Yes, that is a point Monk either missed or decided to ignore.
Texas democrats back in the day were conservative. I watched my own family as they left the democrat party. They were always conservative. But when Texas democrats started to get as bad as the rest of the democrats, we all started voting Republican.
I won’t say the last democrat I voted for as it might date me a little too much.
Something got lost there in his research, in the application of it to the real world.
From what he wrote, I think he would argue that how they voted for President and how much money they got in Ag subsidies would brand them as dependent on Washington, therefore, not conservative.
They voted for Democrats for President up to a point, then even they got fed up. It just took them longer to give up on that political party, because it was so deeply ingrained in them to vote that way.
As for Ag subsidies or other federal aid, Charlie Stenholm, and whoever held that seat before him, saw to it that federal money poured into that district.
That was the system for many, many years. The little people like the Perrys, tenant cotton farmers who were basically nobodys, did not initiate that system nor could they have done anything about it.
Eventually people like the Perry’s left the Democrats because the Democrats went so far astray away from American Values, most Texans simply couldn’t stomach it.