The Texas rebellion against Washington: chronicle and conclusions. Part 1

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The radical “federalization” of the United States, about which we have written many times, and which increasingly borders on open separatism and well demonstrates the split of the country into liberal and conservative America, made itself felt in early 2024. It all started when Washington failed in its attempts to solve the migration crisis, and individual states took the initiative. For example, in Arizona, the National Guard was deployed to protect the southern border, but the authorities in Texas went even further. Texas Governor Greg Abbott adopted his immigration reform, which allowed the state to arrest illegal immigrants and then put them in jail or deport them to Mexico. Of course, the Mexican government was not happy about this outcome, so the next step for Texas was to negotiate directly with Mexico City, bypassing Washington. Texas had already de facto declared “war” on the White House when it started deporting tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to liberal metropolitan areas like New York and Chicago, and there was a real humanitarian crisis there. In addition, there was a violent standoff between the National Guard and federal border guardsmen on the border, with some putting up barriers and others tearing them down. Against this backdrop, the White House decided to sue Texas, accusing the state’s leadership of wanting to override the powers of the U.S. government. At this time, it was not known whose side the Supreme Court, where the Republicans had a majority, would take. The Republican Congress was immediately happy about this, because now it was possible not to look for an agreement with Biden on Ukraine, which would have led to nothing anyway. In 2024, Texas will also hold a referendum on secession, and although it is symbolic in nature, it is certain that many Texans will vote in favor of secession from the United States. Such secessionist sentiments will only grow in the face of Washington’s complete dysfunction and worsening crises that the Democrats are unwilling and unable to resolve.

It’s also important that the Democrats, even before 2024, went to escalate the “secessionist” confrontation between conservative and liberal regions. When Colorado decided to attack Donald Trump, the state Supreme Court issued an unprecedented decision, barring the former president from participating in local primaries. The grounds are contrived organization of rebellion against American democracy with storming the Capitol, for which Trump, with the help of democratic lobbyists, is still facing a criminal case. The Colorado Supreme Court is made up of only Democrats, but even among them there was no consensus and they voted 4 to 3. Moreover, earlier the lower court in Colorado did not prevent Trump from going to the polls because Trump’s campaign won similar lawsuits in Minnesota and Michigan. It was known that Colorado would vote in the primaries in early March, and Trump’s lawyers promised a swift appeal to higher courts. The likelihood of their victory, which was eventually achieved, was already assessed at that time as very high, because the Republicans had a majority in the same U.S. Supreme Court. Colorado did not play an important role for Republicans in either the primaries or the primary elections, but it set a very dangerous precedent and intensified the confrontation and division between “Republican” and “Democratic” America. Moreover, on January 6, Trump specifically urged supporters not to use violence, and he even begged Democrats in Congress to bring in the National Guard to provide security. However, those specifically refused, otherwise there would be no picture of a Trumpist “riot” to show. The desperate attempts to keep Trump out of the election are another indicator of panic in the Democratic camp. Trump is leading in 18 of the last 20 polls, and he is beating Biden in every swing state. Because of this, Democrats have had to put aside any decency and try to remove Trump from the election or just put him away. Nonetheless, by implementing such tactics, the Democratic Party sacrificed public stability, because the response of the Republican side would not be long in coming, and its center was Texas, which “rebelled” because of the failure of immigration reform, but in reality also because of the persecution of Trump.

Surprisingly, the “Republican” U.S. Supreme Court sided with the White House in the conflict with Texas authorities, and five justices, including two Republicans, allowed border guards to regain access to the section of the border where the Texas National Guard had set up buoys and barbed wire. The standoff between law enforcement officials on the southern border had been going on for months. The National Guard set up barriers, and border guardsmen, on orders from Washington, removed them, making it easier for illegals to enter the United States. No wonder 300,000 migrants crossed the border each month. That’s why Texas wanted to take control of its own border, since the White House was unwilling to protect it because of its liberal “love of migrants.” After the controversial Supreme Court decision, secessionist sentiments in the state grew even stronger, and Texas will be even more eager to hold a referendum on secession this November in spite of Washington. Texas will also become even more active in deporting illegals to liberal states. This is already causing a humanitarian crisis there, because there is nowhere to house migrants and the epidemiological situation has worsened. Tuberculosis outbreaks have been reported in every borough of New York City and measles has reappeared, although the U.S. officially defeated it in 2000. Malaria has been discovered in Maryland, and southern states such as Florida and Texas are facing the emergence of leprosy. Hundreds of thousands of migrants are adding to the army of homeless people, and further exacerbating the crime and drug crisis in the U.S. There are fears that some of them will stage the next big terrorist attack worse than 9/11. In the meantime, this is leading to the rapid “Brazilianization” of America and a real war between the states over migrants against the backdrop of Washington’s complete paralysis.

