Status of Texas secession, secessionists still waiting for Donald Trump to fail or to convince people that Donald Trump has failed or will fail. Long term what is the movement's prospects.

The Texas secession movement still exists, and it seems to be what it always has been.

https://texasnationalist.com/  and  https://texianpartisan.com/

On February 27, 2017 Daniel Miller in a Texian Partisan item in his regular column "Miller on Monday," the topic, "The rumors of our death."

He states:

Prior the Presidential election last November there was a belief among the political class here in Texas that a Hillary win would turn the Texas Nationalist Movement into an unstoppable juggernaut, and a Trump win would kill us.

https://texianpartisan.com/miller-monday-rumors-death/

I am not aware of anyone in the "political class" doing any such analysis. The political class in Texas doesn't take secession here seriously.

In 2016 I was reviewing that a Hillary win would develop a strong interest in Texas secession based on polls about Texas secession surveying Texas Trump supporters and the polls showed that 60% of Texas Trump supporters would support secession, and I said that a Trump victory would deflate the movement, but in no way I said it would kill it.

Mostly media interest in Texas secession is that it is a novelty story.

I had this blog posting when I thought that Trump was likely going to lose.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/06/presidential-elections-and-secession.html#.WozMY6jBqiM

I re-iterated this opinion and pointed out that the Texas secessionists were afraid that Trump would win

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/07/texas-nationalists-i-think-are-afraid.html#.WozMr6jBqiM

I point out that when Trump said the election was going to be stolen from him I thought the secessionists would greatly benefit from a Trump loss.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/08/secessionists-just-got-big-boost.html#.WozM5ajBqiM

Given that Hillary was projected to win I wrote this column.

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/08/this-is-all-going-to-be-very-serious.html#.WozOO6jBqiM

After the election I wrote this:

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/11/election-results-and-texas-nationalism.html#.WozOkajBqiM

After Trump won and Hillary Clinton lost I noticed that right wing secessionist movements had lost "impetus" and did the following blog posting

http://newtknight.blogspot.com/2016/12/prospects-for-right-wing-secessionists.html#.WozO-KjBqiM

But I didn't say it had "killed" the movement. I had said:

However, as time progresses I think that disillusionment with Trump will set in and the secession movement will revive and will be telling people, "I told you so!" Actually, long term, and by long term I mean 6 to 12 months, Trump's election will enable the secession movement. As Trump fails to turn the United States into whatever his supporter's right wing fantasy that they wanted was, these supporters will come to see national politics as hopeless to realize their objectives. Secession will get a hearing and have greater credibility.

I saw a revival of the prospects of secessionists over time.

Miller has an interesting approach which shows his "skill" with numbers. He does a poll of people who are current supporters and he reports that only 1% of the supporters of Texas secession have given up.

This side-steps the issue about the possibility of Texas secession movement making any progress. I don't think anyone thought that current supporters of Texas secession would state that they have given up. The issue is whether the Texas secession movement could get a lot of popular interest, new members, and not be a small fringe movement. Miller rejects that he is leading a small fringe movement and likes to report numbers giving the idea that there is mass support for Texas secession. That is my impression of what his web pages are asserting.

True to what I thought the Texas secessionists strategy would by they are trying to show that Trump is failing, or isn't really the person his supporters thought he would be.

Here is one example about the "Lost Trump Presidency."

https://texianpartisan.com/the-lost-presidency/

However, it needs to be asked what are the prospects for Texas secessionists. So I will review some scenarios and assess them.

1. Trump is re-elected president in 2020. I know current electoral trends make this unlikely. Also, his base is mostly older and the Democrats is mostly younger, but there could be developments and Trump is re-elected. The economy might turn out to be especially good for working people.

If Trump is re-elected then the Texas secessionists will be a lingering movement with die hard supporters but waiting for some distant future where their potential base will become disenchanted with America.

2. Democrats do really well in the 2018 elections, capture the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. They will be doing their best to make Trump's life miserable and there will be bills passing the legislature and vetoed by Trump.

At this point I think that there will start to be disillusionment with the American future by the potential base of secessionists as they begin to conceptualize that the trajectory of American in politics is not going to go their way.

The secession movement could start going somewhere in Nov. 2018 if it is perceived that the Trump revolution is certainly going to be undone.

