Texas Found Its Teeth

Some much needed good news out of the Lone Star State

The world is inside out, upside down, and on fire, and we wake up every single morning bracing for news so dark we can’t even conjure it until it’s already sitting on our chest, throwing punches, knocking the air out of us before we’ve had a sip of coffee, before the Keurig finishes screaming, before our brains have fully booted up, before we’ve even decided whether we’re going to look at our phones or pretend for five more minutes that maybe today will be different.

It seeps into our bones. It infects every corner of our lives. It follows us even when we don’t want to engage, even when we tell ourselves we’re going to take a break, log off, protect our peace, because it doesn’t respect those boundaries.

American citizens are being murdered in the street. Human beings are being disappeared. Children are being kidnapped and incarcerated. We are watching footage we can’t unsee, reading headlines that land like blunt force trauma, carrying details that stick in the body long after you’ve put the phone down. Unimaginable horrors have been exposed, connected to Jeffrey Epstein — revelations that implicate the very people who sit in positions of power, who lecture us about morality while closing ranks around predators, who demand obedience while protecting monsters.

It’s happening now, and it’s changing how we move through the world, how we breathe, how tightly we hold our kids, how little sleep we get.

It’s in the group chat that used to be memes and now reads like a war bulletin. It’s at the grocery store, where you’re comparing prices and feeling stupid for being shocked even though you know better, standing in the cereal aisle doing math like it’s a final exam. It’s at school pickup, where you’re smiling and making small talk while your stomach is in a knot. It’s on the radio. It’s on the news. It’s on your Facebook, your Twitter, your Instagram. It’s everywhere by design. We are all living under the thumb of a tyrant, and that kind of pressure leaves a mark.

Trauma doesn’t just visit; it moves in, rearranges the furniture, makes itself at home.

The point of all of this is to exhaust us, to flatten us, to make us feel like hope is naïve and resistance is futile and good news is some extinct species we’ll tell our kids about one day — like dogs — like trying to explain a world where warmth and loyalty just existed and made life better, and now all we’ve got left are rabid mole rats chewing through the walls.

So when good news shows up now, it feels like a unicorn. It feels like a lifeline. It feels like a hug you didn’t know you were allowed to ask for. And when you get even a spark, even a flicker, even the faintest sign that the engine isn’t completely dead (and if you’ve been reading me long enough, you know I love the hell out of a mixed metaphor — so yes, I’m about to drive this one straight through a fire and you can absolutely bet your ass I’m not slowing down), you don’t nod politely and move on. You grab the bellows. You grab whatever you can find — kindling, fuel, dry leaves, your last nerve. You feed it. You grow it. You protect it with your whole body because you know how fragile it is and how badly they want to snuff it out.

That’s why what happened in Texas last night wasn’t just good news — it was oxygen.

There was a thirty-point swing in a State Senate district Donald Trump carried by seventeen points in 2024. A thirty. fucking. point. swing. In Tarrant County, Texas — the biggest red county in the entire country — in a district that has not voted Democratic in half a century. Fifty years. Generations of Republicans treating that seat like a dead fridge in the garage they never bothered to unplug, like a moldy box of cables they dragged through three moves without knowing what any of them were for, like a feral assumption that if something hadn’t failed yet it never would — until it finally did, loudly, publicly, and with witnesses.

Democrat Taylor Rehmet didn’t thread a needle here. He didn’t slip through a crack. He beat a Trump-backed Republican while being outspent twenty to one, while Republicans flung money at the race the way a day-drunk Trumper flicks crumpled bills at the lunch bartender at a strip-mall Applebee’s on a Tuesday afternoon — sloppy, belligerent, convinced that sheer volume and entitlement still get him what he wants.

Trump personally jumped in. Endorsed. Inserted himself. Slapped his name on it like a greasy widdle fingerprint.

And it made it worse.

Early and vote-by-mail broke 56–44 Rehmet.

Election Day broke even harder, 58–42 Rehmet.

