A lot of the time they simply can’t adapt, not quickly enough at least.

Yes, that’s the key point. Individual species take a long time to adapt through evolution, and ecosystems can adapt at the cost of losing some species, but nothing can adapt at the speed and scale with which humanity is reshaping the Earth. A huge portion of the planet is no longer suitable for anything other than generalists, scavengers, and invasives.

Seems like you’d just lift up the mattress like they did for this picture.

There’s no such thing as a “Republican state,” nearly every state is split somewhere between 51/49 and 60/40. There are “Republican-run states,” but inside every Republican-run state is a “Democrat-run city” which has been a convenient narrative for Republicans of late. Houston’s mayor is a Democrat, and Harris county has more registered Democrats than Republicans; in 2024 metro Houston voted for Kamala over Trump.

Whether Abbot or Whitmire is more to blame for Houston’s violence is just a political distraction. Both bear some responsibility and I’m tired of both sides running finger-pointing narratives rather than trying to find constructive solutions.