What If the Texas GOP Had Its Way?
By: Jan M Flynn
Tags: Politics, Trump, Election 2020, America, History

What If the Texas GOP Had Its Way?

Their chairman suggested secession

Image by Dennis Larsen from Pixabay

The Supreme Court has turned out to be a big disappointment

At least, for Donald Trump and his fervid, alternate-reality-embracing minions. Despite having a hand-picked, conservative majority on the bench — most notably Amy Barrett, whose appointment was ramrodded through so fast she’s probably still trying to catch her breath — the most recent and perhaps the most bizarre effort at overturning the election got shot down in record time.

In case you had other things to pay attention to this week, the Lone Star state’s attorney general (a Republican, natch), in a display of breathtaking hypocrisy for a polity that takes pride in its “don’t mess with Texas” stance, asked the Supremes to throw out the results in four battleground states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Biden won 306 Electoral College votes: those four states accounted for a total of 62. You do the math.

The Texas A.G.’s argument was preposterous. It claimed that those four states (which just happened to be pivotal in Biden’s win) made, gasp, changes to their voting procedures and expanded mail-in voting. Never mind that, due to the pandemic, most other states including Texas made adjustments to their procedures as well. The lawsuit demanded the Court to block those four states from using their voting results to appoint electors to the Electoral College, days before that body officially votes for the new President.

It’s worth noting that the Texas A.G., is presently under indictment for securities fraud. Am I silly to think he might be angling for a presidential pardon?

Quickly, 17 other states jumped onboard

As well as, no surprise, Trump himself, who asked to join the lawsuit. They also wanted the Court to delay the December 14 Electoral College vote, set by law in 1887.

It gets worse. 126 Republican members of the House, including the GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, who I’m ashamed to admit is from California, piled on in support. After four years of sucking up to Trump, it’s clear that the Republican leadership has long since abandoned any pretense of putting democracy, the republic, or any shred of personal integrity ahead of their zeal to prop up their Tyrant in Chief.

The quasi-legal Hail Mary had, according to many legal experts, zero chance of succeeding. The Supreme Court’s response was both swift and abrupt as they refused to hear the case. In its unsigned order, the Court stated:

“Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections”

So there.

But Trump and his supporters are like the zombie apocalypse

Unable to recognize their own demise, they just double down on their efforts to eat the brains of the living. Soon after the Supremes’ decision, Trump tweeted:

“The Supreme Court really let us down. No Wisdom, No Courage!”

After all, to Trump’s thinking, it’s his Court. Who are they to follow the rule of law and fail to accede to his wishes? By the next morning, Trump took to the Twittersphere again, jaws clacking, refusing to stay down, tweeting that the Supreme Court decision was a “disgraceful miscarriage of justice” and, in his most vehement capitalization,

“WE HAVE JUST BEGUN TO FIGHT!!!”

Staggering along in step with him, Allen West, the chairman of the Texas GOP, issued a furious statement, which read, in part:

“Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.”

I think he meant “band together,” but why quibble over semantics when a leading member of the party of Lincoln thinks it’s time to re-fight the Civil War? It might be more useful to point out that the act of secession would be a blatant violation of the constitution. West’s suggestion prompted swift rebukes, even from members of his own party. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), for instance, tweeted:

“I believe @TexasGOP should immediately retract this, apologize, and fire Allen West and anyone else associated with this. My guy Abraham Lincoln and the Union soldiers already told you no.”

Rep. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said of the Texan Republican party, simply, “They have lost their minds.”

Secession, the ultimate American zombie idea, creeps back to life

Of course, the idea of Texas seceding and taking other states with it is nuts. As Rep. Kinzinger points out, that fight should have been settled in 1865. And yet, the notion of breaking up the Union in a fit of pique refuses to stay down. Recently, it has begun poking its undead nose into conservative circles.

Rush Limbaugh, answering a caller’s question recently about whether conservative thought would ever again dominate U.S. culture, said that peaceful coexistence between conservatives and liberals is impossible and that the country is “trending toward secession.” He’s since tried to walk that back, but it’s hard to swallow words that have been heard by millions. Meanwhile, a Texas state legislator, Kyle Biedermann (R, need I point out?) says he will propose a bill to allow Texas to sever ties with the Union. His December 8 post on Facebook reads, in part:

“The federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans. That is why I am committing to file legislation this session that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation.”

It’s tempting to tell Texas to go ahead and see how far it gets

There are those of us who are frankly tired of continually battering down the undying belligerence of the old Confederacy. The scars from the Civil War still suppurate in our nation’s soul. Why fight it again? You want out, Texas? Fine. Let’s see how well you do on your own.

But we’d miss Austin.

In all seriousness, we must not dismiss the secession talk too swiftly or lightly; it would be like ignoring a symptom of what may be a terminal disease if we don’t stem its progress soon. The wrangling over Trump’s defeat is more than just a disgraceful sideshow: it’s a real existential threat to our nation, much bigger than the Orange One himself.

At the moment, our institutions hold. We have backed away from the brink. But we can’t relax our vigilance, or make the mistake of discounting those who invoke the constitution while taking every step they can think of to subvert it short of outright insurrection. We are facing a two-pronged test at this moment, caught as we are in the midst of a deadly pandemic and a transition of power that is by no means sure to be seamless.

We are already deeply in need of another Reconstruction. Let’s do better this time.