Constitution Day: We Work Best When We Work Together
Soy Ashley Bean Thornton, y me postulo para la Cámara de Representantes de Texas, Distrito 56. Si les gusta lo que digo, y viven en el HD 56, espero que voten por mí en noviembre de 2026. Mientras tanto, espero que se suscriban a mi boletín informativo: https://ashleybeanthornton.com/stay-in-the-loop/. ¡Gracias! ¡Construyamos el Texas en el que queremos vivir!
Por Ashley Bean Thornton
Constitution Day
Thanks to my friend Bettie Beard for reminding me that this week – Thursday, September 17 – was Constitution Day – the day the Constitution of the United States was signed in 1787. A good day to think about how to go about governing…
By that time in our history people had tried a bunch of different kinds of government – Kings, theocracies… none of that had worked out especially well for the people being governed.
And so, by the time 1787 rolled around the guys gathered in Philadelphia – reflecting on all they knew about the history of government and considering how they wanted to be governed – or probably more to the point, how they DIDN’T want to be governed – set about trying to come up with an agreement as to how a free people could go about governing themselves.
It turns out that is tricky to do, and they didn’t do it perfectly by any means – but holy cow – for a bunch of boys locked in a room together in Philadelphia a couple a hundred years ago — I think they took a pretty good swing at it.
They put some pretty good bones in place, and crucially, they set it up so that we could make changes and clarifications, when necessary, by talking to each other and voting instead of having to resort to violence.
There’s a story that I’m sure most of us have heard that as Ben Franklin was leaving the constitutional convention after having signed the first version of the constitution – a woman in the crowd asked – What do we have a republic or a monarchy? Dr. Franklin is said to have replied – A Republic, if you can keep it…
And that is what we have been doing ever since – trying to figure out how to keep it.
We Work Best When We work together
I am running for the Texas House of Representatives – My campaign is based on three things. I believe Strong Public Schools make us all stronger. I believe the Texas economy should work for all of us, and I believe we work best when we work together.
This week, as I have been thinking about constitution day, I have been especially focused on the “we work best when we work together part” – Because working together is not the easiest thing to do. And I am worried that we are not doing it very well right now.
I fear that our current elected leadership in Texas — instead of looking for ways to work together – is focused on winning at all cost and making sure their “side” stays in power no matter what.
I feel like they are trying to make us into a monoculture.
Monoculture is dangerous
Do you remember learning in school about the Great Irish Potato Famine? It happened in Ireland in the mid-1800s.
A potato blight destroyed almost all of the Irish potato crop for several years. About a million people died.
One of the causes of this terrible disaster was monoculture – all the exact same kind of potato.
Monocultures were popular in agriculture because it’s easier to manage. It’s more efficient to grow a whole lot of the same crop.
The problem is a monoculture is dangerous because crops with no diversity are far more susceptible to disease.
I think that is such a great analogy for politics. A monoculture is dangerous because it is far more susceptible to disease.
A monoculture in politics is a tempting goal for any party because of course we all believe our side is obviously right, and everybody should think like us and if they don’t it must be because they are bad people!
Democrats are not immune from the monoculture temptation. Any group can drift toward ideological “purity,” exclusion, and treating disagreement as disloyalty – especially if we isolate ourselves in our own partisan echo chambers.
I have certainly been criticized by people in my own party and friend-group for not being quite “angry” enough at what someone else said or not “pure” enough in something I said or for being friends from people who don’t toe the party line. Lord knows none of us are perfect.
But Democrats are not in charge in Texas right now – The immediate challenge in Texas right now is that one particular branch of the Republican Party is in charge, and I believe they are leading us in the wrong direction when it comes to a healthy, diverse democracy. I believe they are trying to mold us into a monoculture.
Examples of moving toward monoculture
Here are some examples… In 2020 – the covid election — a group of republicans filed a lawsuit to throw out 127,000 drive-thru votes from Harris County.
To me, that lawsuit is an example of the shift in the Republican Party of Texas toward a monoculture approach – and I’m not the only one who thinks that.
