The Houston bureau chief for The New York Times (NYT), J. David Goodman, wrote a lengthy piece covering the Texas flash flood tragedy.
In it, he attempts to explain why communities from across the state were quick to help one another, instead of immediately blaming the government for the devastation. He referred to this as “Texan Stoicism.” That was his first mistake, but not his last.
“That image of Texans who would rather rush to help the victims than blame the government has been useful to elected officials from President Trump to Mr. Abbott to Kerr County commissioners and likely a comfort to some in the floodplain of the Texas Hill Country,” Goodman said.
To be charitable to Goodman, he does understand that “Texan Stoicism,” as he calls it, is the foundation of what helps our communities recover after these tragedies. However, we don’t tend to refer to it as stoicism here in Texas. Those kinds of words are better left in New York, where he’s from. Instead, we call it Texas grit.
“Faced with an unfathomable disaster like the July 4 flooding, Texans have found pride, and maybe some comfort in their identity as Texans, strong, silent, stoical and resilient,” Goodman wrote.
Texans helping Texans ❤️
HEB deployed volunteers to areas hit by the Texas floods over the weekend.
You can find them stationed at Round Mountain Baptist church in Leander.
The church is also delivering supplies to those who aren’t able to leave the neighborhood.@fox7austin pic.twitter.com/4fhZFXouTn— Jessica Rivera (@JessicaonFOX7) July 7, 2025
He did well to praise our communities and pride, but that’s where my mercy for Goodman ends. His attempt to conflate Texas grit with our hatred for left-wing policies earns him the right to be forever mocked and never taken seriously. You see, Goodman grew up in New York, and as my grandfather always said, someone who wasn’t born and raised in Texas could never understand what drives us, and that was blatantly obvious in Goodman’s piece. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
“[T]he state has also changed from a place that was dangerous because of its remoteness to a thriving hub of growing urban centers, with five of the 15 most populous cities in the nation,” Goodman wrote.
“The fact that many Texans still see themselves as needing to be self-reliant may be less an immutable fact of the land than an outgrowth of its politics, where leaders recoil from discussing climate change and push to have taxes as low as possible,” he continued.
We’re set up in Comfort, Texas — right next to the Volunteer Fire Department — serving hot meals to those affected by the recent floods in Kerrville and Ingram.
Our team is here all week providing breakfast, lunch, and dinner daily for first responders, volunteers, and flood… pic.twitter.com/5fl60wBDA1
— Rich O’Toole (@RichOToole) July 7, 2025
Yes, Goodman’s correct, we do have big, populated cities. But it’s clear that he doesn’t hold the same amount of disdain for these “thriving hubs” as most Texans do. We see them as cities overrun with out-of-staters, like him, who have no idea about our way of life and continue to affirm outsiders’ views on what it means to be a Texan.
The land grabs hold of you from the moment you are born, unlike any other state can do. Its history is coursing through your veins with every hot summer, tornado warning, and hurricane season that you make it through. There’s a connection to the generations that survived the same harsh conditions to raise cowboys, oilmen, and farmers. It may seem trivial to some, but that means something to us.
He can’t understand why Texans aren’t begging for more regulation after the floods. It’s because we’ve seen what that did to arguably one of America’s most beautiful states, California, and we want no part of that.
I just saw a group of first responders praying around a giant cross in Kerr County, Texas.
This is not far from where a 9-month-old who didn’t make it was found in the debris a little while ago.
These men and woman searching are beyond strong. pic.twitter.com/C3eC3LZdm8— Brian Entin (@BrianEntin) July 9, 2025
Tragedy affects everyone at some point in their life because suffering is the cross that all living beings bear. Texans understand that the government, which is made up of megalomaniacs, is never going to care about your local communities the way your neighbors will. The government is the most inefficient and incompetent form of business. We’d rather they have the least amount of authority over us as possible. (ROOKE: Texas Flash Flood Brings Important Issue Into Perspective)
That’s not to say Texans are unwilling to hold elected officials accountable for their wrongdoing. However, we are certainly never going to beg the bureaucracy to take more power than it already has.
The NYT hired a born-and-raised New Yorker to cover Texas. The result yielded over 1,000 words, in which he unintentionally stated he was not up for the task.
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