A Tour Through the Republic of Texas in 2032

Let’s take a drive through those rugged highways

Me and my two other Texas pals (Big Hat wasn’t able to complete the journey). Any resemblance I may seem to have to Brad Pitt is strictly your imagination. See bottom of article for image credits.

Leave it to Texas to give us an avoidable measles outbreak thanks to strong demand for the disease from anti-vaxxers.¹, ²

Makes me hope they get the secession they seem to yearn for. Luckily for the rest of us, the Texas Republican Party frequently talks about secession and even voted to demand a secession referendum in 2023.³

This article is about a road trip after they get their wish.

Along with me on this road trip are my three Texan friends: John “Big Hat” McCoy, Robert Francis O’Rourke (known to y’all here as

Beto O'Rourke

), and Dan “The Crane” Shaw. Dan used to be former Congress critter Dan Crenshaw, but he had to change his name to avoid death threats.⁴ Robert changed his name from Beto after he lost his tenth election in a row, the last one for an El Paso school board seat.

But I call him Beto here anyway.

Off we go!

Elon (formerly South Padre) Island

Me: Wow, I’ve never seen a beach with hundreds of huge aluminum tubes floating in the water. What the hell is that?

Big Hat: That, my friend, is the detritus of Texas progress.

Beto: Actually, it’s because Elon can fire as many tubes into the Texas sky as he wants and not worry about clean-up afterward. Since, you know, there’s no EPA.

Me: But why is the water black?

Big Hat: That’s the color of progress, my friend. Look out there on the horizon.

Me: Wow, that’s a lot of oil platforms.

Big Hat (smiling bigly): One hundred and seventy-two, to be exact.

Crane Shaw: And that’s just here off South Padre. You should see other Texas shorelines. Even the Russians and Saudis are building oil platforms out here.

Me (kicking a dead oil-soaked bird off my foot): Didn’t this used to be a beach?

Beto (misty-eyed and sniffling): Not so long ago, yes.⁵

Me (pointing): Wait. Is that platform on fire?

Crane Shaw: Must be a Russian one. Don’t worry, it’ll burn itself out in a couple of years.

Beto: Unless the oil in the water catches fire first.

Me: Wow, I can’t take any more of this. Let’s get the hell out of here.

Brownsville

Crane Shaw: Thanks for letting me stop at the courthouse to pick up some papers, guys.

Me: Why is there a huge Mexican flag flying from the top of the building?

Big Hat (shrugging): Well ain’t that a dog shittin’ pecans.

Me: Crane? Why is there a Mexican flag on the courthouse?

Beto: Well, Brownsville is a Mexican town now.

Crane Shaw: Naw, that flag is a deepfake.

Beto: You can’t have a deepfake reality thing. I mean, we’re actually looking at a real flag. Not a video. And that is a Mexican flag.

Crane Shaw: And I’m telling my social media followers: If you see a Mexican flag in this video, on that building, it’s a deepfake.

Beto: God help us.

San Antonio

Me (squinting): Does that sign say, “Camp Stanley”?

Beto: Yes. It used to be a U.S. Army base.

Me: What’s with the barbed wire?

Big Hat: Well, now it’s a re-education camp for them show dog homosexuals. And lemme tell ya, the only transitions you’ll find in Texas are when a man takes off a woman’s bra.

Me: I don’t even know what to say to that. And what are the Air Force bases being used for these days?

Crane Shaw: One is a skydiving place, and another is a hot air balloon facility. They seem to be in a weekly competition for who can land the most people safely.

Beto: I think you mean unsafely.

Me: Unsafely?

Big Hat: As in SPLAT!, buckaroo!

Beto: On the account that there is no FAA.

Big Hat: There ain't, and it ain’t missed. Bobby, here, he wouldn’t know sportsmanship if it buggered him up the ass with buckshot.

Me: Speaking of buckshot, I haven’t seen one person not carrying a gun.

