Singer-songwriter Steve Earle was recently asked by the Texas Standard if he would ever move back to his home state, and he had a rather revealing answer:
Where to begin! Is Earle seriously suggesting that Texas has become less culturally tolerant in the last 40 years? And his proof of this is that the state is now electing Republican governors? Of course, in 1974 southern Democrats were still barely removed from advocating segregation—right next door, Orval Faubus was governor of Arkansas until 1967. Ethnically and politically, Texas’s current congressional delegation is more diverse than it was in 1974. While we’re sure you can find pockets of intolerance anywhere, a quick stroll around, say, downtown Austin or Dallas’s Oak Lawn neighborhood would suggest that mixed-race, same-sex couples aren’t a particular source of outrage in the Lone Star State, let alone enough to make a straight white guy feel “unsafe.”
The Scrapbook is a fan of Earle’s songs and commends him as a particularly gifted storyteller and musician. But the country-rocker’s image is heavily tied up in his conception of himself as a balladeer of the common man, particularly given Earle’s own past as a drug addict and convict. However, Earle’s been wedded to liberal political activism for so long it’s clouding his basic judgment. If Texas isn’t liberal enough for Steve Earle and the Democratic party’s liking, that’s a reflection of how far to the left they have moved, not proof that Texas is going backwards culturally. And it’s a shame Earle would slander a whole state rather than admit he’s the one who’s out of touch.
