Cutting Fences

Texas wasn't always a conservative stronghold and its radical past holds clues for reshaping its political future.

In blood-red states such as Texas, politics operates under the fallacy that these places were always conservative, and it would be foolish, even utopian, to propose a progressive alternative. The Myth of Red Texas, David Griscom's debut book, reassesses this misconception, arguing that the Lone Star Left must embrace its hidden past to reach a brighter future.

Cowboys on strike, socialists on the ballot, farmers fighting tooth and claw for what they termed the "cooperative commonwealth"-Texas was once a wellspring of radicals hell-bent on taking power from the robber barons who ruled the day.

With a careful eye for history, Griscom demonstrates how Texans' left-wing parties, from the populists to the socialists, organized against the Right and often won-and how reclaiming that tradition can help today's Left break the political deadlock in Texas and beyond.