OPINION: The Midterms and Texas Taxidermy – Annenberg Media

Greetings from Texas!
Janis Joplin and Beyoncé are playing in my head. Our group of 10 journalists spent five long days in voting districts across southern Texas. At remote polling places and campaign events, we spoke with more than two hundred voters. Have you voted yet? Why did you make that choice? What matters to you?
We stood in the parking lots of schools, town halls and churches that had been turned into early-voting sites. We knocked on the windows of pickup trucks and the doors of worn-down strip malls. We made it to campaign events for both Republican candidate Ken Paxton and Democratic candidate James Talarico, getting a feel for the excitement of the race. I felt it, too.
In early November, the United States holds its midterm elections, voting for members of Congress along with a host of state and local officials. They are called the midterms because they fall halfway through a president’s four-year term. Vast, distinctive Texas has been Republican red for decades, but this year, a close contest was underway that could help tip the balance of power in the entire Senate. The nation was watching Texas.
So what did I see there?
There is an energy among the young Texans I met. Something faintly [Barack] Obama-like was in the air, a sense of movement coalescing around hope. Many told me they felt some kind of change was coming. The line for Talarico’s event in San Antonio wrapped around city blocks. Talarico spoke about love and friendship, high school football and how Texas is not for sale to Elon Musk.
Earlier that same day, at Republican candidate Paxton’s event in rural Texas, the mood was warm, though not quite as electric. The crowd was older, their choice of candidate settled long ago. A cowboy pastor knew exactly who he was talking to and knew how to make his people laugh.
The concerns of the locals were clear and deep: Who will protect the border? Who will protect them from liberals, or from foreign religions? Several people mentioned their fear of Sharia law. If it ever comes, I was told, Texas will be ready to fight.
I saw a lot of taxidermy, fenced-off ranches, farm machinery and oil pumps, enormous spiders and tiny scorpions. Fear-inducing attack ads on television. I saw plenty of boots, and pride in the country and especially pride in Texas.
Even in California, you have to admit that Texas matters.
I heard skillfully written and delivered speeches. I admire Americans’ ability to perform, and I intend to absorb some of it myself. Being an audience member is a skill, too, and people here know how to do it. That delights me.
Best of all was watching young American journalism students who have the courage to ask questions and approach people. I admired the drive I saw in our group: we would get back to our quarters late at night, yet there we were in our pajamas, gathering around a map of the voting districts for another meeting. Where should we drive tomorrow – maybe Corpus Christi? (We did just that.) At night, we read the news, went through our notes, and talked.
Perhaps to report is more a way of life than simply a verb. But where, in Finland, is there room for that way of life? What kind of employment can even accommodate a life built around curiosity? Lying in the bottom bunk, listening to the cicadas, I was afraid that becoming a better journalist might no longer be enough. How do we build better news organizations and healthier, more inspired newsroom cultures? Or is being an independent journalist really the only way to focus on what matters and do it well?
In the morning, eating an everything bagel beneath a piece of bison taxidermy, I feel more optimistic. I find myself returning to something fundamental: politics is, after all, about being human. Though it can often seem far removed from life, it is precisely there that we find ourselves: at the heart of what we share. I talk with people about their hopes, their fears, their everyday lives. Political reporting is anything but marble halls and corridors of power.
Naturally, people asked me what Finnish politics is like. Well, what is it like? Calmer, more varied, I tried to answer. Soon we will have elections of our own, and, well, instead of two blazers in the studio, we’ll have something like nine.
A two-party system is as much about choosing as it is about choosing what you are not: ‘at least I’m not that.’ Negation can help you make a decision, but it can easily leave that decision hollow. So what am I? The job of political journalism is to help fill that void.
* * *
This personal essay was generated following a reporting field trip as part of the Politics and Government Affairs Reporting class led by Annenberg Professor Christina Bellantoni.
This blog post was originally published in Finnish in Stipendiblogi: https://www.stipendiblogi.fi/valivaalit-ja-texasin-taytetyt-elaimet.html
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