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[-] dhork@lemmy.world 170 points 7 months ago

The Texas Nationalist Movement (TNM) is campaigning for the Lone Star State to break away from the United States and become a fully independent country, using what it regards as the federal government's failure to control the Texan-Mexican border as one justification.

Just let the fuckers leave. Today. They can take their 2 Republican Senators and 38 Representatives (25R, 13D) with them. We'll build a wall on the border and make them pay for it.

[-] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 64 points 7 months ago

Seriously though, how long do you think they would make it on their own? The last time they were they're own country they BEGGED the US to take them in for what, 9 years? Before we finally did.

[-] pennomi@lemmy.world 45 points 7 months ago

Texas is one of the few self-sufficient Republican states. (eg. They contribute more than they receive from federal funds.) They’d survive.

That being said, their economy would be fucked because all the US trade agreements suddenly would disappear. Look how badly that affected the UK with Brexit, and then multiply it by 100.

[-] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 101 points 7 months ago

All the tech companies in Texas would leave. As would most Democrats with the means to do it. There goes your highly educated workforce (Democrats tend to be more highly educated based on demographic data).

The US military would leave. And then there goes all the defense contractors too.

They wouldn't be self-sufficient on their own. They're only self sufficient because they're part of the US.

[-] Grobmobularb@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago

I’m a Texan and a Democrat. I would be out of here so fucking fast. I’d rather work at McDonald’s in California than live in an independent Texas Republic.

[-] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

I wish I could join, but I'll take a role as a saboteur.

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 30 points 7 months ago

Also, you're forgetting an important factor: food. Texas is not part of the breadbasket, it is not known for its agricultural produce, and the amount of good soil is not enough to feed the population.

Assuming Texas dips into its slush fund to buy things like grain, it would be flat broke in a decade, with only oil fields and beef to trade (they'd lose their offshore oil rigs).

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[-] Laughbone@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

This point right here so many Texas cities entire economy is based on the military industrial complex.

[-] s7ryph@kbin.social 6 points 7 months ago

Like they would let Texas take any classified parts of those bases. Things would get really interesting.

[-] squiblet@kbin.social 18 points 7 months ago

I agree with your second paragraph, which actually invalidates the conclusion of the first one.

[-] pennomi@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

Yeah, I guess survive vs thrive is the point I was trying to make. Texas produces enough food and energy to be self sufficient, but their global economic position would crash.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

and energy

Except their grid is fucked up, possibly beyond repair at this point.

[-] aphlamingphoenix@lemm.ee 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Their economy would be fucked because they'd need to draw up an entire economy overnight. What is a US dollar to a non-American? What does a Texas bank look like, and how does it function differently from a US bank? Do the companies currently operating nationally across the US have the right or capability of operating in New Texas? What forms must they fill out to file their taxes? Where goes the money that was previously pouring into the Houston area due to NASA jobs that suddenly don't exist there? What about the money in San Antonio, Waco, and other towns with military bases suddenly drying up? What about the fact that the federal government owns the land those military bases are built on? What do the private companies who operate phone lines and Internet backbones do with the physical media installed in the ground which they presumably own?

The people who are cheering on secession have no fucking clue about this stuff. They lack the ability to perform a reality check. They don't even know how to question their ideas, and they don't have any independent thoughts. Their minds are controlled entirely by their political and religious shepherds.

The politicians who lead them on with the idea they might get away with it don't need to answer the questions. They say and do these things because the people who put them in power think of the argument for secession as the equivalent of a schoolyard fight. "Oh yeah, well if you won't kick the transes out of the kickball game then I'm just gonna take the ball and go play kickball over there by myself." It's stupid and childish and completely unrealistic.

I hope I'm right that Abbott, et al, have thought of all this and are only grandstanding, allowing their collective lobotomy of a voter base to rabble rouse, and won't actually go for this. It would be an absolute bloodbath when they all starve or get summarily executed as the full thrust of the most expensive military budget in the known universe blasts in to establish order.

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[-] metallic_z3r0@infosec.pub 7 points 7 months ago

I'm not sure they're self-sufficient anymore. If I remember correctly, that one study was from 20 years ago and was done by a right-wing think tank, and the trend for Texas was overall negative. They stopped that study basically right before Texas started breaking even.

[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

They'd be conquered by Mexico in a hot second.

[-] slurpeesoforion@startrek.website 5 points 7 months ago

The cartels would easily take over.

[-] prole@sh.itjust.works 27 points 7 months ago

They wouldn't make it through a single winter (if they got that far)

[-] oocdc2@kbin.social 6 points 7 months ago

I mean, they technically have their own independent power grid, so whether they are their own country or a state, Texans freezing to death would be left to fate, anyway...