Joe Straus – a well-respected Republican who had been speaker of the house – opposed the suit. He said, “The Republican Party needs to return to a place where we win with ideas and persuasion rather than trying to intimidate and silence our fellow citizens.”
Straus, had been speaker from 2009 to 2019 – unfortunately his style of leadership had already fallen out of favor by 2020. The emerging Republican leadership – which is still in charge today — did not heed his advice to return to, “a place where we win with ideas and persuasion.”
Instead, it seems to me they adopted “intimidating and silencing” as acceptable methods in service to building their monoculture.
I think we saw several disturbing examples this last session…
It actually started during election season when Greg Abbott backed by super rich out of state donors ran arguably deceptive primary campaigns against members of his own party who “defied” him on the school voucher issues.
Then as the session was getting started and they were putting the rules of operation in place the republican leadership broke with decades of legislative practice and decided to ban committee chairs from the minority party – regardless of relevant expertise and experience.
Throughout the session they basically declared war on diversity, equity and inclusion by filing and passing a raft of bills aimed at eliminating any kind of guardrails and support for minorities of any kind.
And then of course the big news maker – mid-decade redistricting to try to re-jigger the district map so that Republicans would be more likely to have a majority in the United States House of representatives.
Right now — the Republican Party is running an unapologetically racist candidate for Railroad Commissioner.
A man who – based on experience in the oil and gas industry — was less qualified than his primary opponent and is definitely less qualified than his current democratic opponent.
Even as some of his Republican colleagues have tried to distance themselves from the worst of his racist comments — they have declared that they are going to vote for him no matter what because he is the republican.
These are not examples of healthy democracy at work – these are examples of one subset of one party that has unfortunately gained the upper hand working to make sure their way is the only way. They are trying to make us into a monoculture.
We need to stop them.
Not to replace them with a monoculture of our own – but to establish leadership that respects and appreciates the wisdom of looking at challenging problems from a lot of different perspectives.
Monocultures are dangerous because they are more susceptible to disease. In the case of politics, that disease can be extremism or corruption, or blind spots, or prejudice, or just allowing bad ideas to take root and spread without being challenged.
Diversity of thought is not easier -- but it is worth it
La diversidad de pensamiento y perspectiva nos hace más saludables, más resilientes y mejores capaces de adaptarnos a las circunstancias cambiantes.
We have some serious challenges to wrestle with in the days ahead – AI offers huge potential and a huge threat, our environment is changing and not in ways that benefit us, wages are not keeping pace with costs. We need all of our wisdom to work on these real and complicated problems that affect all of us. We don’t need to be fighting each other – we need to figure out how to work together to fight these problems.
Lucky for us, we are a diverse people in every sense of the word – physically, historically, culturally, religiously, philosophically, temperamentally, economically – we have different skills, different tastes.
I believe that is what keeps us strong and healthy and creative. But it’s also a challenge.
Lady Bird Johnson once said – The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.
If we want the freedom — we have to figure out how to manage and work together through the clash of ideas. We’ve never been super good at it – but I think we used to be better at it than we are right now and we have got to get better at it going forward.
We have to figure out how to work together to tend the fences between our liberties so that we maintain as much freedom as possible for each of us while at the same time making sure freedom for some doesn’t trample the health, safety and freedoms of others.
To do that wisely and well we need a variety of perspectives at the table.
We need to practice listening and consideration.
We need to ask real questions out of curiosity and the desire to understand – not questions that are actually just attacks in sheep’s clothing.
We need to practice the golden rule — treating others as we would like to be treated. Not name calling and purposefully mis-characterizing each other’s every word and comment.
I think most Texans want the same basic things. Safe communities. Strong schools. Good jobs. A fair chance to build a good life. Our representative government is one of the tools we use to accomplish those things.
We won’t agree on everything. We shouldn’t.
Healthy societies aren’t built by everyone thinking the same way.
They are built by people willing to listen, challenge each other, and learn from each other and come up with solutions together that are stronger than either side could come up with alone.
A Republic – if we can keep it… Benjamin Franklin said.
It’s hard work to keep it.
My constitution day wish – my wish every day – is that we figure out a way to keep working on it together. That’s what I would like to work on if you see fit to elect me as your representative.