The policies of a city or state are not always a reflection of the masses. Left or right, what happens in a state is at the fault of the legislator, not the people.
Given the divisive time we live in, the era of divided politics if you will, regions of the country have become ostracized from each other. The South from the North and vice versa. State-by-state evaluations of the integrity of its people are common practice.
On one hand, you reap what you sow. You get what you vote for. Understandably, a lot of Texans are frustrated with their policymakers and legislators for their handling of the weather crisis this past week. Due to poor governance when Texans needed energy—there was none to be given.
According to the Atlantic, Texas’ power failure is linked to relying on one source of fuel: natural gas. The matrix of pipelines beneath Texan soil were simply not equipped to handle a polar vortex. Consequently, as soon as it got too cold, the pipes burst. No natural gas was delivered to the power plants and leftover gas was gobbled up by the remaining homes, buildings and offices.
Utilizing a shred of critical thinking skills, one might ask, “why wasn’t there a backup storage of natural gas?” The answer: poor policy.
The Energy Reliability Council of Texas, the government-run group that controls Texas’ energy, operates as “less an administrator than an auctioneer.” Simply put, when Texas needs more power, the price goes up. When natural gas ran short, more buildings called for more power. The price of one megawatt-hour soared to $9,000 and some Texans were left paying $2,500 a day for electricity, according to the Atlantic.
Technical lingo aside, the government of Texas assumed that high prices would incentivize power plants to be prepared. The plan backfired.
Now, children are freezing to death in their beds and families have gone days without food. All because of the policy backed by those they voted for, or at least that’s the argument.
A TikTok video amassing 1.4 million views posted by Marcus Dipaola, a career freelance journalist, criticized Texas for voting the way they did stating, “enjoy your power blackouts Texas, you voted for them.”
They didn’t vote for them.
In all reality, nearly 50% of Texans voted against similar politicians. Nearly 50% of Texans did not vote for this crisis. It’s cruel and immoral to condemn Texas for the actions of only half its citizens.
Relate the situation to Latah County. We are a blue county in a red state. The right-leaning actions of Idaho legislators do not reflect on the wishes of left-leaning Moscow citizens. Similarly, the left-leaning actions of Moscow legislators do not reflect on the right-leaning voters of Moscow.
This logic seems commonplace, honestly. That’s just how majority-rule democracy works. As much as half a population will be severely upset about something they didn’t vote for. However, more and more people are becoming less forgiving.
I’ve seen increasingly constant rhetoric against whole states for their legislator’s policies. Condemning northern states for being liberal and condemning southern states for being conservative.
That conversation is not productive. There is more to be said and done about legislators’ policies than victim-blaming the people. Critique the senators. Critique the council members. Critique the governors. Don’t critique the public for voting what they thought was right.
Carter Kolpitcke can be reached at [email protected] or at @carterkolpitcke on Twitter.