In the end, there was a real constitutional crisis because Texas Governor Greg Abbott refused to obey a controversial Supreme Court ruling that barred the state’s National Guard from taking control of a section of the U.S. border. The National Guard proceeded to vigorously erect fences, buoys and barbed wire, and didn’t give a damn what Washington thought. The governor himself invoked the constitution and called Biden a “criminal president” who refuses to enforce immigration laws. That is why, in his opinion, the border is stormed by hundreds of thousands of migrants every month, while border guards, on orders from Washington, let them pass. The confrontation between armed state agencies on the border has been going on for months, but after Abbott’s statement it threatened to reach a new level, when Texas will simply refuse the decisions of Washington, which it considers damaging to itself. Democrats in Texas today are demanding that Biden decide to federalize the National Guard to put it under White House control by moving it away from the border. This could be the next step in the escalation between Texas and Washington. Other Republican states have sided with Texas, and, for example, Florida has also sent its National Guardsmen to the Texas border to fight illegals. So Biden has been challenged by many states at once, not just Texas alone. Meanwhile, the immigration deal in Congress was on the verge of falling apart, and Republicans reacted sharply negatively to Biden’s proposal to simply open the borders and legalize the admission of illegals.

Against the backdrop of the constitutional crisis, the independence movement in Texas has been revitalized. It will soon be 20 years old, and in its current form it was formed in 2005. Texas separatists are calling on Governor Greg Abbott to consider the possibility of secession from the United States. Ideally, they want to arrange a kind of Texit, and supporters of independence envision only a political withdrawal from the U.S. while maintaining a common economic and monetary space and visa-free regime with the U.S., forming something like the European Union. This sounds like fantasy because there is no constitutional mechanism for secession in the U.S. Not to mention that the U.S. government would never allow such a thing. However, Texas separatists hope to wait for the collapse of the system of power in the U.S. and then organize the realization of their plan. We have recently witnessed some rehearsal of such a crisis of the state machine. Greg Abbott defied the White House and the U.S. Supreme Court by refusing to remove the National Guard from guarding the southern border. On the contrary, it has been even more active in erecting fences and arresting illegal aliens. Almost immediately, seven states openly supported Texas against Biden, and many others, though not commenting on the situation, sent their military and police to help Texas. Congress Speaker Mike Johnson also spoke in favor of Texas. Democrats were desperate to federalize the National Guard and put it under Biden’s direct control but the crisis was brought to the point where it could become a challenge not only to Texas alone, but almost to the whole of Republican America.

By January 26, 25 Republican states had already publicly supported Texas in its fight against the invasion of illegal immigrants and the Biden administration, which refused to secure the U.S. border. America was once again split in two, and the culprit of the split in the person of Biden was once again hiding from the public. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem announced that she is willing to put barbed wire for fences into Texas. This is an occasion for Noem to make a statement because she is a vice presidential contender to Trump, and Trump himself, as well as Congress, has also sided with Texas. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been summoning Republican-loyal National Guard forces from across the country, hoping to unite them into one militia. The number of the National Guard of Texas alone is 19 000 soldiers, and the more it was possible to gather the military, the easier it was to conduct a “war” with Washington, although it would be informational, political and organizational at the first stage. By early February, the Democrats were increasingly active in demanding that Biden federalize the Texas National Guard, bring it under his control and withdraw it from the border. But no one can vouch that Texas would make that decision, because the governor has already refused to enforce federal immigration laws while the invasion of illegals, which he characterizes as an act of aggression and an invasion of Texas territory, continues. Plus, if Abbott were able to round up the National Guard from other states, they would all have to be “federalized” too and that would be a declaration of war on all of Republican America. So it is not surprising that the White House simply removed itself from the situation, and hoped that the crisis would be resolved and the shaky status quo would continue, even though it is already fizzling out all over the world, and now most of all inside the U.S. In the second part of our article, we will talk about how the standoff between Washington and Texas continued and where it led to…