By Daniel Nardini
Recently, the Texas Republican Party (which basically runs Texas), adopted three measures which I find thoroughly questionable and outright dangerous. First, Texas has become one of the states that has banned abortion. All states that have banned abortion are Republican-controlled or have a Republican majority. Second, the Texas Republican Party has stated that the 2020 presidential election was “fraudulent” and therefore “Democratic candidate Joe Biden was not elected president.” This is giving into the total myth that the 2020 presidential election was not legitimate. This is total madness, and is calling into question how the U.S. presidential election process is run. The third part of this insane Texas Republican platform states that if the federal government “denies” the Texas state government the ability to rule the state, then the state should secede from the union.
All of this is just total madness, and a VERY dangerous challenge to the federal government and the union of the United States as a whole. What other Republican-controlled states may think of what Texas has done remains to be seen, but in so many ways it is a call to war against the U.S. government as a whole and a call to war against the Democratic-controlled states. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which may not state directly on the issue of secession, makes it clear indirectly that no state can deny the rights and protections of U.S. citizens in each state by secession. Only the federal government and all of the states can approve of any state’s secession, and this will certainly not happen. Texas’ challenge that a presidential election is illegitimate is madness unbound, and denying women a necessary medical right is simply solidifying a legal stance that women in Republican-controlled states do not have this fundamental right.
As if the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade was not bad enough, the red states (those controlled by the Republicans) have added more fuel to the fire by making threats that the federal government itself is not legitimate, and that blue states (those controlled by the Democrats) are now “enemy territory” if they follow the federal government or allow abortions to be the law of the land. The way the map looks for U.S. Midwest states, only Illinois and Minnesota legally allow abortion. Indiana under the Republicans will soon try to close the “loophole” of abortion being legal. All of the other U.S. Midwest states have either banned abortion or will have “trigger laws” that make it illegal after a certain number of weeks. We are seeing battle lines being drawn where women may be forced to make a run for blue states, and red states may forcibly try to stop them.
Worse, everything from inter-state law enforcement and inter-state cooperation on everything from medical care to infrastructural improvements may also end. States may become more like countries enforcing laws and rules very different from each other and where the federal government’s rule becomes increasingly undermined. Will we then see states using their own currency, their own state armies, and have their own foreign policy departments? If Texas becomes a model where states can assert rights as if they are their own countries, then what will this do to the union? Where does it all end?
War Between the States
By Daniel Nardini
All of this is just total madness, and a VERY dangerous challenge to the federal government and the union of the United States as a whole. What other Republican-controlled states may think of what Texas has done remains to be seen, but in so many ways it is a call to war against the U.S. government as a whole and a call to war against the Democratic-controlled states. The 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which may not state directly on the issue of secession, makes it clear indirectly that no state can deny the rights and protections of U.S. citizens in each state by secession. Only the federal government and all of the states can approve of any state’s secession, and this will certainly not happen. Texas’ challenge that a presidential election is illegitimate is madness unbound, and denying women a necessary medical right is simply solidifying a legal stance that women in Republican-controlled states do not have this fundamental right.
As if the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade was not bad enough, the red states (those controlled by the Republicans) have added more fuel to the fire by making threats that the federal government itself is not legitimate, and that blue states (those controlled by the Democrats) are now “enemy territory” if they follow the federal government or allow abortions to be the law of the land. The way the map looks for U.S. Midwest states, only Illinois and Minnesota legally allow abortion. Indiana under the Republicans will soon try to close the “loophole” of abortion being legal. All of the other U.S. Midwest states have either banned abortion or will have “trigger laws” that make it illegal after a certain number of weeks. We are seeing battle lines being drawn where women may be forced to make a run for blue states, and red states may forcibly try to stop them.
Worse, everything from inter-state law enforcement and inter-state cooperation on everything from medical care to infrastructural improvements may also end. States may become more like countries enforcing laws and rules very different from each other and where the federal government’s rule becomes increasingly undermined. Will we then see states using their own currency, their own state armies, and have their own foreign policy departments? If Texas becomes a model where states can assert rights as if they are their own countries, then what will this do to the union? Where does it all end?