In her new book, “Big, Hot, Cheap and Right: What America Can Learn From the Strange Genius of Texas,†Erica Grieder, an editor at Texas Monthly magazine, writes about the forces that shaped the state’s attitudes as well as its current economic growth in the face of widespread troubles in the rest of the country. In a recent e-mail interview, Ms. Grieder discussed the state’s economic “miracle,†whether the future there bodes well for Democrats and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:
Did you grow up in Texas? What’s the biggest change there that you’ve felt as a day-to-day resident (as opposed to a journalist) over the years?
I was a military brat, so I grew up all over, but San Antonio, where we lived when I was a child, and where my family has since settled, is home. The growth in every major city, including San Antonio and Austin, has been the biggest day-to-day change. Most of it has been to the good, but there have been some costs, such as the 2008 closure of Las Manitas, a Tex-Mex diner in Austin. I haven’t even eaten a refried bean in the past five years. There’s no point anymore.
Could you briefly summarize the facts of the “Texas miracle,†which is a big part of the book? And do you think the word “miracle†is appropriate?
Over the past 10 or so years, Texas’s economy has been outperforming those of most states, and the country as a whole, to such a noticeable degree that people have started talking about it in terms our more devout friends reserve for things like transubstantiation. So I can see how calling it a “miracle†might be contentious, but I’m comfortable with the phrase because Texans use strong language.
Given that the state’s economy has become increasingly diversified â€" beyond oil â€" how has that “miracle†continued in spite of the national economy’s struggles?
I think the lesson Texans took from the 1980s oil bust is that being counter-cyclical is only good when the cycle isn’t counter to you. That bust spurred the state’s interest in diversification, which has been significant, and it meant that losses in one sector were often offset in another. (For the benefit of the state’s critics, let me note that parts of Texas that are less diversified haven’t been so well-hedged; in much of the Rio Grande Valley, for example, unemployment is once again in the double digits, largely because the global market malaise has triggered layoffs in manufacturing.)
Then, too, you had all the things that we generally summarize as a pro-business climate, and a couple of helpful idiosyncrasies. We have pretty strong lending laws, so we weren’t very heavy on subprime mortgages. Oil prices were high, and although the vast majority of Texas’s jobs aren’t in oil â€" the energy industry is capital-intensive rather than labor-intensive â€" it’s still a significant component of state GDP. The result was that although we didn’t get through without a scratch, the wheels never fell off the wagon altogether.
Roxanne Rathge Erica GriederYou write that after the initial oil boom in Texas, the state “could easily have become a banana republic of the wealthy, industrialized Northeast.†Why didn’t it?
By the time oil was discovered in great quantities (at Spindletop, in 1901) the state was already wary of outside interference, for a variety of historical reasons. Some years before, Texas had passed the nation’s second anti-trust law as a way to push back against northeastern industrial interests â€" a shrewd, albeit protectionist, thing to do. That’s what Texas used to keep Big Oil at bay in those early years. Although Texas’s oil wealth wasn’t distributed equally, we were, at least, able to keep a lot of it inside the state.
You say that Americans outside the state have often mistaken its rhetoric about independence as an echo of the Confederacy, but that they’re wrong to do so. Why?
After staging a revolution against the young republic of Mexico, Texas was an independent country from 1836 to 1845. The Texas Revolution wasn’t as glorious as some accounts suggest, and the Republic of Texas wasn’t glamorous, but both are crucial to Texas’s conception of itself; the revolution created a sense of common purpose, and the years as a republic differentiated us from other states. So today, when Texans talk about independence, that’s the history they’re evoking. There are pockets of Confederate nostalgia in Texas, but the Civil War has never had the same psychological stranglehold on Texas that it seems to have in some states.
There’s been a lot of talk recently about how Texas is likely to become more favorable to Democratic candidates in coming years. But you say the state’s electorate has “remained much the same as ever: pragmatic, fiscally conservative, socially moderate, and slightly disengaged.†So to what extent do you believe the predictions about a “bluer†Texas?
It’s certainly possible. Texas’s demographics, specifically its youth and its urbanization â€" which are correlated with ethnicity, but not the same â€" are auspicious for Democrats. And on social issues the people of Texas are more centrist than the state’s current Republican leadership, although the biggest issue for voters here, as in most places, is the economy. The Democrats have a number of hurdles, though, the primary one being that they need to run more candidates. At the moment, they don’t have anyone queued up for next year’s Senate election. It’s the soft bigotry of low expectations, perhaps, but I do think John Cornyn is better than “no one.â€
Since your book acknowledges the state’s strengths and drawbacks in equal measure, I imagine it could be a “can’t win†scenario with some Texan readers. How has the book been received by readers there?
It’s been received warmly by most Texans I’ve heard from, although a number have raised points of disagreement, which is fine, of course. Most Texans, including me, are a little tired of the caricatures, but we can handle criticism, especially when it’s fair. I’m proud of Texas, and I want it to be the best Texas it can be, and there’s no conflict between those two statements. What a punitive world it would be, if we only loved things that were perfect.
What are three other books you would recommend people read if they want to get a better sense of the state?
“Lone Star,†by T.R. Fehrenbach, is my favorite single-volume history of Texas. Caro’s Lyndon Johnson series â€" read the first volume and keep in mind the fact that Johnson’s hardscrabble Hill Country youth is concurrent with, you know, the Jazz Age. That really helps explain where Texas is coming from. And let’s say Larry McMurtry’s “Terms of Endearment†â€" a sexy, sprawling mess of a novel that somehow, improbably, totally works.
