No, that wasn’t Sun Tzu, it’s attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte (it’s in his book of collected military maxims) – I don’t believe that was one of Bonaparte’s; it sounds more like Talleyrand, who had a great deal of experience at standing on the sidelines watching Bonaparte make mistakes.
This won’t happen, because cooler/greedier heads will prevail,[see comments below the divider] but it would be possibly the greatest strategic mistake of all time. It would make Bonaparte’s attack on Russia seem pretty sensible, by comparison. It would would make the Battle of the Bulge look like a judicious troop deployment on Hitler’s part. It would make Operation Market/Garden look like a brilliant coup de main. It would make the crusaders’ march to the Horns of Hattin look like a pretty sensible deployment for heavy knights in the summer. Maybe one of those is slightly exaggerated, but … which?
Anyhow: [newsweek]
Texas Republicans are pushing for a referendum to decide whether the state should secede from the U.S.
The demand for Texans to be allowed to vote on the issue in 2023 was one of many measures adopted in the Texas GOP’s party platform following last week’s state convention in Houston.
Under a section titled “State Sovereignty,” the platform states: “Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified.
Oh lawdy don’t throw me in dat briar patch, bubba Joe!
Because if Texas secedes then they basically have guaranteed a democrat majority in the senate and congress in perpetuity (or until the democrats fuck it up) and created a third-world country with no domestic energy resources and a broken power grid, right on the southern border. Once the US government withdrew its nuclear weapons assembly facilities, which are in Texas, and its nuclear weapons and national guard elements, as well as imposed taxes on all the businesses in Texas that wanted to business across the border, it would be complete fuck-world, full of idiots with guns prowling each other for food once their local supply of feral pigs was all shot and cooked. Do they think that they’d still be buying fruit from California, drinking water from US rivers. and eating corn and wheat from the heartland? Nah. Not without paying top dollar import taxes. They’d have some oil to drink, though. Enjoy your liberties, gomers!
I don’t really want to do a bunch of projections but cross-border tariffs would probably make up for what Texas contributes in taxes, so that’s a wash. And, best of all, the average educational level of the entire country would bounce up a notch once the dead weight was cut loose and allowed to sink.
Example of that dead weight I was talking about: I am gomer, hear me roar!
Most amusing, in terms of general pain for the gomers in Texas: they’d still have a whole lot of Mexicans, who I guess they have a pro-forma hatred for – except that now there’d be no US federal government to pay for their national guard and highway patrol and immigration and naturalization service: that’d all be gone. I doubt Mexico is organized enough to take Texas back, but the new, proud nation of butthead bubbas would basically be helpless without national police, network grid, military, border patrol, highway funds, etc. In terms of strategy this is like declaring that a boxer intends to beat Mike Tyson in the ring by beating the shit out of himself, first, so Mike doesn’t have to break a sweat. Oh. and that piece of land that so proudly declared its freedom is about to be devastated by climate change and probably won’t have a fishing industry or agriculture in another decade or so (especially if they can’t afford fresh water from the US). The first hurricane that comes along would be a fantastic opportunity for US capitalists to swoop in and buy anything left of value in Texas, because Texas’d be desperate for money. Basically, the idiots in Texas are saying “we want to be like Puerto Rico.”
Do it. Oh, please. Do it. Please. Maybe we could somehow convince Ron DeSantis that he could be king of the place, along with Prince Cruz, and get Florida to go, too. It’s as though the Texans read that part in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Universe about the ‘B ark’ and went “Y’all, let’s be that!” Oh, and as soon as they do it, we’d need to have 50 states so let’s give DC statehood to keep the balance, muaahahahaahahaha!
I have written about this before, here [stderr] regarding what I would do to Georgia if you elect me president. I just re-read that piece and I think it’s some pretty good invective if I say so myself.
Realistically, here’s why it won’t happen: the politicians who run Texas like to be part of a big empire, not a piss-pot backwater theocracy. They just pretend to want to be part of that theocracy, because that’s what the gomers that keep electing them believe. Does anyone here think that Ted Cruz would relinquish one iota of political power without having it pulled from between his grasping fingers by a superior power? Hell, no. The republicans in Texas will cheerfully shine on their stupid constituents as they always have, while absolutely failing to do anything significant on the secession front.
Down here in Texas, I’m much less worried about the possibility of secession. What is likely is the anti queer rhetoric happening to turn into pogroms. Over 5 million Texans voted Democratic, that’s more people than live in the entire state of Oregon. Internally, everything is on the edge here.
