Texas — rolling green hills awash with poppies and bluebonnets, lowing cows, and thousands of acres of farmland punctuated by four of America’s largest metroplexes — has never been more beautiful. In all my years here, the rain that has come in this spring has made an often drought-plagued place look more pastoral and verdant than ever before. Texas has been described as a distillation of America — her independence, ruggedness, cowboys, resources, and grit set the world’s imagination on fire.