TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with political communications expert Ray Sullivan to discuss what first caused Texas voters to reliably go to the right when they cast their ballots, what policies and issues people cared about in 2002 that they still care about now, and what challenges he sees to ensure that Texas remains a conservative beacon for America and the world.
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TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with acclaimed journalist Mark Hemingway to discuss the 2023 Texas Tribune Festival, which brought newsmakers and news reporters together in Austin.
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TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer, Greg Sindelar and Distinguished Senior Fellow for Next Generation Texas, Tom Lindsay to discuss the ongoing battles to stop radically divisive and discriminatory DEI policies in higher ed. These political ideologies are wriggling their way around the law and into culture and institutions — including Greg’s beloved Texas A&M — in the name of social justice.
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TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Do No Harm founder and author of “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns – Why Turning Doctors into Social Justice Warriors is destroying American Medicine” to discuss the fight to stop the radically divisive and discriminatory political ideologies that are eliminating, among other things, testing and training standards in medical institutions in the name of social justice.
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TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with famed historian J.P. Bryan of the Texas State Historical Association to discuss the importance of preserving our great state’s history, free from distortion and historically inaccurate bias.
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Here in Texas: We share everyday Texans’ stories to highlight injustices throughout the Lone Star State.
TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with Texas Public Policy Foundation colleagues Brian Phillips and Sam Pohl to discuss the dozens of news stories where the Texas media creates their own narrative while ignoring the views of the conservative majority of Texans, pushing out daily news reports portraying our state as a bunch of backward, dull-minded, racist, sexist, whatever-ists — while never explaining why hundreds of people move here every day.
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With inflation breaking records, gas prices pushing $10 per gallon and the border exploding with hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, President Joe Biden decided to issue an executive order to “enhance protections for transgender children and take steps to ban conversion therapy as efforts continue in Texas and other states to restrict gender-affirming medical care.”
“Gender affirming medical care” is a woke term that includes chemical castration and puberty blockers, as well as hormone injections from the opposite sex. It also includes actual castration and mastectomies that are not medically necessary. These irreversible and dangerous medical actions are more accurately described as “gender destroying.” They have nothing to do with care.
There’s no way to know what the president means by “conversion therapy” in this context, but it is clearly an effort to prohibit any restrictions by states like Texas against parents who want to experiment on their own children with dangerous “gender affirming” treatments.
Meanwhile, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently appeared on a show where men dress up as women and mimic their speech and mannerisms — “RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars.”
Despite the insulting characterization of women by drag queens, which is increasingly being compared to minstrel black face by discerning feminists, Pelosi told the men dressed up and behaving as the most degrading female stereotypes that she wanted to thank them “for the joy and beauty you bring to the world.”
She added, “Your freedom of expression of yourselves in drag is what America is all about. I say that all the time to my friends in drag.”
Texas public school librarians apparently agree with the speaker that drag queens are what America is all about, because thousands of them attended a session on drag queen story hours at their recent meeting in Fort Worth.
They must have forgotten what happened in the Houston Public Library in 2019 when one of the drag queens brought in to read stories to children turned out to be a registered sex offender.
Drag queen reading programs in public libraries and public schools are increasingly common. Advocates describe them as a fun and harmless way to introduce children to the transgender movement.
Of course, most of America is not looking for a fun way to introduce their children to the transgender movement — which brings us back to Biden’s sinking popularity.
Gloria Romero, a Democrat and former U.S. House member from California, believes wokeism is part of Biden’s problem, at least with Hispanic voters.
After Biden’s approval dropped to 24% among Hispanics and Republican Mayra Flores’s historic South Texas victory, Romero said:
“We’re [Hispanics are] looking at the economy, we’re looking at approaches to immigration. We’re looking at language, my God. Here in California, among the Latino community, we not only celebrate Mother’s Day, we celebrate two Mother’s Days and the birthing people lingo doesn’t cut it for us.”
“Birthing people” is another woke term used to push the absurd notion that both men and women can deliver babies.
Setting aside the many ethical and public policy questions raised by Biden’s transgender executive order, let’s just look at the politics.
There’s no doubt about the fact that Biden has lost support across the board in every age, race and demographic category because of his destructive economic and border policies, but his approval rating is also at 39% because of what Romero said — the country is tired of having Democrat leaders like Biden and Nancy Pelosi push destructive and fringe behavior into the narrative as if it were normal.
Dealing with those who are suffering from gender dysphoria is not a gay rights issue — which most Americans support. Instead, Americans continue to view transgender issues as a medical and mental health challenge where it appears that drug treatments are not effective and can be damaging. We are seeing more and more stories of transgender adults who regret having had surgery in childhood.
Even if Biden manages to rein in inflation, lower gas prices and address the avalanche at the border, his base, particularly in the Hispanic community, will keep slipping away if he continues to be a megaphone for woke issues like “gender affirming treatment” for gender dysphoria victims. Most people are way ahead of him on this, and they just don’t buy it.
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She is a political communications and public policy expert who has directed multi-million dollar statewide campaigns in New York and New Jersey and has been involved in dozens of Texas political campaigns.
When William Travis wrote his famous “Victory or Death” letter from the Alamo he sent it to “The People of Texas.”
Today, the Alamo stands as a symbol of the bravery and courage of Travis, Crockett, Bowie, Seguin, and all heroes who founded Texas and their commitment to freedom and liberty to live their dreams and build an even greater Texas.
Tune in to the People of Texas podcast, where host Sherry Sylvester will talk to Texans about stories, the battles they’ve had to face in their own lives, and their views on the future of Texas.
As a former chancellor for Texas Tech, Kent Hance has been making history in Texas his entire life — serving in the State Legislature and representing Texas in Congress — first as a Democrat and then as a Republican, he has stood up to Keep Texas Texan and make the Lone Star State even greater.
In this episode of The People of Texas podcast, Sherry and Chancellor Hance discuss what makes Texas unique, the battle around critical race theory in schools, and political changes in the state over the course of his time as chancellor.
TPPF Distinguished Senior Fellow, Sherry Sylvester, has spent decades working at the nexus of public policy and politics. She began as a decidedly left-leaning Democrat on the East Coast but years of working closely with the left-wing pushed her to the right. After two decades in Texas, she is committed to Keeping Texas Texan — a beacon of freedom and liberty, a center of innovation, and a major force in the global economy. Coming off a 17-year stint working around the Texas Capitol, including 7 years as Senior Advisor to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, 9th
& Congress presents her insights and updates on politics, policy, the news and history.
