Have campaigns gotten worse... or just our memories of them? ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Good morning,

No, campaigns haven’t gotten nastier; I end the week reflecting on the perennial handwringing over the "tone" of political discourse.

But first, this is the Texas Minute for Friday, Sept. 13, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan

Trafficking Victims Sue Software Company

A software company is being sued following allegations that it assisted sex traffickers in their efforts to sell victims online. Emily Medeiros has the story.
The company, Salesforce, is being sued by Texas trafficking victims who allege that it provided a sex-selling marketplace with technology services needed to continue the illegal business and avoid detection from law enforcement agencies. According to the Office of the Attorney General, Backpage generated millions of dollars during its time in operation.
Salesforce first partnered with Backpage in 2013, with a series of contracts in Texas. The company assigned Texas-based employees to provide technical support to the website.
The company has been named in the lawsuit for its assistance in helping Backpage with its customer and user activity, surveillance of customers, and collecting information about its users—which victims claim helped Backpage more effectively target sex traffickers and buyers.
Salesforce is also facing a lawsuit in Florida over its alleged involvement in child trafficking.

Colin Allred’s Radical Views on Display

U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who is challenging U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for his senate seat, pushed his radical positions on border security, abortion, and the LGBT agenda during an interview last weekend with a liberal online news site. Addie Hovland has the story.
He said he opposes the state's border security initiatives and wants to force all states to adopt pro-abortion policies. A 2018 video recently surfaced showing Allred suggesting that America would have been better off without the Second Amendment; he has doubled down on that position.
The former football player has made the radical LGBT agenda a key plank in his campaign for the Senate. As a member of the U.S. House, Allred helped secure $1 million in federal funding for a Dallas nonprofit called BigThought, which promotes LGBT and radical gender ideology.

McKinney Puts Misleading Term Limit Language on November Ballot

McKinney citizens are concerned that a ballot proposition allowing city representatives to stay in office longer will mislead voters because it fails to mention existing term limits, reports Erin Anderson.
The council-pushed charter amendment would extend term limits for the mayor and city council members from two to three consecutive four-year terms.
McKinney resident Tom Michero described the council amendment as a “self-serving power grab.”
Local government watchdog Bridgette Wallis has pointed out that the ballot language does not indicate that the amendment is an extension of terms. Rather, she says, an uninformed voter could think the language is a new restriction on government power.
Wallis noted that the immediate beneficiaries of McKinney’s proposed change from two to three terms are Mayor George Fuller and At Large Councilman Charlie Philips. Without the change this November, both men will term out of office in May 2025.

Court Forces Dallas City Council to Remove Misleading Charter Amendments From Ballot

An attempt by the Dallas City Council to confuse voters has been blocked by the Supreme Court of Texas, which ruled this week that misleading charter amendments must be taken off the November ballot. Valerie Muñoz reports the city council was trying to derail a citizen-led campaign to advance propositions that would increase government accountability.
The nonprofit organization Dallas HERO had pushed three charter amendments increasing pay for law enforcement, allowing residents to sue city officials, and making the city manager’s salary performance-based. The council added three amendments of its own that were designed to contradict those put forward by HERO.
The Texas Supreme Court ruling concluded that the citizen-led propositions must appear on the ballot and “duplicative propositions” should not be included, ultimately directing the city council to remove them.

Friday Reflection
It’s the Same as it Ever Was

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

Reflections Podcast

To believe the handwringing social media posts I scroll past every day, this is the worst presidential election in history. We’re told that our Founding Fathers must be rolling in their graves. Whatever other cultural decay we have experienced, the bipartisan propensity for political hyperbole and historical revisionism seems healthy enough.

I cringe every time a well-intentioned friend makes reference to the "decline" in the tone of our elections, the devolution of campaigns. It’s one thing to remember the past fondly; it is something else to romanticize it irrationally.

Let’s consider the views of the Founding Fathers.

In 1798, it was the "father of the country," the man who eschewed partisan politics (in our modern mythology), George Washington himself, who said it would be easier to rub a black rock into white "as to change the principles of a professed Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the Government of this Country."

Boom.

Two years later, the Founding Fathers were still running the show. The presidential election of 1800 featured the incumbent, John Adams, being challenged by Thomas Jefferson. The campaign was marked by vicious slander and bitter attacks. Adams’ people derided Jefferson as a dangerous atheist, while the Jefferson camp said Adams was a "hermaphrodite." (If you don’t know what that is... trust me: it is not nice.)

Things didn’t get better. Democrats in 1876 falsely campaigned on the claim that Republican Rutherford Hayes had shot his mother while drunk. (And, yes, I skipped past the sordid 1828 attacks on Andrew Jackson’s beloved wife.)

In 1884, Grover Cleveland was called a "lecherous beast" and "moral leper" by Republicans, owing to the fact he had fathered a child out of wedlock.

And let’s not forget the high-water mark of political decorum: the 1920 presidential race in which Democrats urged Americans to vote against Republican Warren Harding because he had black ancestors.

None of that is to excuse the current election cycle; it is only to suggest that we might all do well to consider that the problem isn’t the devolution of campaigning but the corruption of the human heart. We justify dehumanizing our opponents as the necessary cost of getting our good candidate elected.

When we think of an election as the be-all and end-all of our civilization and life, it warps our view of everything around us.

We’d do well to consider the words of the author of Hebrews: "...let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."

Yes, the tone of elections could be improved, but they are—like late-night social media binges—merely a reflection of our collective heart. Rather than hoping for a return to a past that never existed, our current elections—and the future of our Republic—would benefit from more of us fixing our eyes on the steady goal of God’s standard.