Reregulating a State

One of the first things you learn of when you get a chronic disease is that the “Just World” bias is very much at play and on display in 21st century America. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been asked about tobacco use since my first tumor, 17 years ago, I would be in a beachside villa right now. Realistically, this plays into a universal sense of victim-shaming and stigmatizing trauma survivors that’s every where. Here’s my question to you; when does it go from “horrible coincidence that we should all empathize with and pity,” and, “He knew the risks?”

I can actually illustrate this with a concrete example of tobacco usage, ironically enough. Even though the cancer risks of tobacco are well-publicized and so well-known that every PGY1 asks me about it; one of the less-publicized, but far-deadlier risks of tobacco use is heart disease. As in, the stats I was given in graduate school were that smokers had something like a 75% chance of developing cancer, but a 90% chance of developing coronary disease. Even though everyone hangs on the “c word,” when you know that the overall cancer risks to society are something like 33–50%, it’s not quite as dangerous as living next to windmills. That 90% chance of heart disease though, those are the best odds you will see on anything in existence. At this same university — in my own graduate program, mind — was a professor who was an almost-unrelenting smoker (for those of you wondering, an unrepentant smoker has no intention of smoking; an unrelenting smoker will only discuss quitting during a smoke break). This is a man who had a PhD in biology, was well-versed in anatomy, and taught literally 20 meters from the lecture hall where that heart disease statistic was relayed to me, and, sure enough, had a heart attack. He’s still alive (possibly; I haven’t heard from him in a few years), but I believe he had a ventricular blockage commonly referred to as a “widowmaker” heart attack. When I last saw him ten years ago, he was still smoking, albeit significantly less (that’s not saying much; a smokestack would’ve smoked less). I have nothing but goodwill and empathy toward this man, but, after an extensive graduate education, a career around clinical practitioners, and a heart attack soothingly termed a “widowmaker,” surely he’s aware of the risks and is now kind of tempting fate? Maybe?

Those readers familiar with my writing may see where I’m going with this. Texas, the leading national producer of energy, is now doing without power. This is another case of blurring the line between a horrible freak tragedy, and marching to a mountaintop in a thunderstorm, lightning rod in hand, to scream “Thor can fuck off!” (I stole that analogy from the incomparable Terry Pratchett), because Texas has gone to great — unsustainably extreme, it would seem — lengths to make itself vulnerable to this disaster. There are a number of commentaries on this, but, suffice it to say that, in addition to completely deregulating their energy industry (as a Californian, I’d point out that my own state deregulated our biggest utility company, PG&E, and we’ve had exceptionally safe, reliable, and sustainable electricity ever since! What raging forest fires?!), and then, as if that weren’t enough, refusing to be plugged into the “national power grid,” because that would open them to regulation, Gods forbid. Ironically, that same system that requires some safety compliance and no open flames in the nuclear reactor would also have allowed Texas to get more electricity from other states. But the leaders of Texas couldn’t have that. And now their constituents are actually dying. Meanwhile, almost-human-like Tea Party darling Ted Cruz literally jetted off to sunny Cancun. Texas voted for him in 2018, so they won’t have the chance to remove him until 2024, and, yeah; I get that there are plenty of wonderful, peaceful people in Texas — I have a wonderful aunt who’s there, and I hate the thought of her suffering — but the electorate, at this point, really can not claim ignorance. The GOP has had unrelenting, unchecked rule there for 30 years, and the state has been slammed with hurricanes, flooding, and other natural disasters. Just like my third brain tumor was a wake-up to realize that I needed to think of myself as a sick person who struggled to stay healthy, Texas needs to start viewing itself as a disaster zone with occasional good years. And, in that mind, it really does need to start asking itself, “Do I want a man given to melodramatic, drive-time DJ shenanigans in the Senate, representing me, on live television while his own followers besiege the Capitol Building, or would maybe Beto O’Rourke not be such a bad choice?”

