In Texas Monthly Eric Johnson Avoids the Questions Local Media Have Been Asking

It's a well-known fact that Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson doesn't often talk to the local media. He rarely even deigns to speak to state media, which is why an interview recently published by Texas Monthly caught our attention. (Midway through the very first paragraph, by the way, he confirms that he prefers to speak solely to national outlets.)

Since Johnson announced his switch to the Republican Party last year, the Observer has asked everything from the serious  — such as whether he planned to attend the NRA convention  — to the silly  — does he own a Make America Great Again hat  — all to no response. Not even a “I’m not commenting on that” or a “I’ve received your email” or a “This account is no longer receiving messages from emails ending with @dallasobserver.com” response.

So maybe it was silly of us to think that the rare, 4,000-word Johnson tell-all would actually tell us, well, anything. 

In the piece, the mayor reverts to his regular talking points about public safety and how Dallas should have two football teams, specifically the Kansas City Chiefs, because Johnson is close friends with Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt. They “talk pretty regularly.” But the meat of the story comes when Texas Monthly reporter Alexandra Samuels finally digs in on Johnson’s party change, which he said was inspired by Democrats’ dramatic, party-wide shift to the left, which became inexcusable to him during the “defund-the-police, post-George Floyd era.”

“I learned that the real heart of the Democratic Party is with the criminals and that it feels more sympathy toward the offenders,” Johnson said.

He added that, after “withstanding protesters at his house,” he wouldn’t be able to “look his own kids in the eye” if he sided with the defund-the-police movement. (For what it’s worth, Johnson called the Black Lives Matter protesters outside his White Rock Lake-area home “part of the job” back in 2020.)

Johnson makes the argument that other pro-cop mayors who remain in the Democratic party are phonies, with Democratic values standing diametrically opposed to public safety. Samuels presents New York City Mayor Eric Adams, whose police department’s budget tops $11 billion annually, as a pro-cop Democrat, but Johnson counters that Adams' position is platform bait to draw in voters.

“You have to pay attention to what these lawmakers and Democratic mayors actually do while in office,” Johnson said, evidently unaware of the 400-pound Robo-Cop Adams unleashed on the New York City subway last year.

The interview makes it clear that Johnson feels there is a target on his back. But that target isn’t because of Johnson’s record of absences at City Hall or for the part he has played in the fractured relationship between himself and former City Manager T.C. Broadnax, resulting in Broadnax’s resignation. The target on Johnson’s back, in his mind, is from white liberals who don’t want to see a poor Black kid from West Dallas succeed.

“Being the mayor of Dallas, in some people’s minds, was me taking something that I wasn’t entitled to. I started getting all kinds of hate, and it was coming, disproportionately, from people on the left,” Johnson said. “I do believe that some folks, primarily white liberals, have a problem with a strong-willed, competent, self-assured, highly educated Black man leading their city. Period. I said it. You got me to say it.”

When pressed on who, exactly, those white liberal haters are, Johnson said it’s “hard for him to say.” He did add that the haters don’t seem to have a problem with his job performance, seeing as he was “reelected by an overwhelming margin in 2023.” (This is another factoid the mayor loves to throw around, despite D Magazine's report that the abysmal voter turnout in 2023’s election means only around 7% of voters actually ticked Johnson’s name.)

Johnson said the self-reflection on his party affiliation has been a long time coming.

“Not a day went by in my adult life when I didn’t ask myself, ‘Am I in the right political party?’ I’ve probably been asking myself that question since I was eighteen,” he said.

That sounds exhausting. And we still don’t really understand what, exactly, the change means for Johnson or for our city. He said he’s “always been okay” with conservatives for their values, such as “doing things the right way” and focusing on family. Notably, Johnson is going through a divorce in which his wife alleges he had an affair with a city staffer but, hey, who are we to judge?

We aren’t above making jabs at Johnson, but the jabs tend to get easier after our legitimate inquiries have been met with silence. When asked about his declaration that he voted for Donald Trump in the primaries, Johnson said the media attention his statement got was “another spin job.” But we can only write what we are given, and for months now, the mayor has given us, and nearly every other Dallas outlet, absolutely nothing.

The fact that Trump, the leader of Johnson's new law-and-order party, is a convicted felon, didn't seem to warrant a mention in the piece.

Maybe some of the blows are low, but it shouldn’t be a political attack to ask Johnson about his stances on the Republican platform, especially when he said he hasn’t read it. He literally said in the interview, “I’m not a ‘sit here and pore over the platform’ type of guy.” He doesn’t think he needs to, because he says things have been going so well for him so far.

The interview ends with what Johnson seems to think is a huge mic-drop moment for the entire nation.

“Here’s the big surprise, America,” he said. “Dallas has been succeeding during the five years I’ve been mayor because I’ve always run the city like a Republican mayor would run the city.”

Maybe, if we promise to wear a red MAGA hat, this Republican mayor will answer some of our questions.