The irony, Wright insists, is that Texas should be a solid blue state. Young professionals are pouring in to take high-paying jobs; they tend to vote Democrat. So, too, Hispanics, who will soon compose half the state’s population. The problem is that these groups don’t vote in numbers comparable to older whites and evangelicals, who march dependably to the polls. Taking a page from his acquaintance Karl Rove, Wright notes that Texans have traditionally been more populist than progressive, attracted to conspiracies in which outside forces, scornful of their values, have rigged the game against them. Enter Dan Patrick and Donald Trump.

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Like many Texas liberals, Wright has a soft spot for the three Texans who reached the White House — a feeling no doubt heightened by his loathing of the present occupant. His description of Lyndon Johnson as a champion of the disadvantaged is standard fare; more intriguing is his appraisal of Johnson’s impact on the state’s public image in the 1960s, as America’s culture czars, especially in Hollywood, consciously soured on Texas following the Kennedy assassination in Dallas and Johnson’s escalation in Vietnam, a war he inherited but soon came to define. Wright is correct, I think, in noting how quickly, and harshly, the policy missteps and personal foibles of this president — his cornpone accent, whopping exaggerations and primitive habits — were linked to the state he came from. “The hatred heaped upon him splattered over the rest of us,” Wright says, adding: “I wouldn’t change my opposition to that war, but I wish we had been kinder to him.”

It’s not just the disappearance of Johnson’s New Deal liberalism in Texas that Wright laments, it’s also the rout of moderate Republicanism as practiced by George H.W. and George W. Bush. Whatever their faults, Wright claims, they are men of character who displayed little of the partisan meanness so prevalent today. He also makes a case for George W. Bush as a good governor, more interested in meeting the state’s social needs than in fighting its culture wars. Recently, the younger Bush broke his silence about the toxic environment in Washington, taking an indirect shot at Trump. “As he spoke,” Wright recalls, “I wished for the millionth time that he hadn’t invaded Iraq.”

The Bushes could also be unintentionally hilarious, especially when wrestling with their native tongue. Wright fondly weaves in their most egregious gaffes, not to embarrass the former presidents but to humanize them. Take, for example, Bush the elder on Ronald Reagan: “I have worked alongside him. … We have had triumphs. We have made mistakes. We have had sex.” (He meant “setbacks.”) Or Bush the younger describing his presidential campaign: “They misunderestimated me.” Indeed, they did.

Perhaps the clearest indication of Wright’s Texas loyalties can be seen in his choice of a burial plot. His sparkling literary credentials have earned him entry into the exclusive Texas State Cemetery in Austin. On the positive side, it’s home to Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, a civil rights icon, whose simple epitaph reads, “Patriot.” Ann Richards and her longtime companion, the revered Texas writer Bud Shrake, also rest there — Richards leaving behind some preachy words about fairness, Shrake taking the more direct route: “So Far, So Bueno.”

But much of the cemetery is dotted with less agreeable folk. Buried side-by-side are Governors “Ma” and “Pa” Ferguson — “Ma” becoming the state’s first female chief executive following her husband’s ouster on corruption charges. An early crusader against bilingual education back in the 1920s, she is said to have argued: “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for the schoolchildren of Texas.” Rick Perry and Dan Patrick have plots reserved, as do a fair number of their friends. In picking his spot, Wright seems to have chosen nature over neighborliness. It’s set on a shady hillside near the grave of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, hero of the Texas Revolution and son of the Confederacy, who died at Shiloh.

Wright sees no conflict, nor should there be. Liberal Texans complain and fight and continually lose. Like Wright himself, they sometimes contemplate leaving the state, but not many do. There’s a powerful sense of rootedness, a love of the landscape and the laid-back lifestyle, a selective affinity for the culture, and an Alamo-like pride in battling unwinnable odds. As Wright notes of his grave site, and surely of Texas itself: “I had made my choice.”