Granted, I think Texas has a big enough economy and a couple decent urban centers and industry, I think it could possibly secede and succeed as an independent nation. Just, not with their current attitudes and goals…
Again, I’m reminded of that trend a couple years back where firearm fetishists were mad at firearm safety, or something, and were taking pics of them pointing their firearms at their crotch with the safety off and their finger on the trigger. And some of them managed to shoot themselves in the crotch/thigh/pelvic area. And still didn’t learn their lesson…
Or that cactus finch in the Galapagos islands that primarily feeds off the nectar of cactus flowers. Apparently their are some “hardworking, enterprising” finches that have figured out they can peck open the flower bud, and get at the nectar before the flower blooms, giving them a short-term advantage over those sucker finches that wait for the flowers to bloom. Except, these flower buds pecked open up and die before they produce flowers, let alone fruit. So, if the finches keep it up, they will eliminate the food source they are dependent on. Kinda like humans in a lot of ways, except we don’t have the excuse of not being able to know any better…
Wait, wouldn’t a lot of red states want to follow Texas and secede as well? Joining them in a New Confederacy? It might not just be the old Confederate states that go either. I envision OK and KS joining, probably WY and ID and others as well. The new Texas Panhandle will now stretch far past Amarillo to beyond Coeur d’ Alene up to the 49th parallel (I recall seeing a parody map in the National Lampoon years ago that showed the panhandle extending all the way to Calgary AB).
Of course, Texas has blustered like this before and my guess is that whatever path that allows the billionaires to grab more money and power is the path that will be taken. The culture warriors won’t like it, but they won’t like living in a shithole country either.
Wait, wouldn’t a lot of red states want to follow Texas and secede as well?
Who says they’d be permitted to? Split them. Let the people in Georgia who want to go, go, but they don’t get the land. Remember, none of the red states would have a nuclear arsenal or deterrent or a well-organized military. Most importantly, no air force or navy. If Georgia wants to see what the modern version of Sherman’s march would look like, let ’em. I’m tired of this, let’s end it. [slightly hyperbolic for the humor impaired]
Brexit: Texas says, “bro, hold my beer.”
keothneilsen@#1:
What is likely is the anti queer rhetoric happening to turn into pogroms.
If Texas seceeded, presumably US citizens who wished to retain their citizenship would leave (taking all their $ with them)
lochaber@#2:
Granted, I think Texas has a big enough economy and a couple decent urban centers and industry, I think it could possibly secede and succeed as an independent nation.
The republicans are psychologically incapable of investing in the infrastructure a post-Texit Texas would need to flourish. Even if they did, that would keep them busy for decades. Eventually, sure, they might be able to stand on their own feet, but the first hurricane or drought or heat dome would end that. Right now they need a new power grid. Have fun, y’all! Trump’ll throw you some paper towels.
Besides, I’m sure the US would be sponsoring insurgent death squads, just to make sure Texas was a failed state.
I am quite aware that I am saying awful, illiberal things, but the zeitgeist appears to be “authoritarians want to get punched in the face.”
Why not just do some Civil War reenactments instead? I mean, it basically sounds like what they’re looking for anyway, and everybody would love to see Ted Cruz cosplaying as a sexy confederate irregular suffering from dysentery, right?
consciousness razor@#8:
everybody would love to see Ted Cruz cosplaying as a sexy confederate irregular suffering from dysentery, right?
I would rather see him re-enact Pickett’s charge.
Which, by the way, is a thing the southerners hold as a profoundly memorable military incident. Maybe I’m a military aesthete but, to me, that’s sort of like memorializing the Battle of Alesia, or something – from the Gallic side. “OH WOW we sure got STOMPED FLAT! DANG!”
I’m curious what a negotiated secession would look like in an American state. There is a bunch of talk here in Alberta about seceding and Quebec has been agitating for it for decades, but if it happened the new countries would look nothing like the old provinces did on the map. There is not only a whole bunch of crown land (owned by the country, not the province) but a heck of a lot of unceded indigenous land as well. Secession would mean the loss of a staggering amount of land mass.
Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government.
Do the TX Repubs know what the word “pursuant” means? Or maybe they misunderstand “impaired”? Or “right”? Or …
Marcus Ranum @ # 9: “OH WOW we sure got STOMPED FLAT! DANG!”
Pretty much the basic southron attitude towards the whole Civil War…
A martyrdom fetish does very little for strategic insight.
Of course, we also run the risk of an A Specter Is Haunting Texas backstory scenario (in which TX seceded, declared war against, and conquered just about all of North America (they cheated: lots of growth hormones)), only without Fritz Leiber’s grace notes.
Tabby Lavalamp@#10:
I’m curious what a negotiated secession would look like in an American state.
Me too! My guess is it’d look a lot like brexit. “Oh, crap, now we have to figure that out!” There would be tons of work to do about borders, whether the borders are hard or soft, trade and duties, military alliances, repatriation of national security equipment, payment for infrastructure, etc. For example, if Texas left the union, wouldn’t it owe the union for all the federal highway dollars that paid for all of its roads? Oh, you don’t think you should have to pay for that? How about we use some cruise missiles to collapse a few of the overpasses in Dallas until you see the light?