Big Hat: Hey, at least there ain’t none of them AR-15s you libtard crybabies complain about.

Beto: That’s because nobody in Texas can afford one anymore.

Crane Shaw: What are you talkin’ about? I’ve got thirty-two of them.

Beto: Good to have friends in high places, Crane. Ever since every company with businesses in any of the 50 states packed up and moved out and made Ponce the new Austin, people are broke.

Crane Shaw: Taylor Sheridan ain’t broke. Hey! I’m really looking forward to that new streaming series.

Big Hat: Which series? He got another comin’ out?

Crane Shaw: You betcha big daddy. His hundredth one. It’s called “1969.” It puts a new spin on that messed-up Black Panther movement from them commie days.

Beto: That should fire up the ranchers. They need something to cheer about after not seeing a drop of water from the skies for the last three years.

Austin

Me: Why do all the skyscrapers look like they’re covered in trees and vines?

Big Hat: Urban art, my friend.

Beto: More like volunteer plants run amok. Remember what I said about every company with any business in the 50 states packing up and moving out and making Ponce the new Austin?

Crane Shaw: Ponce de Leon? How does a dude become the new Austin? Oh, you mean the new Stephen Austin.

Big Hat: You mean the six million-dollar man?

Beto: No, no. Ponce, Puerto Rico. It’s been booming since replacing Texas on the U.S. flag.

Big Hat: All dem libtard companies got all constipated because of the new laws banning contraception. Buncha babies.

Beto: We should get another rental. This car isn’t going to survive many more potholes.

Big Hat: She startin’ to bounce more than a bull on hot coals.

Me: I haven’t seen a newly paved road since I got here.

Beto: Receiving no federal transportation money will do that.

Big Hat: We got us Texas transportation money. Don’t need nothin’ else. Have you seen that big ole’ road leading to President Abbott’s mansion? She’s a beaut.

Beto: Too bad his view of Lake Tavis is gone now that the lake is dried up.

Big Hat: Let’s skedaddle now and git that rental.

Crane Shaw: Okay, but let’s visit the state capitol building first. I’ve heard they’ve gussied the place up.

Later…

Me: Oh em gee what is that on the state capitol building steps?

Big Hat: Rightly looks like a head to me.

Beto: I think the drug lords call it urban art.

Crane Shaw: Cowboy hat still on it.

Me: Wait. Are you guys telling me that there’s a severed head on the Capitol steps? With a cowboy hat perched on top of it?

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Beto: Yup. No DEA.

Crane Shaw: Leaving the hat on after the kill. That’s a new trademark of the Gulf Cartel, ain’t it Big Hat?

Big Hat: Yup, I reckon. It’s cuz them Mexicans from New Mexico been fillin’ the Rio Grande with mud and making the border wall sink. Instead of givin’ us the water from Elephant Butte that’s rightly ours.

Beto: Umm, the compact between states that forms the Rio Grande Project,⁶ you know, that little project that managed Rio Grande water? It ended when Texas seceded.

Big Hat: You mean succeeded, my friend. We don’t need no Mexican water. Have you ever drunk that sheet? Besides, who names a reservoir system after an elephant’s ass?

Me (pointing up): Hey, look at that!

Big Hat: Git your phones out, boys, looks like another Air Texas jet’s a-goin' down. Whoodogee! Look out below!

Crane Shaw: That’s headin’ straight for Bastrop. And here I thought they’d be dodging fire season this year.⁷

Big Hat: No big whoop. The last pine tree there burned up two years ago.

Houston

Me (coughing): Wasn’t the hurricane last year? Why are all the streets here still flooded?

Big Hat: Let’s ask that guy at the FEMA tent up yonder.

Beto: There is no FEMA in Texas, you idiot. That tent says, “Freda’s BBQ”.

Me: Go easy on Big Hat, Bobby. It’s hard to see in this light, if you want to call it that.

