The calls for Texas to defend itself and defy the federal government have set fire to a long-simmering fight over states’ rights, emboldening right-wing figures.
Daniel Miller felt encouraged last week, as fears of a new civil war trended online and a coalition of powerful Republicans coalesced behind Gov. Greg Abbott’s standoff with the Biden administration.
As the longtime leader of Texas’ unlikely secessionist movement, Miller has for decades argued that the state is in a stranglehold by the federal government that, eventually, would prompt enough popular support for a vote to leave the union. The past week only reinforced that belief.
"It validates and confirms the position we’ve had all along, which is that if Texas ever wants to truly secure its border … the only way we’re going to do it is as an independent and self-governing nation,” Miller said in an interview.
At issue is the 47-acre Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, where Texas has for months been laying concertina wire along the Rio Grande to prevent migrants from crossing. In a 5-4 decision early last week, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Biden administration, allowing U.S. Border Patrol agents to cut the wire to apprehend people who had crossed the river.
The narrowly written decision — which didn’t speak to whether the state had to stop laying new concertina wire — has emboldened Abbott, who vowed to continue his fight against the high court and federal government, citing Texas’ right to defend itself from what he claims is an “invasion” of migrants.
By week’s end — and as the Texas National Guard and state troopers continued to roll out wire and stifle federal agents’ access to much of the park — Abbott’s defiant calls were backed by 25 Republican governors, former President Donald Trump, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and nearly all of Texas’ congressional delegation.
How do you get social security when you are no longer part of the Union? I’m guessing they’re would be a large boarder crossing if Texas was up for grabs. Good luck👍
It’s gonna be fun. When the drug. Carrels realize there is now a whole country they can take over just north of Mexico.
The Moskovites are on an influence campaign again I guess.
DEATH TO THE STORMCLOAKS!
Balkanization of US? Please proceed. What could go wrong right?
Lol do it! 26/38 of their Representatives and both their Senators are Republicans.
Goodbye House majority, goodbye Senate filibuster, goodbye any chance of a Trump victory this year. Even just 1 year of them disappearing means Democrats could get a whole lot done before they start crawling back.
I’m a bit worried that the plan for the secessionists is to do something so spectacular (literally) as to try to cause there to be good reason to “pause to election”.
Just so then, they can prove Biden to be a dictator, and actually have an argument. Pausing an election would be truly unsettling.
So if there is a crisis about Electoral College stating of states close to November, that’s a powder-keg situation.
I’m honestly not claiming we need to avoid this kind of crisis. Just saying be careful what you wish for.
IMO it’s one of the stupider bluffs because no one expects Texas to actually do it and it would hurt them more than it would hurt the rest of the US.
In Canada, Alberta has this same notion that they got a raw deal in federalism and that secession is the answer. They are the Texans of the north: conservative, religious, oil-rich, strong capitalist rhetoric (though there is plenty of corporate welfare, of course). But Alberta is a fully landlocked province of a few million people with not much else besides oil. And, get this: they want to secede because they supposedly can’t get any new oil pipelines built to the ocean in Canada. Did I mention that they are landlocked? What a bunch of morons.
'+ oil isn’t exactly the commodity of the future
Fully close the border for couple years but also do not bail out any companies/farms that fail. And stop all fed funds and subsidies to those that hire “illegals” if they vote R? Something like that?!?
Fully close the border for couple years but also do not bail out any
companies/farmslarge corporations and banks that fail
texit. texit. texit.
there…i said it three times and they re still here.
Can we please just let them go this time?
I don’t think they’ve ever filed the paperwork - like they keep loudly saying how they so badly want to go, but then they never follow through, can you imagine that?
Wanna fight me bro, we can go outside RIGHT NOW.
Okay.
Oh uh… I have somewhere I need to be right now…
They tried to get secession on the GOP primary ballot this year, actually. A petition with like 100k signatures. The party officials rejected it, so the secessionists asked the state supreme court to intervene. The court declined.