The reason I am being so frustrated/angry/authoritarian about this topic is because it seems absurd to me that the Texans are talking about Texit, when there’s this great example over in Ukraine of what happens when your infrastructure gets subjected to rocket/artillery attack.by another state that is willing to throw caution to the winds and just bring on the military force. In fact, the analogy is pretty good, because we have what appears to be a somewhat balanced fight, except that one side is using nuclear blackmail like crazy to establish the ground-rule that “Russia wins no matter, what.” Well, since the Texans would not get launch codes and an arsenal of nuclear weapons, they’d basically be setting themselves up as a non-nuclear buffer zone right next to a nuclear superpower that is more than a bit pissed off. If Texit happened, perhaps the Texans would get lucky and have an ineffective gerontocrat like Biden running the show in Washington, but if they had some authoritarian like Putin…? Oh, yeah, they’d get a hard fucking every couple decades – they’d be Cuba 2.0.
As president, these days, my foreign policy would look more like Sauron’s than Angela Merkel’s and I’d grind them into dust, then sift the dust for nuggets that needed special attention and really get nasty on them. So they’d be lucky if they got one of those weak-ass lefties they keep talking about because they literally have no idea how badly and thoroughly they could be jacked up if they were dealing with a real son of a bitch like a Putin or a Stalin.
It’s so weird to me that, right now, there are glaring examples all over the place about how nasty governments can be, and the Texans seem to think that the US would just shrug and say, “wow, well you guys just be you…” to a Texit. I don’t think so. I think they’d inherit a wasteland. If I were president, I’d make sure that they did. Suck it up, bubba.
Pierce R. Butler@#13:
Of course, we also run the risk of an A Specter Is Haunting Texas backstory scenario (in which TX seceded, declared war against, and conquered just about all of North America (they cheated: lots of growth hormones)), only without Fritz Leiber’s grace notes.
Well, that sounds like The Mouse That Roared more than anything remotely realistic.
If TX declared war against the US, the US’ first reaction would be to offer Mexico an alliance and tell the Mexicans they can keep whatever they can conquer. Boom, instant 2-front war. [Just as a distraction; the Texans would be desperate for troops and if the Mexicans could tie down a division or 2, it’d be worth it] Again, the situation is remarkably similar to what is going on in Ukraine right now: Russia is asserting that because they have nukes, they get to make the rules. “You can’t cross our borders but we obviously can cross yours” etc. Everyone is bending over backwards to keep from starting a nuclear war, which makes sense. Would the Texans be smart enough to do that, or would they want another Alamo option? If they do, well, the land’ll be OK after a while once the Texans are gone.
Texas is big but it’s a lot of open space. As usual when the southerners secede, they’d do it in a way such that they’d be sure to lose. For example, some other states might throw in, too – states that are not logistically connected to Texas. So they’d be defeated in detail. And nobody’d cry for them at all.
TX vs the rest of the U.S., ha!
just throw CA vs TX, and let the rest of the U.S. step in if necessary.
I feel like most of the people I’ve met from TX fall into two, very distinct categories; those who will let you know, immediately, and frequently, that they are from TX (and often how much better everything is in TX (so, why don’t you improve things for both of us, and go back there?)), and those who are from TX, but it doesn’t tend to come up until the “so, wherall are yall from” “icebreaker”…
The second group, have been more decent than not in my limited experience. The first group… why the fuck did they ever leave, and can they go back there right now, and can we build a wall and set up an exchange program, please?
The feds could do a soft coup and say they’ll protect any marginalized anti-texit people if they non-comply with basically the entire TX government. The majority of texans aren’t on board with texit and would pretty easily shut the state down if organized to do so. Brexit was democratically approved by popular vote, this idea could never achieve that.
The more radical right the TX officials get, the more popular they are with the base, but the more everybody else in the state feels like they’re under an existential threat that might need to be met with force of arms. (I’m assuming, I’m not there.) The texiters may be imagining otherwise for the same reason racist crackers assume you or I are going to be OK with them cracking racist – zero imagination for how other people feel. When the real resistance is forced into action in TX, the 14 karat bolo ties are in for the surprise of their lives.
And I was hoping to be the first person to use the word “Texit”. Well done sir.
One danger of a referendum is the idiot Leave group thinking they can safely bluster because they can rely on sensible people voting Remain, and the Remain side not bothering to vote because they can’t believe enough people would be stupid enough to vote Leave. Look how that worked out for the UK.
Alexander Johnson has never looked sicker or more disappointed than on the morning after the Brexit vote, AND HE WON. I look forward to that look on Ted Cruz’s face in 2023.
I don’t think that’s how cross-border tariffs usually work. They’re generally imposed by the importer on the exporter, not the other way around, so the only way the US could impose tariffs on Texas would be if the US was importing goods and services from Texas.
