This report on America’s ongoing Third Civil War is being conducted through The Atlantic time capsule issue from December 2019 entitled: “How to Stop a Civil War.” The initial blog covered Editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s explanation for the issue and David Frum’s Dispatch from the electoral front-lines as he saw it back in 2019. The world has changed a lot since then.
Moving though the magazine, the next article is “The Secessionist” by Graeme Wood. It was based on interviews with Daniel Miller, the leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement. He wanted to divorce Texas from the Union once and for all. Now here we are a year later and the called for secession has moved from a magazine article to a national event. The change now has been the extension for the call for a single state to a broader secession involving all the states that had joined in the unsuccessful coup to steal the 2020 presidential election.
In The Atlantic article, Wood cites a claim of membership of 300,000 for the Texas Nationalist Movement. That seems like a significant number. The goal was for there to be a referendum in Texas on secession. Miller called the movement “Texit” based on the action in Britain. Left unmentioned were two related possibilities:
1. a referendum by the other 49 states on whether they (we) want to kick Texas out of the country regardless of how Texas voted.
2. dividing the state into the portions that wanted out from the portions that wanted in somewhat as Virginia had divided at the onset of the Second Civil War into West Virginia and Virginia.
If option #2 is taken, then even if portions of Texas vote to secede, the pro-American citizens can remain part of the country. That way, there could two Texases: one an independent country and one a state in the United States. There was no indication what Miller thought about these options.
Miller proposed a new country which would be the tenth largest economy in the world. He favored a cordial uncoupling with a largely undefended border with the United States (no mention of a wall with Mexico). He expected that the border between the United States and Texas would be like that between the United States and Canada. The key would be the independence of Texas where it would now be in charge of its own political decisions. And it would accept the consequences of those decisions as well.
Miller claims the right of self-determination. It is a right the United States supposedly supports in locations throughout the world. Now it is time to do so at home. He feels that if Americans see that the second largest state in the country declares that it was participating in the union under protest that the request could not be ignored. Apparently he is anticipating if not a 100% Texan support for secession at least a landslide. There is no indication in the article in what if any is his cutoff point for secession. As noted above, what if self-determination for a significant number of people means they want to remain American. Miller did not address this issue in the article although it is possible he has elsewhere.
As mentioned, this article was last December. What has happened this December? First the Texas Attorney General led the unsuccessful coup attempt to overturn the presidential election of 2020. This action does not comport with Miller’s expression of seceding because he does not want Texas to be governed by others. Now the Texas Attorney General was seeking to tell four other states what to do. How would Miller like it if other states petitioned the Supreme Court for Texas and other states to end voter suppression, end gerrymandering, and end the one drop-off location per county for early voters as a violation of the civil rights of Texans? I suspect Miller would not like such interference in Texas affairs even as his state sought unsuccessfully to interfere in the voting of other states.
Following the decision of the Supreme Court, the Texas GOP acted
Austin, TX, Release: December 11, 2020. For Immediate Release
Below is Chairman Allen West’s statement regarding the decision by the Supreme Court to dismiss Texas’ constitutionally legitimate and critical lawsuit.
“The Supreme Court, in tossing the Texas lawsuit that was joined by seventeen states and 106 US congressman, has decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law. Resulting in damaging effects on other states that abide by the law, while the guilty state suffers no consequences. This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the US constitution and not be held accountable. This decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic. Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”
The Texas GOP will always stand for the Constitution and for the rule of law even while others don’t.
This is not the place to attempt to unravel the workings of the mind of Allen West or the place he is trying to carve out for himself in Texas politics. So far I am not aware of Miller or any Texas officials jumping on the Texas secession bandwagon either alone or with the other “law-abiding states.”
Still there are consequences to voicing out loud thoughts you never should have had in the first place. For example, Rush Limbaugh said the “US is ‘trending towards secession’ and there can’t be ‘peaceful coexistence’ between conservatives and liberals. It can’t go on this way. There cannot be a peaceful coexistence of two completely different theories of life.” Immediately afterwards he was forced to backtrack his comments. Limbaugh pretended he was echoing other people’s opinions rather than advocating for secession himself. It is quite possible he was a victim of his own rash impulsiveness. He just blurted out what felt good without thinking of the consequences just like the impulsive President.
While what Miller advocates is not significant, when the GOP Chair of a major state voices secession talk, it is more serious. Don’t be surprised to quietly see him disappear after the New Year.
The Supreme Court has punctured the hot-air balloons of the hothead traitors. The backlash has already started. The Orlando Sentinel has apologized for endorsing one of the Trump Traitors in the recent election:
We had no idea, had no way of knowing at the time that Walz was not committed to democracy… During our endorsement interview with the incumbent congressman, we didn’t think to ask, “Would you support an effort to throw out the votes of tens of millions of Americans in four states in order to overturn a presidential election and hand it to the person who lost…Our bad.
The paper vowed to ask such questions in the future.
Rep. Paul Mitchell, Michigan, has left the Republican Party. He was retiring so it doesn’t amount to much.
Smartmatic, the voting technology company that has been attacked by the various Trump networks has struck back. It “demands a full and complete retraction of all false and defamatory statements and reports published by Fox News. This retraction must be done with the same intensity and level of coverage that you used to defame the company in the first place.” Obviously that is not going to happen. Smartmatic is reserving its legal right to pursue possible defamation claims against Fox News, One America News, and Newsmax. There is a financial price to pay for simply making things up unless you are the President of the United States. How many pardons will have to be issued to protect his networks?
Now suppose in 2022, you are the daughter of the Sore Loser and you are asked in your Senate race: “Do you think Joe Biden got away with a rigged election in 2020?” How will you answer that? “What did you do to stop the attempted coup?” How will you answer?
The shell-shocked Trump Traitors who are in silence now will not be able to remain in silence forever. They can expect their efforts to overturn the election will be part of the attack on them in the 2022 elections. Representative Adam Kinzinger who did not participate in the attempted coup, instead tweeted:
[T]he Supreme Court is not part of the deep state… Complaining and bellyaching is not a manly trait, it’s actually sad. Real men accept a loss with grace.
Our immature-child President is not a real man and cannot accept a loss with grace. Instead America’s biggest baby has put all his children who want to be Senators and/or President on the spot. He has put Mike “sold his soul” Pence, Mike “sold his soul second Trump term” Pompeo, Nikki “sold her soul” Haley, and Ted “sold his soul” Cruz on the spot as well. What will they say about their failure to resist the attempted coup in 2020 or even to abet it? What will they say about their willingness to accept the vote in 2024?
The irony of the secession talk of like-minded states is that the Sore Loser would be perfectly willing to accept the United States dividing into two if he could be President for life in one half and there was no extradition to the other half.
It is my fondest wish that Texas secede. After all military and federal agencies have left Texas and trade barriers are created which would cut off importing petroleum products and all Texas-produced goods it would take only months for the new nation to fall into a terminal downfall. Within a few short years Mexico would seize the failed state and take it over completely. Justice at last!
A while ago I did suggest Confedexit and that was even before the presidential election. In the political blogs which I do not normally send to the history community, I have mentioned several times my doubts about whether we can stay together as one country for the 250th anniversary. But I would only support the separation of the Trumpican counties in Texas from the United States, not the whole state.