Austin at Large: The Most Serious Time of the Year

Somewhere along the way, we learned that in political matters, people trust us


Right-wingers such as Round Rock ISD's Mary Bone are the reason we can't support right-leaning candidates (Screenshot via Round Rock ISD)

At least we've finally gotten a taste of autumn weather as we catch up with our regular obligation to roll out our November election endorsements. After a couple of years of Zoom sessions, we've returned to the conference room, where we grill candidates on their visions for Austin and Texas and America, and then grill each other (the members of our semi-porous Editorial Board) about the same things. What do we really want these people to do for the people who might elect them? It's not like we're scoring their figure skating routines and have been given a checklist of spins and jumps to expect. (Sometimes we are treated to set-pieces where a candidate awkwardly, always awkwardly, drops oppo on another contender right in front of us, but that's not the same.)

Rather, we have to imagine how the different people with different priorities who ask for our support could arrive at the goals we'd like to see reached in different ways from different directions, and what it would mean if they did. Because we've spent a lot of time reporting on local politics especially, we can envision the future coalitions and rivalries as we voice our choices in each race. When people react, appropriately, that the hour we allot for each race's endorsement interview (everyone comes at once) is not a long time, we have to remind them that we've actually been thinking about these people and their issues (mostly political ones, but not always!) routinely for weeks, months, years, decades. This is a snapshot.

We Don’t Forget Such Things

This is why I have never – like, literally, never, from my childhood, when I was getting cub reporter toys as a 7-year-old – understood why Journalists of High Standing think that endorsements are a bad thing that trashes their brand and that readers don't care about. Might I suggest that they are looking through the wrong end of the telescope here? Perhaps their brands are already trash because nobody knows what they stand for! Why is it so hard for major metro dailies and national outlets to do what we do – take a position, state your priors, give a fair hearing to alternate points of view, create a conversation that's interesting, and let audiences decide whether or not they agree? You know, being "honest" and "authentic" are still sexy! I promise that readers can still appreciate and respect your publication while disagreeing firmly with your political endorsements. It happens to us all the time, every election cycle, and we have survived.

Now, I should not play too dumb here, since I know there's a more depressing reality at work: Angry right-wingers have ceaselessly tried to "work the refs" and make journalists squirm about telling the truth about American conservatism, a disease that kills people. Reporting on what's really happening at the Texas-Mexico border, or on what Republican-leaning independents really think about abortion and guns, or anything else that upsets wing nuts only attracts swarms of such flies. You of course know this, because you long ago learned to "never read the comments" where the flies gather, breed, defecate, and die.

The Chronicle routinely, albeit not that intensely, attracts angry wingers when we tell the truth about public safety – at least some of whom I assume are actual Austin police officers attacking us on Twitter and such while in uniform. But for the most part, the people who want to read news reported and edited from a leftist perspective, and who someday would like to see the news events themselves unfold from a leftist perspective, are generally pretty forgiving and accommodating of what they think are our errors and heresies. Conservative audiences are not so tolerant.

It’s Getting Dark Outside

You'll learn more from us, and we'll all learn from the national news over the next couple of weeks, about just how intolerant, nasty, criminally harassing, and just f*cking not home-trained conservatives can be to people they think are political and ideo­log­ic­al threats, such as the fairly average members of the Round Rock ISD Board of Trustees. I'll just say that progressives simply need to come up with stronger, more effective responses to the routine outbreaks of treason and racist violence that happen not only in shocking and calamitous criminal events but at boringass school board meetings here in Greg Abbott's Texas. There are many responses to choose from!

But don't ignore it or hope it goes away. For the time being, no candidate who is affiliated with the party of treason and rac­ist violence, even indirectly, should bother asking the Chronicle for its endorsement. And don't expect to fool us with noise like this, from closet Dominionist Heather Too­lin, running for Austin school board: "I want my children to receive the best possible education without bringing the adult political issues of the day into their class­rooms." Will she let them learn to read?

Got something to say? The Chronicle welcomes opinion pieces on any topic from the community. Submit yours now at austinchronicle.com/opinion.

A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.

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