All of three percent of their population. Give or take.
#III% delusion brigade has entered the chat
huh? okay. you got me to look it up. Texas has a population of 30.5 million (that’s where I go the 3 percent figure. 100k actually comes out to 3.2%.)
The petition had 139k votes. so it actually comes out to 4.5% It’s still… essentially…uh… nobody.
Your decimal place is off by one. It’s 0.45%.
Oh man I did that the other week only was talking about potentially a genocide. Not a good time to forget to carry the decimal.
erg. Math is hard. sorry for the typo.
Wow. So they still couldn’t get it up, but at least they tried. :-P
No, Texas is part of the US. Instead, we should execute any of these secessionists as the treasonous people that they are.
Let them go and the white nationalists forever lose electoral power in what remains of America. As a black man… I support this reduction in threats to my life and my family’s life.
Can we realistically move everybody who wishes to remain a US citizen? Who pays for their move?
What about all of the federal government employees, including military, who currently live and work in the state?
This kind of thing would probably take months just for physical moving of households and I wonder if we even have the throughput to get this accomplished before whatever arbitrary succession date.
No matter figuring out what happens to everybody paying into federal services such as social security and Medicare. The fed will laugh in the face of anybody trying to claim back 20 years of taxes because they aren’t using a system they paid into. 20 million or so taxpayers who decide to secede will have to just give up what they’ve invested.
All the 5 major cities of Texas, where most people live, are blue. Moving everyone would probably mean only the rural folk will remain.
Texas will not cede its land. Those cities will remain under the care of Texas. That means the people who don’t wish to remain Texans must move.
There’s no way that Texas will allow independent or US-aligned havens within its borders. Have you read what their legislators have said about sanctuary cities?
And that’s a problem because…?
As with all such situations, those who want to move are responsible for their own financing.
Whoever moves would pay for themselves.
The government would pull out and relocate offices.
Texas would no longer receive imports like foods and supplies.
This is fucking stupid. Fuck around and find out. It will end in Texas crawling back and apologizing.
Let’s say you have 100k federal and military employees in Texas. Are you suggesting that they just up and move on their own dime, when joint travel regulations and US code do not allow for this?
Again, the government would pull out and not pay for their move?
It largely is not the place for the federal government to micromanage trade outside of certain “national security” line items and some sanctions. It’s a lot harder to sell sanctions on your former neighbors to the international community, let alone your own legislators.
I get the zeal, but a clean secession sucks for everybody and in no way does anybody come out on top. This is without accounting for any violence or armed conflict over disputed items like military bases, national guard posts, defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed, and energy production facilities.
Yes
No, government people usually get paid for relocation AFAIK.
You are correct.
You are correct.
Fair questions and all irrelevant. Emigration/immigration happens every day. We already know how to handle all of this. We also have historical examples in the creation of European, African, and Asian states during the 20th century. Just within the last few decades, we have the collapse of the USSR, the creation of South Sudan, and Brexit. It can be done.
What about the 45% of the state that doesn’t support the Republicans?
They’ll have the misfortune of being the minority in a majority-rule country if they want to stay. Or, if they’ve been paying attention, they can gerrymander themselves into power and change things to suit themselves.
Nope, they have to fight their way out.
Wouldve been easier if the feds just did their jobs and secured the border. 6 million in 3 years is ridiculous.
You say this as if the Republicans haven’t been obstructing any kind of deal while constantly screaming about the problem, it’s a wedge issue that gives them power over brown folks and something to complain about the Democrats to their base about.
We’d all love for the feds to do something about it, but those performative politics dickheads need to get out of the way for it to happen.
How about all those businesses who hire illegal immigrants have their owners/executives go to jail? See how many farms, construction companies, restaurants, etc. go under. I would guess that many of these owners are registered R as well.
They should get fucked over too.
