Keyword: Vladimir Putin

Second Reading Podcast: A Conversation with Robert Vitalis, author of OIlcraft

| By: Texas Politics Project

In a new Second Reading Podcast, Jim Henson talks with Robert Vitalis, author of Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy, bout the reemergence of misconceptions and myths about oil and geopolitics in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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Texas polling and Trump's influence on Republican attitudes toward the Russian invasion of Ukraine

| By: Jim Henson

A look back at Texas attitudes toward matters related to Russia during the Trump presidency suggests how Donald Trump’s strange relations with Vladimir Putin and Russia influenced a reshaping of partisan views of the U.S.’s Cold War enemy – and provides a glimpse into the uncertainty around Republican voters’ views of the U.S. response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

This data also provides an opportunity to note the continuity between Russian efforts to weaken civil society in the U.S. by amplifying domestic political hostilities, and Putin’s larger cultural and geopolitical ambitions – now on clear display in Ukraine. 

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Texas Data Points from the Week in Politics: “OMG, The New Yorker is Paying Attention to Us!” Edition

| By: Jim Henson and Joshua Blank

The Fourth of July came and went this week, and by Thursday the invocation of self-evident truths had given way to the U.S. Department of Justice deeming Senate Bill 5 a good enough fix to the deficiencies in Texas' voter ID law. The center right and leftward embraced Lawrence Wright's telling of the tale of the 85th Legislature in The New Yorker, which at 20,000 words or so had lots of space for close observations by a good writer, though the actual argument about Texas and the U.S. promised in the hed ("America's Future is Texas") seemingly remains to be made in the forthcoming book.

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