Perhaps the most successful distraction of all was this one: while Texas voters decried abortion rights, public school indoctrination, liberal elites, LGBTQ people, and whether women should work outside the home or lead a nation, the Texas government grew its autocratic power. Texans can dance the two-step, throw a football, wrestle a steer, shrink their blue jeans, build a mini-mansion, vacation in Galveston, ban books about LGBTQ characters in their school libraries, support MAGA, or boycott DEI programs all day and every which way but, they cannot undo without a revolution the Republican’s corrupt authoritarian power in Austin.