3. The Democrats by 2020 capture all three branches of government.

The Texas secessionists will certainly find a much broader base of support when the alienated right wing finds no hope in an American future, and only hope in a Texas future that is split off from America.

THE BIG QUESTION IS WHETHER SECESSION WOULD STILL BE WORTH IT

Even if by 2020 the potential political base of Texas secession finally does choose secession what political prospects will secession have?

Texas continues to change at a fast rate. The younger generation is more liberal. People are moving into the state. The younger population is more multi-racial. There is considerable immigration from people whose ultimate origins are from outside the United States.

The goal of the Texas secessionists is to create a right wing state to escape from an increasingly liberal nation. If Texas is becoming liberal that defeats their purpose of secession.

However, this still isn't a obstacle for Texas secessionists. There might be a liberal majority with the current set of eligible voters but not with a set of voters created by a seceded Texas.

In this, I am not talking about some voter suppression tactic being done by the Republicans with voter id requirements etc. I am talking about radical measures such as reviving the poll tax and everything that was eliminated by the Voters Rights Act. I am talking about rejecting the 14th Amendment making African Americans voters. I am talking about really severe restrictions on who should be allowed to vote. Neo-Confederates and anti-civil rights activists reject the ratification of the 14th Amendment as being legal.

Some people don't think you should vote if you are receiving any government benefit. Others might have a poll tax of $20 an election and make it cumulative. If you have missed a few elections you might be asked for $60 for the missed elections and $20 for the current elections. Poll taxes also suppress voting indirectly because after you exclude poor people, the candidates that are running for office tend to seek to represent the interests of the more prosperous and not the interests of the poor and so voting for poor tends to be pointless and in this new Texas probably really need the money.

I am sure that there will be no citizenship based on birth in America if parents were not citizens.

Other restrictions could be added. Such is could be made that you have to be a resident in a place for a much longer time than now. That will tend to eliminate more people who aren't home owners. It will tend to exclude more poor people and those who move more.

So they could have an electoral majority once they chop off large segments of those currently allowed to vote.

I think that if the Texas secessionist movement starts really gaining support I think many will come to realize what their plans are for Texas and that they are entirely hostile to the interests of minorities, women, LGBT, and others.

Through a quirk in Texas law, it is possible to have a ballot issue on only one party's primary ballot. Primaries typically have lower turn out than the general election, involve more the more ideological elements of a political party.

So it could be possible that some secession resolution or measure might pass in the Republican Party primary.

One consequence would be that the partisan divides in Texas would be converted to divides over secession.

CIVIL STRIFE

If the Texan secessionist movement does get some wide spread interest among right wing and reactionary forces, what might be the consequences?

I think that they will find that even though they have significant levels of support among a certain base like the one that elected Trump, they will find that they still don't have a majority of Texans supporting them. In fact they might find that Texas secession has finally gotten significant attention from various political classes who are against it.

So winning elections won't be a path to secession and the secessionists will choose another path to secession, which is actions against the state and federal government and those who they see as opponents. That is obstruction, intimidation, and violence.

Also, if the secessionists think the composition of the electorate is wrongly determined they are not likely to respect elections.

Don't think that choosing these tactics is unlikely. The Bundy's still defy government law out west. The U.S. government took a long time to deal with a small band of right wing militia who took over the Malhuer Wildlife Refuge.

What would Texas be like if we had 30 such cases happening simultaneously?

CONCLUSION

I don't see Trump getting re-elected and the Democrats are winning some special elections in electoral units that previously would have been won by Republicans by a very wide margins.

Trump is doing very badly in the polls and I don't think the Democrats will put forth a candidate in 2020 with serious problems with getting elected.

So I think that the Texas secessionist movement might start reviving as soon as the Nov. 2018 elections are over, and the extent to which they revive will be determined by how well the Democrats do in the 2018 elections. It seems the Democrats might do very well.

If the Trump base feels that the Trump revolution is likely to be over at some point they will be looking for alternative venues for political action. I don't think they will be apathetic. They will likely feel aggrieved that Trump lost because they believe Trump lost because of some mechanization or manipulation and the election wasn't fair.

I don't think the surge in the purchase of guns during the Obama administration was due to the expectation that there was going to be some restriction on gun ownership. That was the reason given by some, but I think that there was some fear that with a African American president they no longer felt secure and wanted to be armed and in many cases heavily so.

I think the first ignition point will be the passage of some gun control measure by the Democrats.