Beto: And by the way? Don’t buy street food in Texas. Not safe. Well, really, it’s not safe to buy any food in Texas.

Me: Why not?

Beto: No FDA.

Me: Oh, right.

Crane Shaw: I need to get out and stretch my legs. Here, take these waders and an oxygen mask if ya’ wanna tag along.

Beto: No hazmat suit?

Me (after getting out of the car and stretching): Smells like a pile of matchsticks out here.

Beto: Gotta love the sulfuric stench of Houston, eh, Big Hat?

Big Hat: Nothin’ comes for free, little buddy.

Me (coughing violently): This oxygen mask is doing a piss poor job. And why are there so many one-armed people in this city?

Beto: No OSHA.

Big Hat: One Texan can do more with one arm than ten factories stuffed full of ferners.

Me: Does he mean foreigners? Or people who make ferns? Crane? What the hell are you doing?

Crane Shaw (loading a magazine into his AR): Nighttime in Houston is dangerous.

Beto: It’s 3 pm. You’re confusing Houston’s new permanent cloud cover of soot with nighttime.

Dallas/Ft. Worth

Me: Wow, that’s the biggest factory I’ve ever seen. Is it a Tesla plant?

Big Hat: No, man, it’s a Soylent Green factory.⁸

Me: I somehow believe you.

Big Hat: Hell yeah. We got so many babies comin’ into the world here that we cain’t take care of ’em all. We’re sort of a conception-to-birth kinda Republic, ya’ know? After that? Every man for hisself.

Crane Shaw: I’m hungry. I could go for a big ole’ Dallas cowboy steak.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Big Hat: I think all the restaurants are closed, dude. Dallas ain’t had no electricity⁹ for the past year. And there’s that new virus the Yankees brought into the country.

Crane Shaw: You mean the one that gets spread by wearing masks? Bobby, you’re a smart guy. Can they bioengineer that shit? That’s genius, getting us all to wear masks and then making us sick from the masks.

Beto: Good God, Crane, where do you get your information from?

Crane Shaw: The Greene News Network, like every patriotic Texan.

Beto: You know Marjorie Taylor Greene’s not actually from Texas, right? She’s basically a failed carpetbagger. Good Lord, she even lost¹⁰ to you in her run for the Texas House.

Big Hat: She lives here now, don’t she? You know that ole’ sayin’ Bobby: I ain’t from Texas, but I got here as fast as I could!

Photo by Brian Wangenheim on Unsplash

Gaines County

Me (as car slows down): Why are we here? There’s nothing here at all.

Big Hat: We’re comin’ up now on Seminole, home of the famous Texas Ebola Outbreak. Them people were the champeens of weathering a storm the Texas way. Independent. Strong. And jab-free.

Beto: And dead. It’s a ghost town now.

Me: Why would a Texas ghost town be named after a famous indigenous nation in Florida?

Crane: Prolly some football thing.

Big Hat: We Texans celebrate the Trail of Tears any way we can.

Midland

Me: Thanks for driving, Bobby. The scenery is, uhh, interesting.

Beto: I love to drive, Brad — I mean, Charles. Damn, you’re a good-lookin’ fella for an old guy.

Big Hat: What are you two, a couple of sissies? And Charles here looks like he got fired out of the Pillsbury dough boy’s butt and then got that agin’ disease. Good lookin’ my ass.

Crane: Asian disease? Shit, git out of the car, sissy boy.

Me: What is that ahead of us? It looks like a weird carpet covering the ground.

Big Hat: I ain’t never seen a carpet with beaks.

Me: Oh my God, those are dead birds. Thousands of them.

Beto: Fracking has made quite a comeback here in the Permian Basin.

Crane Shaw: That’s not from fracking. It’s from that Yankee virus.

Beto: Damn, Crane, what Yankee virus? Can you just stop?

Crane Shaw: The one Biden brought here.

