and others of his generation which oversaw conservative defeats for decades while leftists took over virtually every institution in western society and armed them against western values. Now that the younger generation has developed a winning strategy, Weigel sits in the back, still accomplishing nothing, making smug criticisms.
Welcome back, George, to becoming “great” again?
Well George, you appear to take many leftist positions in this essay.
A great number of Americans are sick and tired of having their lives whip-sawed from one extreme position to another. The Latin mass is fine for 1800 years; then after Vatican II it is suddenly poison for anyone who wants to worship that way?
Many would say that Texas changing districts around (some to give HISPANICS a bigger representation), is long overdue. Consider that Massachusetts has ZERO republican Congressman, and massive California very few, those states having long ago Gerrymandered to exclude republican voters from legit representation. Republicans are simply catching up to level the playing field. California also employs the proven biased result “ranked voting” system.
The Cracker Barrel dispute is something one could call the “tip of the iceburg”. A reaction of people sick to death of having every small and basic thing in their lives turned upside down for nonsense and stupidity.
As for Mr Kennedy, many of us wish him well in his effort to remove poisonous additives from our food chain which were long ago removed from those same products shipped to foreign countries. Covid vaccine was not tested long enough and too many people lost their jobs for refusing to play along by having such a substance injected into their bodies. Not to mention dishonest teachers unions shutting down public schools for YEARS and our Churches shuttered until lawsuits began to appear. Ditto DEI mandates which destroyed lives. Can you say government overreach??? That kind of behavior makes a permanent impact.
LJ: is it’s right always right?
I don’t think it’s about the Right or the Left but about the working non elite. LJ is correct that the Cracker Barrel controversy is just the tip of an iceberg.
Neither the establishment GOP nor the Democrats seem to understand that. Donald Trump did.
So George Weigel, like a burnt out third grade teacher returning to the classroom for another long year, gives Americans a harsh scolding again. Well, Mr. W., let me put your mind at ease. During the supposed Great Crackle Barrel Debate I was not frolicking in foreign countries. I was right here in the good old USA. I was out and about in church and at work, in supermarkets and restaurants, in various gatherings of friends and family. Not once during that time did I ever hear a single mention of Crackle Barrel. This was yet another media creation. Another way to fill space and time with dubious “content.” You understand that don’t you Mr. W? Aren’t you involved with the media? But in truth there was something newsworthy in the Crackle Barrel saga. The underlying story was that the Crackle Barrel stock tanked when the company was perceived to be “going woke.” Now THAT just might be worthy of some consideration.
1. Mr. Weigel is certainly obsessed over Cracker Barrel.
2. It is alarming that Tucker Carlson has gone down the drain hole on trying out a revisionist narrative that the US etc should have met Hitler half-way, and that Churchill was the villain of WW2.
3. Big Problem with the Essay – The Category conjured up called “A Morally-Serious Country.” This is not an argument, this is just political posturing dressed in sanctimony. The comprehensive litany of problems listed by Mr. Weigel are (with the exception of his personal attack on RFK) are the consequences of a nation of 300+ million and their complacent establishment elites of the last 50 years (and prior) pretending that we are a morally serious people/nation/establishment/country. That is an illusion at best (and a delusion if denied).
4. We Don’t Even Have a “Morally-Serious” Vatican City. The Catholic Church, whose PR is in the hands of the Pontiff Leo and his Vatican Establishment, does Not Even Pretend to be Morally Serious Right Now. We just witnessed the Country called “Vatican City” inviting the LGBTQ Psychopath Parade into St. Peter’s Basilica, where they displayed their open symbols of demonic costume attire and “F•ck the Rules” tee shirts in front of the altar above St. Peter’s tomb. This is a direct message that the Catholic Church Establishment submits to the demonic, and refuses to stand with Jesus and His Apostles and the Apostolic Faith.
5. Mr. Weigel is appealing for trust in a political establishment that he invested uncritical trust in, but is in truth just a self-licking ice cream cone, which until the 2016 election got away with pretending to be morally serious. The curtain has been pulled back and that theater is now empty of an audience.
6. As to “Political Seriousness” and the Ukraine War: it is horrifying and heartbreaking. And unfortunately, Mr. W’s politically like-minded cohorts in the US uni-party foreign policy arena stopped being serious beginning with Clinton and continuing with Bush and Obama, by abandoning the containment policy of Kennan et al, who cautioned NEVER to expand NATO into Ukraine, and did the exact opposite, an outright provocation that Kennan et al warned against.
In sum, the essay doesn’t rest on a “morally serious” foundation. It rests on an illusion.
Chris in Maryland: Thank you for investing your time and thought into your well-delineated rebuttal.