I’m not saying that it’s absolutely impossible to do it the other way around, but I can’t think of any examples, nor of how it would work in practice.
It’s worth keeping in mind that Texas, in common with pretty much every other nominally Red state, is ruled by a minority which has invested years of time/effort and millions of dollars in gerrymandering and voter suppression. It might be worth tryna figure out courses of action which don’t throw all the disenfranchised non-GQP serfs under the bus?
The main point of all this is that if Texit happened, the republicans permanently lose those votes and a senate seat. That would effectively end the party.
Cruz’ position as Senator of the U.S.A. would cease to exist, so he would have to find his way into a different office. And you know the bigots would want a law saying “you can’t hold office if you weren’t born here”, so Cruz would need to poke a few loopholes in that.
Nowadays we should call it “canceling”
It’s funny because the Texans then had exactly the same problem I am talking about, here: once you secede your vote no longer counts and neither do your states rights. Success! You seceded! Now, you’re nobody. Ah, the gentlemen from INS are here to deport you – no sudden moves, please.
Dunc@#19:
I don’t think that’s how cross-border tariffs usually work
You’re right. I was conflating a bunch of stuff. The idea being that any businesses that remained in Texas would face tariffs for selling their goods in the US. They’d also almost certainly have “just special for you” pricing for raw materials bound into Texas from the US. There wouldn’t need to be any formal program of economic retorsion put in place, capitalism would do the price-gouging naturally.
The scenario I am talking about would look somewhat like what was just done to Russia. Oh, yeah, and all the Texas oligarchs would have a short time to liquidate their possessions in the US, or they’d be seized and sold.
My guess is that businesses would take one look at the developing situation and leave immediately. Texas’ economy might be big enough that they could survive a brief while, but all the money except oil wealth would immediately leave. Again, it would look a lot like Russia 2022. What is it economists are saying? Russian growth has been knocked back to the 1980s?
That’s one way to put it. But there would still be a ton of conservative Dems ready to fill the void. They’re already in every state and eager to blend with their Republican friends to make the grand old party plus the other old party.
Assuming it was allowed to happen peacefully and didn’t turn into a civil war, then it could just as well be regarded as the end of the Dems as we know it, in which case a leftist party could take their place…. I say we should give it a shot. It doesn’t seem like we have much to lose, and conservative Texans can get the nightmare society they always wanted. Everybody’s happy (or miserable, if that’s what they prefer).
Marcus:
“If Texas seceeded, presumably US citizens who wished to retain their citizenship would leave (taking all their $ with them)”
The ones who can afford it. A lot of us are gonna be hostages.
Now you’ve seen a botched “secession” this side of the Atlantic, you know what to expect. A faction within the British government duped the population into voting for a scheme to leave a political union which benefitted them but which restricted the ability of the rich to dodge taxes, pollute the environment and exploit workers. Get some laws in place (1) to make sure any state wishing to secede from the Union has a detailed and viable plan to meet resettling expenses for all residents who wish to retain their citizenship of the USA, and (2) to restrict alien law enforcement personnel from entering US territory in the course of investigating acts which are not crimes in the USA. Plus a bunch of other stuff I must have missed. The independent state to be ready to begin using a new currency, whose exchange rate with the US dollar will be kept fixed for a period leading up to the changeover.
Digging their own grave is unfortunate, but burying anyone who does not wish to be part of their schemes is unforgivable.
@15 Marcus:
Mexico: “You broke it, you bought it.”
Yeah, I’m thinking they wouldn’t even take California for us. Is Arizona worth the trouble? Doubtful.
They might really consider New Mexico, though. That one seems like the least awful out of the bunch. But that may just be me, since I’ve spent more time in all the others.
@24 Marcus
What is it economists are saying? Russian growth has been knocked back to the 1980s?
Western ones perhaps. At the moment Russia seems to be worried about too strong a ruble and there are reports that oil and gas sales income is higher than before the sanctions hit. Fewer exports but higher prices for oil and gas. Also IIRC the Bank of Russia has dropped the lending rate from 20% just after the first sanctions hit to 9.5%.
There is no doubt that the economy has taken a hit. I cannot remember where I read it but I think the Bank of Russia and or the Finance Ministry expected a 10% contraction in the economy but now is estimating a 5% one.
The sanctions are having an effect, especially on certain sectors of the economy, put not that badly. Things almost certainly will get worse as key imported parts stocks run down but it looks like China and India are willing to help by producing substitutes or maybe just middle-manning materials from Europe and North America. Russia can call on Iranian expertise here.
There are 45 countries sanctioning Russia out of 193 UN member countries. As far as I am aware no country in South America, the Middle East or Africa has implemented sanctions nor has even Mexico nor even T urkey which is a NATO member. The sanctions sound impressive but I rather doubt their ability to seriously damage the Russian economy.