Realistically, I think this whole thing stems from the greatest lie America ever told itself, “The South will rise again!” Apparently, the South needs to shovel the driveway, relight the pilot light under the water heater, and get some winter tires on the General Lee, first, then it will rise again! The South has had a century to do that; if it hasn’t risen again, it won’t. At least, it won’t until it becomes slightly more self-sufficient. I mentioned one of my alma maters in this essay; that was in the weird state of Florida, I also went to a tiny college in Southeastern Vermont. The former largely seemed entirely designed to churn out students — there was little-to-no involvement or personal investment between students and the administration, and, even though I got an education there and met some really great people (many of whom I’m still in touch with), the whole institution seemed designed to suck the joy and personal investment out from the student body. This is in sharp contrast to the Vermont college, where there were student committees and town hall meetings, and, although there wasn’t always something terribly interesting, did have an actual final vote on professor’s tenure. And it was never actually required to attend Town Hall, it was heartily encouraged (all of my friends from New England know that’s dog whistle for, “They’ll heap frost-burning shame upon you if you don’t do it”). We could’ve fomented a revolution, but most of us were too busy either debating some aspect of the college or writing term papers. In other words, civics was a deeply-ingrained-but-unspoken value in Vermont in a way I never saw demonstrated in Florida. I don’t know if a liberal arts undergraduate college that got to sub-zero temperatures regularly compares with a smallish university next to the sea, but the difference just in general culture was striking. There’s definitely a cultural inferiority complex I just didn’t see in Vermont, which was weird, in a place as urban and urbane as South Florida; but, more to my point, on full display throughout the South (especially in Richmond, Virginia)(if you ever get a chance, just smoke an unfiltered cigarette at a Waffle House while watching armed truckers chew and you can recreate the experience) is a bizarre lionization of the past.

I say it’s bizarre, because it glosses right over the burrs and controversies that make the founders of the United States (or the white, heternormative, abled, male popululation thereof) much more interesting and morally questionable. Yes, throughout Virginia, Thomas Jefferson is revered. He was a superb writer, philosopher, inventor, and statesman; but he also owned hundreds of slaves. He had an affair with a slave woman — which seemed somewhat innocuous until someone pointed out that slaves legally could not refuse their owner’s sexual overtures. and this relationship started when she was 14 or 15. That’s Jeffrey Epstein territory, folks. Yes, Jefferson should be revered and remembered, but we also have to always remember to add that subtext, “He was a child rapist” to it.

Obviously, with a philosophical family tree made up of the sort of men Abigail Adams explicitly warned us about, there’s a lot of cultural pressure to pretend it never happened, or that it happened differently. This leads to a grotesquely distorted view of history that allows gross misinterpretation. The Confederate States of America lasted four years. Donald Trump was president about as long as Mobile and Richmond were important. Treating those four years as the rule of history, rather than a very brief, weird episode, is not only grossly inaccurate, but it sets up inaccurate expectations and priorities. Because it’s always all about me; I could treat the 17 years I was healthy as the rule, but I’m 36 now. Treating a third of my life as if it’s the rule would allow me to grossly mismanage my priorities and plan on doing something like summit Killamanjaro, or live to see 90. Statistically, it’s unlikely, and I’d be doing myself a grave misdeed if I made that sort of thinking my baseline in how to invest my time and energy.

Similarly, an independent, prosperous, non-hurricane-destroyed Texas is the exception to history, not the rule. Pretending otherwise allows for politicians to mismanage dwindling resources and make wildly inappropriate investments. The minute I stopped thinking of myself as a healthy person beset by health catastrophe (after health catastrophe after health catastrophe), it provided the impetus to start investing more in my health and living a healthier life. I’m still beset by disease and need regular medical interventions, but planning a life around disasters is actually much easier and more practical than attempting a normal life that regularly gets upended by a disaster. Similarly, these sorts of “once in a lifetime freak storm events” that hit southern states every 5–10 years must no longer be considered statistical anomalies; they’re the new normal. And it’s not like snow and extreme weather is some sort of alien, unknown entity in Texas — it snows regularly in Lubbock and Amarillo — if those towns have figured out how to navigate “severe weather” (in Vermont, temperatures above freezing in February or March were considered a rare treat), it doesn’t seem like some sort of grossly ignorant demand that the electrical grid in one part of the state be used anywhere in that same state. Of course, that would require some sort of standards and something to enforce standards… Regulation and compliance with basic safety and decency — the traditional enemies of the South — rear their heads yet again.