Thanks Ed.
While I can hardly agree with every position RFK Jr. holds, he certainly was a breath of fresh air, and our medical establishment is horribly corrupt and dysfunctional, in desperate need of reform. Oddly enough, of all the items Weigel lists, he doesn’t mention abortion. If we want to criticize Kennedy, his position on abortion is definitely the place to start.
As for the logo, it may indeed be more important than it seems at first blush. As Catholics, we of all people should understand the importance of symbolism. Our religion is founded upon seven sacraments– symbols which effect the grace that they signify.
Mr. Weigel, how do you manage to sleep at night when Cracker Barrel has taken up residence inside your head?
As coda to my previous comment, I add another note:
6. The countries of western Europe are certainly NOT serious, neither politically nor morally, and both proved by the fact that they all cut energy desls with Russia to keep Putin in oil-cash revenue for his war against Ukraine. All which serves to compound the impression that Mr. Weigel is either selling an illusion, believed innit, or both.
One of the best comments I’ve read on another Catholic site was from someone who pointed out that the American public has no control over critical global issues. They can’t be solved simply through social media. And if the war in Ukraine could be resolved by social media like the Cracker Barrel logo was we’d be all in for that.
As for “The Secretary of Health and Human Services talks nonsense about autism and vaccines …” I recommend Mr. Weigel and others may want to read “Follow the Science” by Sharyl Attkisson for a different perspective or at least open up a closed mind. Just because someone yells “This is settled science” it doesn’t make it so. Remember when all the doctors were paid big bucks in the 60s to say “there is no relationship between smoking and cancer” or when the “experts” told us coffee, eggs, meat, salt, etc. were all bad? To get some idea of the scope of false research read “Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth” by Stuart Ritchie
A couple decades ago a physician told me there was absolutely no relationship between alcohol consumption and breast cancer…
I disagreed.
Some of the most firmly closed minds are found in medicine.
Coda to my previous comment, adding a final point:
7. Regarding Ukraine, and Mr. Weigel’s implied preference for what he deems “Serious Countries” of Europe and Canada. Mr. Weigel prefers the countries that cut energy deals with Puitin to keep his cash flow going for the war against Ukraine, while they pretend to care about the Ukrainian people. Mr. Weigel appeals for the sniveling nations of the EU, who collaborate in an alliance both politically and morally unserious. Which means Mr. Weigel is either selling an illusion, or suffering from it himself, or both.
Weigel is another case of a person who thinks too highly of him self. It seems he is forever living off of his Bio of JP, his articles frequently like this one is an example of him being so full of himself. His being out of the country was a blessing, suggest using his frequent flying miles to go to Estonia.
I will NEVER take a medicine manufactured and distributed by any pharmaceutical company that has been granted immunity from lawsuit for that “medicine.” That would just be plainly stupid.
Mr. Weigel takes himself very seriously, needing to announce his return to the US and make fun of the concerns of many of his fellow Americans, so much less important than the world-traveling elite like himself.
I am curious about something: this article also appeared on a couple other Catholic websites. Weigel is the only author I know who gets that special treatment. I am curious why. Some publications will not even consider an article submitted and published elsewhere.
Mr. Weigel’s columns are syndicated. He does occasionally write exclusive pieces for CWR, as he does for other outlets.
I think that Mr. Weigel presents the Texas redistricting issue incorrectly. I heard this mentioned only once (imagine that!) in the media at the start of the initiative that there was a correction to census data and that that is what precipitated the redistricting. Perhaps I am ill informed, but if not, then maybe Texas was just adjusting their map of reality to reflect, reality. California’s response appears to be purely political posturing.
Consider how tweaking the boundaries plays out on the big screen…
In the late 1960s nationwide redistricting showed a major shift from rural to urban areas, and this shift coincided with President Johnson’s Great Society Program. Political figures trashed their connections to their respective state capitals and, instead, filled their black books with numbers from inside the Beltway. The so-called Catalogue for Domestic Assistance was several inches thick and featured some 700 grant programs. Some of which and for example, as Thomas Sowell points out, served to unravel Black families.
And, the entire mentality has shifted political discourse from the balanced-budget restraint of local and state governments, to the printing-press monopoly money dispensed to client groups by those really, really important folks in the DC spotlight. The cumulative $37 Trillion national debt now eroding the ability of the United States to govern, and even to coherently project itself onto the world stage.
And, oh yes, cultural amnesia is so advanced and so progressive(!) that intact families are becoming a curiosity, and a female U.S. Supreme Court justice is unable to even define what a woman is—and is confirmed by the ruling elite probably for that very reason.