Only four months after winning re-election as a longtime Democrat, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced that he was defecting to the Republican party. Before assuming office, Johnson served nearly a decade in the Texas Legislature as a Democrat — making his decision to switch parties all the more shocking.
On Friday, Johnson announced his decision in an 0p-ed in the Wall Street Journal. “Today I am changing my party affiliation,” wrote Johnson. “Next spring, I will be voting in the Republican primary. When my career in elected office ends in 2027 on the inauguration of my successor as mayor, I will leave office as a Republican.”
In his op-ed, Johnson says that he won 98.7% of the vote in his re-election. Although it’s worth noting that was when he was running as a registered Democrat in a county that President Joe Biden overwhelmingly carried. The mayoral position is technically non-partisan, but it’s hard to argue that running as a registered Democrat in a deep-blue county didn’t have some impact on the vote.
Johnson criticized Democratic leadership, arguing that Democratic mayors (of which he was one until a few hours ago) have allowed cities to crumble into “disarray” and lawlessness. Johnson also pats himself on the back for standing up against the defund the police movement.
Johnson paints a picture of Democratic Mayors that is wholly incongruent with the state of play in blue cities. New York City’s Democratic Mayor, Eric Adams, is literally a former cop. And D.C.’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser has fought tooth and nail to prevent criminal justice reforms from going into effect.
He isn’t the only southern Democrat to defect to the Republican party in a dramatic fashion. In July, Georgia State Representative Mesha Mainor announced that she was switching to the Republican. Mainor, who served in a deep-blue Atlanta district, defended her decision by arguing that she was pushed out of the Democratic party. Mainor was criticized by Georgia Democrats but welcomed with open arms by folks like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene, who applauded her decision to move parties.
As for Johnson, there will surely be a ton of backlash, but maybe, like Mainor, he’ll make some friends in his new party.
Biden is doing literally exactly that. So are folks like Fetterman, Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, etc.
The problem is that the entire media ecosystem is sensationalist, and that feeds directly into hot button, eyebrow raising culture war issues, which generate clicks, likes, and shares. There’s less public appetite for “look at how labor laws are affecting wages and promoting emerging industries” than there is for “OmG TaY tAy wOrE a PrOnOuN dReSs tO a TrAnSgEnDeR OrGy!!!@@@” Dems are fucking inept at PR, but they’re also fighting to make boring topics interesting, all while the entire country loses their goddamn minds over trans men getting pregnant and trans boys playing softball. Bring up clean energy and infrastructure and the public tunes the fuck out in minutes, but bring up a kid getting hormone therapy and people lose their everloving marbles FOR WEEKS ON END! Once Grandpappy Republican hears about a drag queen reading a book to children, it’s all they talk about to their nieces, friends, cousins, siblings, grandchildren, plumber, Walmart clerk, parking attendant, dry cleaner, neighbor, mailman, dog catcher, actual dog, crown moulding, antique chair, turkey sandwich, god, dead fish, washing machine, etc, etc, etc, and so on forever.
Next time you hear about some of that culture war nonsense, ask yourself, “Who brought this up in the first place or made this an issue that we need to talk about? Was it a Democrat, a Republican, the media, or an agent provacateur who wants you to be talking about it because they know it pisses you off?” CRT is a thing because Christopher Rufo wanted you to talk about it. Hunter Biden is a thing because Garret Ziegler wanted you to talk about him. Gas stove bans are a thing because Republicans wanted you to talk about them. Consider the source, my dude.
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