It appears that the Texas secession movement is much bigger than I figured it would be. And this is after three months of Obama. I'm guessing the civil war/mass suicides begin about August.
It is interesting to wonder how it would play out if Texas really did decide to secede from the union. Would Obama just let them go? I don't see how you could, and there's a reason why hardly any governments accede to secessionist movements. Would there be military action taken against secessionists? Since there would no doubt be many Texans who wanted to remain Americans, would they leave or would there be an internal conflict as well? Would Austin become like a little island of America in a sea of Texas, like Berlin during the Cold War, or would it secede from the secessionists and become a Monaco-like city nation? I'm guessing such a nation would make Europe look like, well, Texas. And I'm only guessing that Texas wouldn't get into NAFTA, though I wonder if they'd eventually become an ally of the United States, like America has with Britain. Speaking the same language winds up being a real bond between nations. Well, in theory.
Seriously, though, it's been really shocking to me that there is substantial support on the right in Texas, at least, for secession. I totally understand the source--America to conservatives is more about an abstraction, a deliberately constructed, quasi-ethnic identity than anything else, and a country that elects a Barack Obama as president is one where that group no longer holds sway. It's a little sad to watch the right completely unravel like this, but also a little pathetic. I mean, the left was pretty angry at Bush for a long time, but it wasn't like Gray Davis was calling for California to secede from the Union a little after the 2002 elections.
