The Road to Splitsville #2

The Newsletter for Subscribers to THE SPLIT

People say to us, “Nothing secedes like secession,” and we say, “Shut up,” and they say, “Okay.” But then we think, “Well, wait. Maybe they have a point.”

Because they do have a point. If what you’re looking for is what we call—and by “we” we mean, Wikipedia—“the formal withdrawal of a group from a political entity,” then secession is just what the doctor (who has a Ph.D. in political science) ordered. Wikipedia reminds us that “the process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession. A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal is the creation of a new state or entity independent of the group or territory from which it seceded.”

It goes without saying that this is of interest to us in the The Split community. But we are not alone. Just ask 140,000 people in Texas. Because in December of last year, a group called the Texas National Movement announced that they had gathered enough signatures to place on the ballot of March of 2024 (i.e., the day after tomorrow!) a referendum calling for the formal secession of the state from these barely-United States.

According to a gent named Daniel Miller, speaking on a podcast, his organization delivered a whole heapin’ helpin’ of signatures to the Republican Party headquarters in Austin. After some were rejected for being incorrectly filled out, the petition still weighed in at 139,456 autographs. And how many are necessary to put the measure on the primary ballot? Try 97,709.

Not that this whole cockamamie “we’re outa here” deal is anything new. The Texas Independence Referendum Act (inevitably referred to as TEXIT) was introduced by a state rep a year ago, but didn’t get out of committee. (That nickname might not have been as clever as its users thought. Nobody in their right mind would want Texit to do for Texas what Brexit has done for Great Britain.)

Miller acknowledges that the issue is contentious. He grants that the Powers That Is will, sufficient signatures or no, oppose even putting the measure on the ballot—and, in fact, he delivered the signatures in secret, because, as he said on The X Formerly Known as Twitter, someone had threatened him and, per Newsweek, “was ‘wishing death’ on him.”

The news website notes that, “(a)ny such referendum would not be legally binding and merely advisory.” Still, who would even advise that Texas, or any state, withdraw from the Union and go it alone? As George Costanza’s mother might ask, “WHAT IS TO BE GAINED?”

Well, what else? Freedom! Freedom from burdensome regulations, from burdensome taxation, from burdensome Democratic presidents. Sure, we might say to them, “Seriously? We know you have a big economy—but do you really want to start over? With your own constitution, currency, army, international trade law, UN representative, NATO application, and all that?” But then they would say to us, “Shut up,” and we would say, “Okay.”

Besides, it’s Texas—land of eternal adolescence, where grown men refer to each other as “good ol’ boys” and wear cowboy hats on purpose. It’s where (according to the late, great Molly Ivins) men grow up with their characters forged in the triple flames of flaunted religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and machismo. Of course 140,000 of them want to secede, if only to show the world, and each other, that Joe Biden isn’t the boss of them.

If that’s not at least one paving stone on the Road to Splitsville, we don’t know what is. Although you will note that, in our imaginary future history, secession did not (i.e., will not) play a part. Secession is unilateral. It is declared by the seceder and then either permitted or opposed by the seceded-from. Whereas the separation of the blue and the red states in The Split comes about…in a different way.

 Keep reading. You’ll see.