This week, Republican governors across the country escalated their conflict with the Biden administration over the southern border by invoking the same legal theory that slave states wielded to justify secession before the Civil War.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, joined by 25 other GOP governors, now argues that the Biden administration has violated the federal government’s “compact” with the states—an abdication that justifies state usurpation of federal authority at the border.

This language embraces the Confederacy’s conception of the Constitution as a mere compact that states may exit when they feel it has been broken. It’s dangerous rhetoric that transcends partisan grandstanding. And as before, it’s being used to legitimize both nullification and dehumanization.

  • @DoomBot5
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    395 months ago

    Even better, since they receive more federal money than they give, we’d be left with excess money that can be used for states that actually give a damn about their people.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months ago

      Texas might be the one red state that’s not true for. They make a lot of money, it helps that they have oil.

      • @[email protected]
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        195 months ago

        But you forget that they only make that money as part of the US. If they were their own country they would have to replicate a lot of government institutions, with little experience or help from other countries.

        It would be very expensive to put an embassy in every country around the world, or negotiate trade agreements. The UK is fucked after leaving the EU and they already had all the government infrastructure and relationships set up.

        Texas is not a signatory of NAFTA, so they would literally be left out of North American trade. They’d end up at the level of Mexico in 20 years due to brain drain.