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The local economy of Eagle Pass, Texas was all set to rake in a huge financial windfall this weekend, when the town was expected to play host to tens of thousands of visitors eager to be the first in the US to see Monday's solar eclipse. Instead, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's ongoing border standoff with the federal government ended up scaring most tourists away.
According to the Daily Beast, Aide Castano — the municipality's marketing and tourism director — told a meeting of the local Rotary Club last year that the town of 28,000 residents could expect to see its population temporarily swell to more than 100,000 people on the first weekend of April for the eclipse boom. The city scheduled a music festival to take place dubbed the "57 South Music Festival" set to last three nights, featuring 17 bands on two separate stages.
"If you’re a music lover and a celestial enthusiast, then there’s no better time to start planning your trip to Eagle Pass, Texas!" An advertisement from the city read.
"Mark your calendar for the eclipse, get your grocery shopping done, we’re gonna have 100,000 people in Eagle Pass, we’re gonna have millions of dollars in sales for downtown Eagle Pass," local resident Amerika Garcia-Grewell recalled Castano saying. In an interview with Texas Monthly, Castano said planning for this eclipse weekend first began in 2002, telling the publication that one of her coworkers said "this is like our Super Bowl."
"One of the real estate agents is like, ‘Airbnb will make $10,000 in the eclipse weekend,'" Garcia-Grewell recalled in an interview with the Beast.
However, Eagle Pass' economy became a secondary concern for Gov. Abbott, who heavily militarized the town's border crossing at the Rio Grande River center stage as part of his $10.5 billion Operation Lone Star protest of federal immigration policy under the Biden administration. Earlier this year, Abbott ordered a length of razor wire to be built along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass to deter immigrants from crossing. The Supreme Court ordered Abbott to take it down, stating that international borders were under the jurisdiction of the federal government, not state governments.
After federal agents cut the razor wire, Abbott retaliated by building even more, and ordering national guardsmen to stand by at the border crossing in a show of force. Former President Donald Trump commended Abbott for his defiance of the Supreme Court, and posted a call to action to his Truth Social platform encouraging Republican governors to likewise deploy their national guard troops to the Southern border in Eagle Pass.
Meanwhile, the intimidating presence of troops and razor wire at the Rio Grande ended up scuttling the original plans for the 57 South Music Festival in Eagle Pass for the weekend of the solar eclipse. The Beast reported that the location for the festival was moved to the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino, which is a 20-minute drive by car. As a result of the change, tickets for the festival dropped significantly in price. And at a March 14 town hall meeting, the town lowered their expectations for eclipse visitors from more than 100,000 to approximately 50,000.
Garcia-Grewell, the Eagle Pass resident, recalled to the Beast that she was told the city spent roughly $3.5 million on the festival, yet sold only 2,500 tickets. She further elaborated that the city would have had to sell tickets at $1,400 apiece just to break even when accounting for the total cost.
The 57 South Music Festival kicked off Friday afternoon, though crowds were sparse. Local music producer Tony Rodriguez said that he counted just 30 people at 4 PM local time, and only 150 people by 6 o'clock.
"The worst flop ever," he said.
Garcia-Grewell maintained that despite the swarm of soldiers and razor wire barrier, Eagle Pass was safe. Border crossings went from 2,000 per day in December to just a few dozen months later. While some of that could be attributed to Operation Lone Star, Mexico's government also stepped up their efforts to stem migrant traffic into the US.
"The State of Texas is making it look like a war zone, even though we’re one of the safest places in Texas,” she said. “And the city of Eagle Pass was not able to counter that. They won’t say anything against the state of Texas because Eagle Pass is so dependent on state funding."
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
President Joe Biden
In the four weeks since his fiery State of the Union address, President Joe Biden's campaign has kicked into high gear—barnstorming eight battleground states, opening up more than 100 field offices, making a $30 million ad buy, and launching a Latino outreach strategy targeting the Southwestern swing states of Arizona and Nevada.
Some polls have begun to see movement in Biden's direction, including a recent Bloomberg battleground poll, the Marquette University polling released Thursday, and the NPR/PBS/Marist poll (compared to its January/February survey).
Since last fall, the standard line in national political reporting has been that Trump leads Biden in the polling. That construct doesn't hold true any longer. Eyeballing the last two weeks of polls released by nonpartisan outfits (excluding Trafalgar Group) on 538's aggregate, Biden won six of them, Trump won five, and one found them even.
Data analysts far smarter than me also see positive movement for Biden.
The 538 generic ballot continues to be better for Democrats relative to results earlier this year. At 44.6% to 44.4%, Democrats are now up by a whisper over Republicans, who consistently led in the generic this year until roughly a month ago when Democrats pulled even.
It's impossible to intuit exactly what goes into subtle shifts among the electorate, but Trump hasn't exactly been killing it on the campaign trail. His campaigning over the past month has mainly consisted of making courtroom appearances, golfing, some fundraising, and 'Truthing' his endless grievances.
The presumptive GOP candidate did manage to cause a stir this week in the battleground state of Michigan, where he lied about speaking with Ruby Garcia’s family. The Michigan woman was murdered by a man who was in the country illegally. Trump never spoke to her loved ones.
“He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us, and misinforming people on live TV,” Mavi Garcia, who has acted as a spokeswoman for her family, said in an interview with WOOD-TV8, the NBC affiliate for West Michigan.
Other local media outlets carried similar stories refuting Trump's false claim.
From a campaign standpoint, it wasn't exactly a home run, even though the virulently anti-immigrant aspect of the stop surely thrilled his MAGA faithful.
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
