Absolutely right - and Texas IS considered the south west - whether the writer, seemingly having to really stretch it to slam the Pres, likes it or not.
I have lot's of family in Texas - they do not consider themselves part of "the South", nor do many others - I'm a Mainer, and have lived all over the country - never heard Texas referred to as anything other than 'south western' - geeze.
As a writer, I'd call this lazy writing...get a real point.
Being a Texan myself, I tend to agree with you and Dog Gone.
Heck, they even played Dixie at the U of T, and I know the Aggies played it. But that was some years ago.
I am a native Texan and Texas IS a part of the “South”.
Lt. Gen. Longstreet's First Corps was anchored by John Bell Hood's division and his Texas Brigade.
It's quite true that the western half of Texas remained Indian country during the Recent Unpleasantness. The part of it inhabited by English-speaking white people was, I assure you, very Southern and very Confederate. They voted by plebiscite for secession by a huge majority.
Even during the Civil War period, many Texans had been born in other States -- Southern States, by and large. Texas historians have identified Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee as among the major contributors of early settlers to Texas. By 1860, direct settlement from Europe was becoming a factor, as when German Catholics settling around Fredericksburg and Georgetown built their churches' stonework with a hod or a trowel in one hand, and a Sharps in the other, even as the circling Kiowas, Apaches, and Comanches took potshots at them.