Beto: Biden’s dead.

Crane Shaw: Hillary, I mean. Hillary brought it in. And don’t tell me she’s dead. That woman will never die.

Big Hat: Wait. Biden’s dead? Who’s the president up there then?

Crane Shaw: They don’t do presidents no more, ‘member?

Big Hat: Ah, right. I always forget. The mad king. Dumb ass lost Maine to the Quebeckees.

Me: Well, Bobby, you ready for El Paso?

Beto: It’ll be a relief to be there after this disaster.

Big Hat: I won’t go to Mexico. Never! (shoots himself in the head)

Crane Shaw (reaching for Big Hat’s hat): I always liked that hat.

Notes

Most of this was written before the last election and appeared on the Medium platform. If I wanted to properly rework it, we could probably just tour the U.S. in 2032 with similar results, given our current situation.

Image credits:

Brad Pitt: © Glenn Francis, www.PacificProDigital.com, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Dan Crenshaw: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Beto O’Rourke: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Background photo licensed through Adobe Stock: Disaster Landscape by David Edwards

Photo mashup by author.

Footnotes

1. “Measles Outbreak – Feb. 25, 2025 | Texas DSHS.” 2025. Texas.gov. 2025. https://www.dshs.texas.gov/news-alerts/measles-outbreak-feb-25-2025. According to the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, “Due to the highly contagious nature of this disease, additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area and the surrounding communities.”

2. The vaccination exemption rate in Gaines County is among the highest in the state, with nearly 1 in 5 incoming kindergartners in the 2023–2024 class not having received the MMR vaccine:

Mole, Beth. 2025. “Nine Unvaccinated People Hospitalized as Texas Measles Outbreak Doubles.” Ars Technica. February 12, 2025. https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/measles-outbreak-doubles-in-one-of-texas-least-vaccinated-counties/

3. Cillizza, Chris. 2022. “The Texas Republican Party Convention Was Really, Um, Something.” CNN. June 20, 2022. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/20/politics/texas-republican-convention-platform-trump/index.html.

I have no idea what happened to that. It may have become bogged down in Bibleware.

4. Halaly, Alan. 2022. “Rep. Dan Crenshaw Accosted by Group of Proud Boys, Far-Right Activists.” The Daily Beast. June 18, 2022. https://www.thedailybeast.com/texas-rep-dan-crenshaw-accosted-by-group-of-proud-boys-far-right-activists/.

5. On a more serious note, it’s not like environmental pollution and climate change is a new problem. This ad aired in 1971.

6. Bureau of Reclamation. 2025. “Bureau of Reclamation.” Usbr.gov. 2025. https://www.usbr.gov/projects/index.php?id=397.

7. Fire season in Texas is no laughing matter, but Texas climate denialists seem to think it is.

DeGuzman, Colleen, Andy Sevilla, Natalia E Contreras, Sara Diggins, and Nicole Foy. 2022. “Rolling Pines Fire 70% Contained; Mapping Revisions Expand Burned Area to 813 Acres.” Austin American-Statesman. January 18, 2022. https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2022/01/18/bastrop-tx-fire-updates-evacuations-road-closures-bastrop-state-park/6570133001/.

8. Sokol, Tony. 2022. “Soylent Green Predicted 2022, Including Impossible Meat Substitutes.” Den of Geek. January 7, 2022. https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/soylent-green-predicted-2022-meat-substitutes/.

9. Cai, Mandi, Erin Douglas, and Mitchell Ferman. 2022. “How Texas’ Power Grid Failed in 2021 and Who’s Responsible for Fixing It.” The Texas Tribune. February 15, 2022. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/15/texas-power-grid-winter-storm-2021/.

10. Wallace, Jeremy. 2022. “Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene Have Another Twitter Dust Up.” Houston Chronicle. May 12, 2022. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Rep-Dan-Crenshaw-and-Rep-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-17166884.php.

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