A 'Locally hated/Dyslexic Hairstylist' battles the Christian right in a Texas town

[Zorro]

GRANBURY, Texas — One might wonder how Adrienne Quinn Martin, a hairdresser, former belly dancer, mother of two and long-ago brand girl for a liquor distributor, a woman who celebrated her husband’s birthday on TikTok by swaying against him while listening to Al Green, became the lone-elected Democrat in one of the reddest towns in Texas.

“Oh,” Martin says, “I’ve had lives.”

Fluent in social media, she is an array of personas: a hard to quantify free-spirit, who in one instant can offer fashion tips (“I’m having a Britney moment”) and, in another, analyze voter registration data. She is a fierce political operative, a guileless influencer and a relentless voice against the far right in this Christian, white, cattle-talking town of about 12,600.

“Wait,” she said, when asked to call up a Twitter post about a constable who once had ties to the militant Proud Boys. “I have that.”

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-10-13/shes-a-locally-hated-dyslexic-hairstylist-using-her-relentless-voice-against-the-christian-right

[lees1975]

1. Granbury is an interesting place.

It's a cow town but it's also a tourist town, because there's an influx of people there who own property around the lake who aren't there all the time. Economically, it's better off, along with the neighboring town of Glen Rose, because of that, and a nuclear plant that's nearby, which brought jobs and a huge tax base that helps the local school districts in both communities.

These are people who vote against their interests because they think the best way to use their votes is for politicians who are more in favor of banning books than in regulating utilities, keeping an eye on things that run rampant in Texas, like the cost of utilities, which is higher than any other state, especially electricity, and especially downgrading its public education system by starving rural school districts, underpaying teachers so the good ones go out of state, leaving Texas ranking in the mid-40's in educational progress.

I lived in the next county, Johnson, while I was in graduate school and my wife taught in the public schools. Her classroom, on the third floor, had chicken wire strung between the walls so plaster chunks falling out of the ceiling wouldn't hit kids in the head, in a building built in 1917. Johnson county was mostly rural, agricultural except along its northern edge, which were suburbs of the DFW area. The biggest cash crop was pot, and a drive through the countryside with the windows down brought in the smells of local dairies, and the occasional whiff of meth lab. Half the kids in school qualified for free breakfast and free lunch. The last year we lived there, the state condemned two of the schools, forcing a bond issue for new construction which the Republican voters turned down. But they did vote to renovate the football stadium.