People were standing there thinking about their rent, their groceries, their electric bill, their healthcare, their kids, their dignity, their democracy, and deciding: absolutely fucking not.

That election in Texas should scare the absolute shit out of every Republican who has gone along with this — enabled it, excused it, normalized it, empowered it. An autocratic dictator. A monster. A rapist and an abuser. A criminal.

They forgot.

We are not guests in this democracy. We are the source of it.

They forgot — to their own peril.

They tried to gerrymander the fuck out of that state because they’re terrified. Because they know. Because they’ve known. Because they’re afraid of a fair fight. All it would’ve taken was a handful of them to grow a goddamn spine and stop this, and they didn’t. They haven’t. They won’t. And now they’re going to get voted out because of it.

We’ve watched election after election since Trump kicked off season two of this shit show, and the American people keep saying no. Some of them had to stick their hands back into the same fire they were warned about the first time, and no, I’m not handing out gold stars for being late to the reality party — we told them exactly what was going to happen — but whatever it takes, because right now this is the last real shot we have at being a bulwark, at being a check, at standing in the breach while it still matters.

I’ve gotta be honest — I really needed this. I needed to see a win again. I needed something — anything — that reminded me why I keep doing this, why I keep showing up, why I keep working, why I keep writing, why I keep putting my shoulder into the work instead of stepping aside and letting the worst people run the table. I needed a jolt. A reset. A reminder that this isn’t performative or pointless, that what we’re fighting for every single day to stop this before it’s gone for good is possible — that it’s working — that people are still capable of waking up, choosing better, and proving my kids aren’t inheriting ashes.

Democracy isn’t a given. It’s a relationship. It’s like a marriage.

You don’t get to ignore your spouse for years and then act shocked when things go sideways. You have to show up. You have to rub feet. You have to watch dumb shows together. You have to go for walks. You have to knock boots. You have to check in. You have to notice when they get a haircut. You have to laugh at their jokes even when they’re not that funny.

And if you don’t — if you take them for granted long enough — there’s going to be a Honda Civic pulling up to your house every day between one and three, parking crooked, blasting Bon Jovi, and banging your wife on your tool bench while you’re still at work wondering what went wrong.

Look, I’ll admit it. I’ll own my part. I neglected democracy for too long. I assumed she’d always be there. I didn’t take her out to dinner. I didn’t compliment her dress. I didn’t ask if she’d done something different with her hair. I fell asleep on the couch from too much wine in the middle of too many shows.

And yeah, she wandered. She started looking at the bad boy. The married loser who treats her like shit. Puts her down. Orders for her at restaurants like it’s a power move. Makes little comments about her body. Acts like an asshole and calls it confidence. She doesn’t actually want him. She wants us. She wants attention. She wants care. She wants engagement. She’s using him to make a point, to scare us, to shake us awake before she’s gone for good.

And no, I’m not done with that metaphor, and I don’t care if I beat it to death. It’s working for me. It’s therapeutic. That guy works at a fucking gas station. He’s not smart. He’s not kind. He’s not charming. He’s not funny. He’s just loud and cruel and insecure — and she is better than that, and so are we.

We don’t want to lose her.

She’s special. She’s flawed. She’s messy. She’s infuriating. And so are we. But there’s always been this understanding that we were a team, that when we showed up for each other, when we actually paid attention, when we did the work, we could be something lasting and meaningful and extraordinary.

What happened in New Jersey and Virginia and New York and Miami and Texas — governorships, mayoral races, state senate seats — those are the invitations. Dinner. A movie. A walk in the park holding hands. Checking in. Saying, we see you, we love you, we know we almost lost you, and we’re going to fight like hell not to.

And for the first time in a while, that fight feels winnable.

And by the way — that weird sloppy guy in all the makeup, with the black hands and the Adderall addiction… the one who shits his pants in public? He never deserved you.

And with that, today’s song:

I love you guys!

Please stay strong, stay SAFE, and stay in the fight!!

We have a metric fuckton of work left to do, but every win is another step up that hill.

💙 Jo