Because Texas is a big and consequential state, often with outsized influence over national political and economic and cultural developments, we have become a kind of petri dish of dumbassery, a place to see what ignorance will grow beyond the lost souls of Abbott and Paxton and Trump’s party.

Two very close friends of mine are on a northbound plane. They have joined a growing number of Texans who are sick of the endless partisan politics and repressive legislation coming out of Austin, and were, ultimately, driven to leave the home they have always loved.

The notion that the trial would approach a level of judicial legitimacy ended when Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the senate’s presiding officer, accepted $3 million from a pro-Paxton group, the Defend Texas Liberty PAC. The organization’s goal? Pushing Texas policies to the right edge of the flat earth.