My loved ones are freezing in Texas and no one will admit this is a failure of conservatism

If Texas were an independent country, it would be the ninth largest economy in the world, making what is happening even more unforgivable

APTOPIX Winter Weather Texas (AMERICAN-STATESMAN)

“Send warm wishes… for however long it takes them to get it all fixed,” my sister-in-law wrote on Facebook in the middle of last night, when her power finally went off. Waking up to that message was infuriating, not because of anything my lovely sister-in-law said, but because “warm wishes” is all she can expect to be sent. She and my nieces and nephew are among the millions of Texans currently without power amid historically low temperatures and with no end to this crisis in sight.

What is happening in Texas is as much a failure of conservatism as it is the power grid. The Texas government has done an abysmal job responding to this disaster, which has already claimed 23 lives. Experts predict it could be several days or even weeks before the lights — and the precious heat — flicker back on. Meanwhile, instead of solving this problem and keeping more Texans from freezing to death, conservatives are busy doing what they do best: blaming big government and the little guy for the failures of their own policies and ideology.

Rather than dealing with the unprecedented crisis before him, Texas Governor Greg Abbott went on Fox News. “This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,” he told Sean Hannity. While Abbott obfuscated and blamed the common conservative bogeymen of Washington and environmentalism, neither has anything to do with what is currently happening in Texas. This is a home-grown crisis. 

Yet for many conservatives, it isn’t that the Republican state government and private capital have failed. Rather, in the Republican mind, Texans have no one to blame but themselves. Tired of his constituents whingeing about freezing to death, Colorado City Mayor Tim Boyd took to Facebook, complaining he is “sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout” and that “only the strong will survive and the weak will parish [sic].” 

The post went viral, no doubt in part because Boyd said the quiet part out loud: conservatives believe it is every man for himself. Like some sort of dystopian nightmare, the philosophy underpinning modern conservatism is one that pits neighbor against neighbor in a bid for resources. Anyone who expects the government to keep the heat on so they don’t freeze to death needs to take some personal responsibility. Build a fire or something. 

Don’t have any wood or matches or a fireplace because this is 2021 and not Lonesome Dove? That’s your problem, you lazy moocher.

That is, of course, ridiculous. There is no point to a government that cannot help keep its citizens warm, or at the very least alive. Yet this notion of “rugged individualism,” of each person taking care of themselves without any sort of assistance from the government, is at the heart of conservative ideology. It is what got Texas into this mess to begin with. 

Texas is perhaps the most energy-independent state, with its own power grid separate from the two national grids — ostensibly so it has control over its own power. This grid is not regulated by federal oversight, but by an independent agency in the Lone Star State. That situation has the actual effect of making Texas unable to tap into those other grids — a national resource — in times of crisis such as this. 

What’s more, the department of energy in Texas has pointed to the fact that the energy infrastructure, including pipelines which deliver fossil fuels, have not been winterized. This lack of planning and foresight, coupled with minimal regulation and some a go-it-alone attitude, has led to catastrophe. 

Which brings us back to conservatism itself. If Texas were an independent country, it would be the ninth largest economy in the world, making what is happening even more unforgivable. If even it cannot go it alone without help from its neighbors and the federal government, how in the hell is a working-class person living in the Piney Woods or the Hill Country or inner-city Dallas supposed to make it without help? For that matter, how is anyone? 

It is not my sister-in-law’s responsibility to maintain the Texas power grid. It is not her responsibility to find a solution when it fails. And it is not her fault that she isn’t Calamity Jane. Rather than criticizing citizens for expecting the government to do its job or blaming laws that don’t exist or big government or wind turbines in other countries, Republican leaders in that state — who control the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature — need to step up and solve this crisis. It is one of their own making, and one the citizens they supposedly serve do not deserve to be blamed for. 

The bare minimum citizens should be able to expect from their government is to be kept alive and warm in their own homes. Any government that can’t or won’t do that is not fit for purpose, and any ideology that believes otherwise is toxic. It seems that to Republicans, anyone who can’t do the same on an individual basis — whether because of a lack of means, lack of resources, or because they grew up in suburban Houston and never learned how to spit-roast a possum over an open flame while strumming along to Home on the Range — is a bum who needs to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. That is, assuming they haven’t already burned them to keep warm.