Learning From Tioga

Tioga is 50 miles north of Dallas. Politically, it may be in another world.

When we made our little road trip, the first thing we noticed were the big campaign signs for Don Huffines hanging on barbed wire fences. He seems to think that Governor Abbott is a liberal. HIs main slogan for getting votes in rural areas, based on an outright lie, seems to be “Stop Giving Our Money to Illegals!”

Our second clue came when we arrived at Tioga and stopped for barbecue. By the way, we liked the food, and apparently lots of other people like it, because the crowd was pretty good for a town with population 803. While we were scarfing it down, though, we noticed that we hadn’t seen a mask anywhere on the trip. Pandemic or not, they just don’t wear them up around Tioga!

After the restaurant, we tried to fit in by taking off our masks for our walking tour. We went right down Gene Autry street. We thought there might be some kind of statue, plaque, or other tribute to the great singing cowboy who is, among many other things, who I’m probably named after. The tribute is probably there, because being the birthplace of Gene Autry is Tioga’s only claim to fame, but we couldn’t find it. Right next to the street sign where we paused for a photo, a sign hung from a tree: “Trump: Make America Great!”

By then, we city people had begun to get a little uneasy. A couple of blocks further, we saw our first “Trump 2024” yard sign of this political year. By the time we got to Race Street and saw a certain house, we were downright nervous.

When we saw the confederate flag and the posted threat of violence, we decided that it might be good to get back to the car before anybody noticed my “Bernie” bumper sticker. As soon as we got back to City Hall, where we had parked, we checked the car for possible painted swastikas. Then we got out of Tioga.

On the way home, we wondered if there were any dark-skinned people in Tioga. More importantly, we wondered why people in the rural areas of Texas seem committed to the Republican Party despite all facts and information. We think it might be racism.

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON’s “Workers Beat” radio talk show at 9AM Central Time every Saturday. KNON posts my weekly blog “Workers Beat Extra” Wednesdays on http://soundcloud.com. If you are curious about what I really think, check out my personal web site.