In the dense, damp forests northeast of Houston, a pair of brothers hit on a viable real estate business model: Offer plots of cheap land and unconventional loans for people who wanted to build their own houses, with few restrictions.

The concept took off, not least among the large population of immigrants lacking permanent legal status in Texas, who often do not have the legal paperwork needed for most bank loans.

The Colony Ridge community, whose first residents moved in a decade ago, is now home to 40,000 people or more, with plans to more than double in size.

Over the years, its swift growth and predominantly Hispanic population drew opposition from the mostly white residents of a small nearby town and some local officials, who lodged complaints and filed lawsuits. Opponents spray-painted “Build that wall” on one of the developer’s billboards after Donald Trump’s election. One sent a desiccated chicken foot — and a note describing a voodoo hex — as a warning to the county judge.

But with a new wave of migrants arriving at the southern border in recent weeks, the sprawling development has become a lightning rod for conservatives in the state and highlighted a growing tension within the Republican Party: those who focus on business freedom and others determined to control the border.

    • orclev@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Because Nixon and his Southern Strategy showed them that courting angry white racists in the wake of desegregation was a viable strategy to get a rabidly dedicated voting base. Unfortunately for the GOP as the decades passed and it became increasingly more fringe and increasingly less socially acceptable to hold those kinds of opinions in private let alone in public the economic conservatives that used to form a key part of the core of their party have increasingly been driven to the edges or even out of the party entirely. Making things worse for them Reagan came along pushing his trickle down economics policies that even at the time weren’t looked at very favorably by economists and have only been even more thoroughly debunked since, but which the GOP and their supporters latched onto as it’s a convenient excuse for constantly reducing taxes on the rich and removing corporate regulations.

      Now the GOP has painted themselves into a corner where their base consists almost exclusively of angry ignorant racists, and the so-closely-related-that-their-venn-diagram-is-practically-a-circle evangelical Christians, with a smattering of the ultra wealthy that like not having to pay taxes or deal with pesky things like environmental protection laws, labor laws, or consumer protection laws. While each of those groups is powerful in their own way, what they aren’t is growing, in fact quite the opposite. Which no matter how dedicated they are is a problem to the survival of the GOP, particular as those groups demand ever greater shows of support and loyalty to their causes that drive more and more people away from the GOP.