There have been only a handful of public figures in my life who made me look around and think: Thank God. I am not intellectually, culturally or politically alone after all. There are others out there.

Molly Ivins was one of them.

She understood something about Texas that can be difficult to explain if you both love the place and remain capable of seeing it clearly. Texas is generous and withholding, sophisticated and provincial, fiercely independent and strangely eager to be governed by mythology. It produces genuine characters and carefully manufactured ones—and then occasionally sends the manufactured variety to Washington.

Ivins loved Texas without surrendering her judgment to it. That mattered to me. She demonstrated that criticizing your home is not an act of disloyalty. Sometimes it is the most honest expression of belonging available to you.

She made independent thought feel less isolating.

Citizens / owners / supervisors

They have the keys. We still own the bus.

Ivins believed Americans had allowed the relationship between citizens and elected officials to become almost entirely backward. Public office is temporary employment, not nobility. Winning an election does not elevate someone above the public; it entrusts that person with borrowed authority.

Politicians are not sovereigns, celebrities, prophets or the heads of opposing royal families. They are temporary employees trusted to operate part of the government for a while. Respect the work, certainly. But remember where everyone sits on the organizational chart.

Democracy begins to fail when politicians forget their place. It is already in trouble when citizens forget theirs.

One state / several warning labels

Texas is a lesson. It is not a franchise model.

What appears to work in Texas is not necessarily transportable to the rest of the country. Our state possesses a peculiar combination of land, oil, ports, military installations, immigration, federal investment, private wealth, cultural mythology and sheer geographic audacity.

You cannot separate the celebrated “Texas model” from those advantages and sell the remainder as a universal governing philosophy. Swagger is not an export commodity, and surviving Austin is not divine certification to supervise the republic.

Ivins dearly loved Texas, which is precisely why she never felt obligated to lie about it. Affection and endorsement are different things.

Two Texas Democrats / no funeral expressions

Women who knew how to hold court.

Ann Richards was Molly’s friend and political sister—the woman inside the arena to Molly’s woman at the press table, although neither stayed politely confined to her assigned seat.

I got to spend a few minutes with Governor Richards myself when she came back to the Texas Capitol for Sine Die. I was working in the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms operation, and she was waiting in Carleton Turner’s office to enter the Senate floor. We visited there for a few minutes—not long, but long enough for her to become more than the white-haired Texas legend I had watched from a distance.

Ann has always reminded me of my great-grandmother Euna Mae Carden Perry—Granny to us, Holly to others. Ann allowed her hair to become that magnificent white Texas crown. Granny would sooner have announced troop movements than permit anyone to see a white root. She was equally protective of the classified location of her dentures.

They were not the same woman, of course. Ann governed Texas; Granny governed whatever room she happened to occupy. But I recognize a common type: women who understood that politics was relationships, memory, obligation, persuasion, gossip, loyalty, survival—and knowing exactly who needed to hear what before Sunday dinner.

Both women drank, although that part deserves honesty rather than nostalgia. Ann publicly entered treatment and built a life in recovery. Molly struggled with alcohol and sought help late in life. Granny’s story belongs to family memory and should be told only as I actually remember and understand it.

Ann went white. Granny maintained plausible deniability. Both knew how to hold court.

Governor Ann Richards laughing while campaigning in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1992 — Ann Richards campaigning for Governor Jim Hunt, Raleigh, 18 October 1992 · © Kenneth C. Zirkel · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source ↗

Molly & Ann

A short film about two trailblazing Texas women, made from footage recorded before their deaths.

Philadelphia / Democratic National Convention / 2016

Affection did not require intellectual surrender.

Molly’s relationship with Bill Clinton was not blind devotion. She could see his weaknesses perfectly well and describe them better than almost anyone. She called him “weaker than bus-station chili,” then explained that the unfairness of his opponents kept forcing her to defend him on principle.

That may be as close as Molly Ivins ever came to a love letter.

She recognized the intelligence, appetite, empathy, political instinct and enormous human mess of the man. Supporting a politician did not require pretending he was flawless, and criticizing him did not require joining those determined to destroy him. Molly occupied that increasingly abandoned territory where a person could hold two thoughts at once.

Bill Clinton walking through the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia — Bill Clinton at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia · Photograph by Clayton Hollingsworth

Clayton Hollingsworth with Bill Clinton at the 2016 Democratic National Convention — With President Bill Clinton at the 2016 Democratic National Convention · Clayton Hollingsworth collection

Clayton Hollingsworth beside a First Lady Bill street character in Philadelphia in 2016 — “First Lady Bill,” Philadelphia, 2016 · Clayton Hollingsworth collection

The last word, temporarily

She proved there were others out there.

Molly Ivins made it possible to be deeply Texan without becoming intellectually captive to Texas; progressive without becoming humorless; patriotic without becoming obedient; and furious without surrendering the ability to laugh.

She made me realize there were others out there—people who loved this place enough to tell the truth about it, and who loved democracy enough to remind its hired help who actually owned the bus.

Molly Ivinsand theHired Help.

They have the keys. We still own the bus.

Texas is a lesson. It is not a franchise model.

Women who knew how to hold court.

Molly & Ann

Affection did not require intellectual surrender.

She proved there were others out there.

The story keeps company.

Weekend Visitation, Texas Edition.

I went to France to escape Texas. Texas packed a bag.

Make Your Art

Molly Ivins
and the
Hired Help.