Texas wasn't really set up for being so cold, so it caused deaths and considerable damage because the infrastructure was simply not good enough to handle it (despite being very new/modern in most cases).
It got politicized because it was so difficult for people there to handle it. When other places have power outages, the infrastructure and building designs make living through it much easier.
I’m pretty sure much more damage is done yearly by fires started by PG&E but no one seems to constantly bash California’s power company. The focus on ERCOT is most certainly because of politics at least on Reddit and WaPo etc where we see the most noise.
I’ve seen tons of PG&E bashing for the fires on this very forum, not to mention in the news media. Just because you haven’t witnessed it don’t assume it isn’t happening. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
It got politicized because it was so difficult for people there to handle it. When other places have power outages, the infrastructure and building designs make living through it much easier.