Hot take on Texas

Hot take since this is a developing situation.

On Texas Governor Abbott defying the federal government, and the federal government not doing anything:

Mister Grumpus: “The game theory dynamics of that moment were very important. …the non-shot heard around the world.”
Jim: “The silence of that non shot is echoing loudly in everyone’s ears.”

The fedgov isn’t done yet, of course. No doubt they’re working on other options for dealing with this situation. But when they gave the outrageous order to not only not defend the border, but to cut down the razor wire that was defending it so that illegal immigrants could get in, they stepped out of Normality and into History.

That was when they left themselves naked to the power of someone saying No. And the Governor of Texas said it!

And Customs and Border Protection said on X/Twitter that they have no plans to obey the order to cut down the razor wire on the border.

Tucker Carlson on X/Twitter: In an interview from India, Gov. Greg Abbott says ten other states have sent national guard to the Texas border, and others will follow. Abbott says he is “prepared” for a conflict with federal authorities.

This is an explicit defiance of sovereign authority.

So now the fanatics in Washington have a problem.

They know, even in the haze of their demonic ideology, that a national government ordering the destruction of barriers that secure the nation’s border is not sane, or within shouting distance of sane. But they have been openly defied, so they must escalate. Or they must back down. They know people are deeply sick of their shit, and they know that if they choose to escalate, large swathes of the military, police forces, etc., will tell them to go fuck themselves. If that happens their authority is done; it could well mark an overthrow of the federal government literally without a shot being fired. On the other hand, if they do nothing it’s the same outcome, just slower and with less fanfare.

Furthermore, they know that sovereign power requires a state religion that justifies the power. Leftists are insane fanatics, but they are insane fanatics who are obsessed with power. They know legitimacy matters: they took over the education system, the news media, and the machinery of pop culture for a reason. If they actually send the Army and Air Force into Texas to enforce the official surrender of the border, they’ll have lost the remaining scraps of their legitimacy with the sane half of the country. (And maybe with some of the insane parts, too: There is a difference from their past practice of keeping immigration laws on the books but not enforcing them, and explicitly ordering that they not be enforced.) They’d love to say “It’s against the law to enforce the law,” but even they, in the backs of their minds, have an itching doubt about just how many people would accept that.

And of course if they send the Army and Air Force into Texas that’s it, the Civil War is on. You can smell their fear about who’d win, if it really, no shit, came down to it. (Some people in our thing are pessimistic about this, but one must remember that quantity has a quality all its own. The number of people who are actually willing to die fighting for open borders and a man’s right to use the women’s bathroom is almost immeasurably small.)

Not to mention that doing this would require that they pull in US military personnel stationed abroad in order to fight the Texas fight, which would officially terminate their global empire before the end of this year. They can’t do this if they want to have even a snowflake’s chance in Hell of keeping their world empire alive for another year or two.

Above I mentioned the role of a legitimizing state religion. Speaking of that, what are they saying about Texas now? I haven’t done a survey, but there’s a fascinating piece in The Atlantic by one Adam Serwer (no link; it’s easy to find). Judging from that, they’re afraid and rapidly losing faith in the power of their religion. His entire argument is MEAN TEXAS MAN IS LETTING CHILDREN DROWN IN THE RIO GRANDE BY REFUSING TO HAVE OPEN BORDERS! Repeatedly he says this. Actual quotes:

“Greg Abbott is taking a stand to protect his state’s right to let children die in the Rio Grande”
“Texas’s embrace of neo-secessionist rhetoric in defense of letting children drown in the Rio Grande”
Allegedly, various border officials were ordered “to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande”
Push babies into the river! LOL.

Why is this a sign of fear and lost faith? Because he’s not saying “Open borders are a moral obligation. People just want to come here to improve their lot in life,” etc. At least, he doesn’t get to that before the paywall cut. He completely abandons that line and just tries to provoke people’s instincts with “DROWNING BABIES!!!” This is a serious ideological retreat. He’s not even trying to use one of the foundational elements of the leftist state religion. He does have a go at “racism” (A statement by Abbott “echoes the language of Texas’s declaration of secession” in the 1860s), but that’s just rote at this point; it’s leftist auto-complete.

When leftists knew their religion was the ruling religion, when they were confident that its shibboleths and articles of faith were Words of Power, they said open borders are a moral obligation. They said it explicitly and incessantly. Now this Serwer person doesn’t breathe a word of that. Why not? He’s scared to, that’s why. He knows people aren’t buying it any more. You invoke your god or summon your demon when you have confidence in its power. He’s not invoking or summoning. He has lost faith.

We’re historically privileged to watch the dying of the leftist faith in real time.

So what will the fanatics at the federal level do? I don’t want to give them any ideas, so I will only mention a couple of possibilities that they’ve no doubt already thought of.

One is to drone strike Governor Abbott’s house or otherwise physically attack him personally. (He’s in India at the moment but he can’t stay there forever.) That constitutes violent escalation, though, which requires the cooperation of the people who actually carry out the orders. Suddenly the fanatics realize they cannot simply assume that those people will actually obey such orders.

A second possibility is to go after Texas financially, e.g. by pulling the charter of all Texas banks and so forth. Definancialization has been an attack the left has been using more in the last few years. However,
(a) that would also disrupt all the welfare funds that flow to leftist constituency groups in Texas. Probably that’s not a precedent they’re willing to set, because nation-wide, other leftist client groups whose loyalty depends on payola would suddenly start wondering if they can rely on the money. However, the leftists who have their arms up Biden’s ass are insane, so this consideration might not restrain them.
(b) Perhaps more importantly, the left knows what happened when they tried to cut Russia out of the international dollar-based trading system: Russia was not hurt, a multi-nation bloc that wants to be rid of the dollar formed, and that bloc is now actively building international exchange systems outside of the dollar-based one. Encouraging this to occur within the United States itself is also something they wouldn’t risk. If they were sane.

A third option is for them to bide their time until Abbott is up for re-election, and engage in overwhelming electoral fraud. Presumably he’ll predict and plan for this, but it’s impossible to know how that will play out. And Abbott next stands for re-election in November of 2026, almost three years from now. Do leftists have that much patience?

Pete at the link above:
“The Enemy in DC… see what Abbott is doing, and think they are being very clever by simply routing the illegals to another part of the border that is NOT being guarded. In that sense, Abbott’s blockade is indeed fake and gay since the illegals will still get in.

But being mere air-conditioned office lawyers, they don’t understand how it looks from the outside. The Sovereign gave an order and he is being laughed at and ignored.”

In other words, not sovereign.

Jim:

“Disputes over sovereign authority inherently escalate until resolved.”