Race and Class in Texas Politics

by Chandler Davidson

This major work on Texas politics explores the complicated relations between the politically disorganized Texas blue-collar class and the "rich and the fabulously rich," whose interests have been protected by "brilliant practitioners of horse trading, guile, the jovial but serious threat, the offer that can't be refused."

367 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1990

Reviews

[James Goode · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a dense and well-researched history on the “Party Switch” that happened after World War II in Texas. The book is a response to VO Key’s 1945 book Southern Politics in State and Nation. Chandler looks at Key’s thesis that Texas is on its way to becoming a two-party state based around haves (those with money and power) and have-nots (those without money made up primarily of labor and racial minorities).

Chandler’s findings provide insight on how the American political parties started their shift in the 1940s and then made seismic shifts around 1964-1966. In Texas voters were faced with a choice: go with a party coalescing around liberalism and moderation that sought to continue the New Deal and Great Society- a society that included labor and minorities, or turn to a party that included respectable monied interests with a gaggle of personalities that range from John Birch Society to JBS-curious radicals.

If you’ve ever wondered how the largest state in the lower 48 went from being a reliable Democratic vote to reliably red, this book is for you.

[Bethany Epstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

the definitive text on the political environment of texas from the 1940s to the 1980s. davidson's analysis of the ideological factions in the texas government, their major figures, the issues that divided them, their electoral bases, and their benefactors is without parallel. some analysis of the electoral composition of the state is remarkably prescient (notably shifts right among hispanic voters on the grounds of internal divisions regarding immigration). necessary reading for anyone who wishes to understand the state of texas, even 35 years after publication.