Texas’s Uniparty Distraction Machine: Culture Wars While Kids Suffer and the Grid Buckles

In Texas, the old “left versus right” script is dead. What we have instead is a uniparty, Republican establishment figures and their nominal Democratic opposition locked in an endless, self-serving loop of manufactured outrage. They bicker over shiny cultural grenades that they themselves lobbed into the public square, all while the real crises they helped create fester in the shadows. The result? Lawmakers pat themselves on the back for “winning” debates on boys in girls’ sports, plastering the Ten Commandments in every classroom, and even micromanaging whether Plato gets taught in college philosophy courses, while thousands of Texas children are molested in public schools and our electric grid and water supplies groan under the weight of unchecked data-center sprawl.

Let’s start with the human cost that barely registers in Austin. Over the last three years, there were 6,888 documented reports of sexual and violent misconduct by public-school employees against Texas students. Over 61% of those cases sat unresolved due to “budgetary constraints” even though the state sits at a surplus while Abbott awards billions in concessions to technocrats for building their data centers here. Lawmakers have passed some accountability bills—shortening reporting windows and chipping away at school-district immunity—but the scale of the problem dwarfs the response. This isn’t abstract policy; it’s kids being preyed upon in the very buildings we entrust with their safety. Yet these stories rarely break through the national noise. Social-media platforms routinely throttle or bury coverage of educator abuse scandals in Texas public schools, starving the public of the outrage necessary to force real reform. Without sustained pressure, the uniparty can keep kicking the can down the road, citing “budgetary constraints” while the predators keep their jobs and our children keep paying the price.

Meanwhile, the same politicians who can’t seem to fund thorough investigations into child abuse are cheerleading the data-center gold rush that is quietly reshaping Texas’s future. The numbers are staggering. ERCOT’s own forecasts show data centers driving explosive load growth—potentially hundreds of gigawatts in the coming decade, with speculative projects in the queue that could quadruple total system demand by the early 2030s. That power doesn’t materialize out of thin air. It comes from new gas plants, strained transmission lines, and, ultimately, your electric bill. Ratepayers—families and small businesses—foot the bill through higher prices while hyperscale operators negotiate sweetheart deals. And water? Existing data centers already suck down tens of billions of gallons a year for cooling and power generation. Projections show that figure could surge toward 160 billion gallons annually by 2030 under aggressive growth scenarios. The state water plan just ballooned to a $174 billion price tag over fifty years; data-center thirst is a big reason why. Yet instead of demanding transparency on these deals or tying approvals to real infrastructure upgrades, Austin’s uniparty class cheers the jobs and tax revenue while the rest of us brace for brownouts and drought.

This is the uniparty playbook in action. Create a culture-war wedge—trans athletes, scripture on the wall, ancient Greeks in the syllabus—watch the base cheer and the opposition seethe, then declare victory while the hard, expensive work of governance gets punted. The Ten Commandments debate generates cable-news clips; Plato’s temporary syllabus exile at Texas A&M becomes a free-speech skirmish. Boys-in-girls’-sports bills let everyone posture as protectors of fairness. None of it touches the 6,888+ kids whose abuse reports gather dust. None of it reins in the data-center boom that will reshape our energy and water future for decades.

Texans deserve better than this cycle of dysfunction. We deserve lawmakers who treat child sexual abuse in schools as the emergency it is—fully funded investigations, zero-tolerance enforcement, and public transparency that social media can’t suppress. We deserve an honest reckoning with the infrastructure bill coming due for the AI boom: no more blank checks for hyperscalers while families pay the freight in higher rates and scarcer water.

The uniparty thrives when we stay distracted. The real Texas issues—protecting our children and securing the resources that keep the lights on—won’t solve themselves while politicians play culture-war theater. It’s time to demand they drop the script and do the job we actually elected them for.