The US doesn’t run without immigrant labor. See the states who get up in arms about punishing immigrants ending up without labor to pick their crops and build their houses. Also, it’s not incredibly clear why I should be upset about less than 1% of the population per year, many of whom are seasonal workers who are in that six million multiple times because they come, go, and come again.
So you’re okay with fucking over American workers so long as you get cheap food? Still all about that underclass of field laborers, over 160 years later.
If migrants working fields screwed over American workers, that implies the existence of Americans willing to do that work. In the absence of migrants it doesn’t get done by Americans, it just doesn’t get done. There aren’t Americans interested in doing that work.
Also, it’s pretty fucked up that you’re willing to equate people who were chained up and dragged here to be whipped in fields and watch their children be sold away, to people who want to be here doing this work badly enough to make the risky crossing that some assholes keep making riskier. Frankly, while I can’t speak to their characters in general aside from this one facet, on the matter of coming to America in search of a better life I’d say those people display more of the American spirit than the people trying to keep them out.
Not at those wages. That’s what “stole our jobs” means, they do jobs for less than what Americans will.
And why do you think slavery was so popular? It was cheap labor, just provide minimal food and shelter, and away you go. Same as illegals today.
They also won’t do them at higher wages, because when your crops are rotting in the fields you panic and offer at least minimum wage. Americans came, did it for a day, and were like nah that’s not my scene. Americans do not want those jobs. The migrants didn’t take anything away from Americans. “Stole our jobs” is rhetoric to get people who don’t understand the situation riled up. It’s a slogan, it’s not real. Nobody complaining about stolen jobs is clamoring to get out in those fields, not for migrant wages, not for minimum wage, not for any amount of money that is going to be offered.
Are you aware of the homestead act? If you offer enough compensation, you get farmers.
So what you’re saying is that we need to break up existing large farms and parcel them out to smaller individual farmers? Because I might be on board with that.
American citizens won’t do these jobs. They know where the jobs are… they could stand in line to do them but they don’t.
Correction: They won’t do those jobs at those wages
You won’t buy food that costs what Americans would be willing to work in the fields for.
We could try to cut out the massive food waste and the big cut that goes to corporate management.
We could have been doing that anyway all this time
I don’t know, I kinda like not going hungry.
Personally, I’m ok with the country not becoming insular and isolationist.
You can avoid that without fucking over American workers.
6 million in 3 years is ridiculous.
In the immortal words of Ron Burgundy, I don’t believe you.
In 2023 there was 2.05 million encounters with border patrol. Many more were uncaught. In 2022, 2.2 million. In 2021, 1.66 million. Together, thats 5.92 million illegals who were let go. That plus the uncaught ones easily makes 6 million in 3 years
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/29/us/illegal-border-crossings-data.html
LoL @ comments section;
Comment upvoted; Reply downvoted
Comment downvoted; Reply upvoted
Fears of succession?
Fuck 'em. Let 'em fuck around and find the fuck out. Can they take the rest of the alt-right nation with them?
Somebody check Abbott’s high school yearbook, see if he won the vote for “most likely to secede”.
Abbott graduated from Duncanville High School,[5] where he was on the track team,[6] in the National Honor Society and was voted “Most Likely to Succeed”.
from his wikipedia page. I did find this running a search though. Can we make fun of him??
Is that a pink shirt? Seems kinda… girlie?
Is that a nightgown he’s wearing? *
FTFU
His other shirt that day got covered in urine from being a little piss baby.
It’s a blouse thank you
Just let them go- Texas that is. They can build a wall around the entire state, and then stop being such a massive drain on federal funds every time it snows a bit or gets a little sweaty. They can take Florida with them.
I’m not giving the KKK an inch as well as condemning half the states population.
I say we provide free transport to anyone who wants to leave. There are plenty of unclaimed islands to drop them off.
Give em back to Mexico and make sure the “remain in Mexico” policy sticks. Mexico will know what to do.
Laugh when the idea is first mentioned to them, followed by, “wait, you’re serious?” Then more laughter?