I wonder how they would manage imports and exports, for two examples. Or the visa system for visiting the US and its territories? Their own WIC and other (currently federal) social service programs, or are they planning to discontinue them in typical forced-birth fashion? I would really like to see them do it and see if they want what they get.

[-] RampageDon@lemmy.world 18 points 7 months ago

But they aren't left to that fate because every time the wind blows to hard and their power grid fails they come crawling for federal disaster relief hand outs to fix it.

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[-] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 52 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

5.2 million people voted Democratic in the 2020 presidential election (46% of those who voted). It would be a tragedy to abandon them. It would also create an ongoing threat to the stability of the remaining country. As Martin Luther King said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

[-] WelcomeBear@lemmy.world 27 points 7 months ago

To add to your excellent point (that there are more democrats in Texas than the entire population of many states), very, very few people are actually a part of this “movement.”
This isn’t a real thing that normal people actually endorse, it’s a bumper sticker you see on an old beat up truck in the wal-mart parking lot.
It’s like the Texas version of flat earthers or ghost/alien hunters or Bigfoot researchers. They do exist but they are massively over-represented in the press because it’s so stupid that people can’t help but “tune in.”

[-] meat_popsicle@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

When a cancer invades a healthy organ, that organ is typically removed fully. That’s because, while there are good cells in that organ, the cancerous cells represent a greater danger to the overall being.

Unlike cells, liberals in Texas can move to a different state. Maybe they should.

[-] LucasWaffyWaf@lemmy.world 34 points 7 months ago

Left leaning fella in a deep red district in Georgia. Can I move elsewhere? Physically, yes. Financially, not a friggen chance. Lots of us are stuck in place for financial reasons or even familial.

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[-] WelcomeBear@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

If people had to move states every time a relatively tiny group of idiots advocated for something stupid that’s never going to happen, there would be nowhere on earth to live.

[-] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

Lol, you think the cancer that's infected Texas hasn't already metastisized throughout our country?

[-] LesserAbe@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

You're suggesting 5.2 million should be forced to migrate, and we should leave a cancerous state to its whims right next to our border?

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[-] Tenthrow@lemmy.world 35 points 7 months ago
[-] dhork@lemmy.world 42 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Just learn some Spanish and Abbott will let you get on a bus to come up North, for free!

[-] billiam0202@lemmy.world 19 points 7 months ago

If Texass suddenly became its own country, I wouldn't expect them to be so generous to those people as to keep sending them to better places.

They'd probably decide those people should be concentrated somewhere away from decent Texans.

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[-] PugJesus@kbin.social 8 points 7 months ago

We'll send helicopters to evac the sane.

[-] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 7 points 7 months ago

Perhaps some kind of railroad, but hidden somehow like it was underground

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[-] CptEnder@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago

We can trade Texas for Puerto Rico and won't even need to change the flag! Win-win

[-] Theprogressivist@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago

They want to break away to become their true calling, a shithole country.

[-] BigWheelPowerBrakeSlider@lemmy.world 24 points 7 months ago

I love shitting on Texas and Florida and, well every southern state, and most of the Midwest, and quite a few states out west, but as someone who lives in one of these areas I like to remind everyone that's there's a lot of decent people living in those states. That is all.

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 7 points 7 months ago

There are also lots of decent people living in the countries the US bombs.

What's the difference?

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[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 20 points 7 months ago

We could just return them to Mexico. Call it an apology for the inconvenience of us keeping California and New Mexico.

[-] superduperenigma@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago

If they secede the cartels will probably be running Texas within a week anyway.

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

I think the return window on Texas has expired, unfortunately.

[-] GrammatonCleric@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago

Um, hello? Lots of innocent people live here.

[-] lledrtx@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

Especially a ton of Democrats, many of them POC, LGBT etc who will become the targets on day one.

[-] fifisaac@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago

Seriously, some of the people commenting on this are either stupid and heartless.

Politics isn't just an Internet game, it's people's lives

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[-] grue@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Looks like Putin gave the Brexit propagandists a new assignment.

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[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 7 points 7 months ago

TNM has no teeth. They've been lobbying to secede for years. This is a ploy Abbott knows he's going to lose so he can play victim for the next 10 months to boost Republican voter turnout.

[-] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

Hand it over to the cartels and see how they like living in a 'libertarian' state.

[-] twistypencil@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Give it back to Mexico

[-] Jaysyn@kbin.social 3 points 7 months ago

They can take their 2 Republican Senators and 38 Representatives (25R, 13D) with them.

The last part would suck because Jasmine Crockett is a national treasure.

this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2024
462 points (97.7% liked)

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