The interesting snag here is, in its consistent attempts to deter and side-step any form of federal (or “outside”) influence has made regulation the unavoidable end here. The federal government can’t afford to constantly bail out these shithole states that frequently bankrupt themselves because of their own short-sightedness and greed. Federal aid usually comes with restrictions and requirements (this is true, and it’s a large reason why states like Texas resisted the ACA for so long — that funding comes with a lot of regulatory strings attached), and, from this moment forward, every penny toward saving Texas from itself must carry some sort of legislative promise. Texas has had decades of GOP leadership that flatly refuses to lead — Molly Ivins literally made a career out of writing about the venal, incompetent state leadership. First off, Texas must submit to the same energy regulations and safety as every other state. If they want to go it alone, they can damned well pay for the privilege. Or, if they want to join the rest of society, they can sit down and behave by the same rules as everyone else. Again, this whole, “The South will rise again” myth needs to die right now, or innocent Texans will also die. Again, I’m not happy about that, at all, but the inhabitants of the state have had decades of insane conservative politicians to figure this out; they’re tempting fate.

As a solid second part to this, any state that requires federal aid for a crisis will have automatic recall elections at every level. This will be paid for by the emergency funds provided for the state. All sitting politicians will automatically be ineligible to run for reelection in these recall elections. I will admit to a certain cultural bias toward using the recall vote frequently to remove and replace politicians, but California started actually getting better leadership when we stopped being gun shy about removing politicians. We would probably get superior leadership everywhere if all politicians knew that they were a few hundred thousand signatures away from removal. Similarly, if you contribute to a disaster that requires federal intervention, you probably aren’t fit for office (and that’s in blue states, too; Andrew Cuomo is looking less-competent and empathetic in the face of probes surrounding COVID in nursing homes).

And, finally, there must be no privately-owned utility companies in the United States, at all, ever. We’ve seen, in California and in Texas, that commercial enterprise does not have a consistent track record of providing essential services. On a personal note; I’ve had both government and private health insurance since my first major medical incident; anyone claiming that private industries are faster and more efficient than the public sector really has to answer the question; “Would you rather be covered by Aetna, or Medicare?”a

All politicians of states receiving emergency federal aid will be unconditionally barred from leaving the state until the emergency is resolved. This would, of course, include federal representatives — hey, if these shithole states wanted to be represented in Congress, they could manage their own states well enough not to require federal aid. All officials will, of course, also be required to undergo periodic drug testing. Any failed drug tests will result in withdrawal of federal aid.

If all of this rhetoric seems harsh, judgmental, and seems to advocate for the curtailing of basic liberties of Texans, well, yeah. I’m just using the exact same rhetoric that Southern politicians like to use whenever they talk about their own disenfranchised minorities. Which now, ironically, includes all of their majority-status citizens who are in danger of freezing to death. Here’s the TLDR version: GOP politicians felt so emboldened and insulated from their constituents that they felt safe running a pseudo-CSA using their state’s energy grid and energy policy. Now, their constituents are dying as a result. Words have consequences. They shape rhetoric and policy, and both of those have (occasionally lethal) consequences. This ongoing myth of an independent, wealthy South has infected politics long enough, and it’s time for Alabama, Georgia, and, yes, Texas to decide: Join the Union with full commitment, vigor, and fulfillment of tax and regulatory obligations that entails, or… weather the next hurricane with naught but their pride, self-sufficiency, and Southern Comfort. We’ve played this middle-ground of “The South will Rise Again,’ but, in the meantime, Georgia needs some help to get back on its feet” for far too long, and now, there is a verifiable, countable death toll associated with it.