The Separated States of America

More than one historical pundit has suggested that Abraham Lincoln made a very big mistake by not allowing the South to secede. If you look at the political red-blue battlelines today, it does seem as if the issues that gave rise to the Confederate fracture, updated as mechanized farming has long since replaced slavery, are still the hot topics, particularly in the completely fabricated schism: the culture wars. What would life be like today if the Confederacy were a separate nation? Indeed, that the State of Mississippi is celebrating “Confederacy Month” would not seem so completely out of place. Many believe that a blue-state coalition would vastly outperform the economic output and value of a red-state country, even with Florida and Texas.

But red state governors are making their own foreign policy, even entering into de facto treaties with Mexican states – a prerequisite for Texas Governor Greg Abbott to stop the economy destroying secondary inspections of trucks just crossing the Mexican border that carry 2/3 of the agricultural products consumed by Texans. Despite the fact that we are a nation of immigrants, that Ronald Reagan opened our border to the greatest influx of immigrants from Mexico since California was annexed by the United States, stopping immigrants at our southern border (not our border with European white Canada) has become the Magna Carta of the great American populist movement.

To understand exactly how far red state governors have gone, how completely untethered as they believe themselves to be from the US Constitution, you only have to look at their recent state approach to mounting military movements in defiance of US law “to secure our nation’s borders.” Writing for the April 20th Los Angeles Times, Molly Hennessy-Fiske explains: “Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is facing mounting pressure from far-right and former Trump administration officials to immediately declare a migrant ‘invasion’ at the U.S.- Mexico border, under a constitutional provision that would allow local law enforcement and National Guard troops to stop migrants at the border and send them back to Mexico.

“The federal government is responsible for enforcement of immigration laws. But a pandemic rule that has blocked more than 1.7 million migrants attempting to enter the U.S. — Title 42 — is scheduled to be lifted May 23 by the Biden administration.

“Abbott and other officials have said that could cause a spike in migration, with up to 18,000 migrants arriving at the border daily. Already the number of migrants at the southern border increased 33% last month from February to 221,303, according to figures released Monday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. That’s 28% more migrants arriving than March 2021. Several thousand migrants are waiting to claim asylum in camps just across the border from Texas’ Rio Grande Valley.

“Former Trump officials at the Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank based in Washington, are pushing Republican governors in border states to act soon to prevent those migrants from entering the U.S. and to deter others from making the journey. Officials have reached out to Arizona and Texas leaders, arguing that under the Constitution’s ‘invasion clause’ and ‘states self-defense clause,’ states are entitled to define what they consider an invasion and defend themselves by expelling migrants.

“Arizona Atty. Gen. Mark Brnovich, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, released a legal opinion supporting the plan this year, arguing, ‘The violence and lawlessness at the border caused by transnational cartels and gangs satisfies the definition of an ‘invasion’ under the U.S. Constitution, and Arizona therefore has the power to defend itself.’ Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey has demurred, stressing steps he’s already taken to secure the border. On Tuesday, he announced a ‘border strike force’ agreement with 25 fellow Republican governors, including Abbott, to combat cartels and other border crime. Texas leaders also have yet to respond publicly to the plan, but local officials say they’re considering it.

“‘The Trump administration was actually trying to protect the state against the invasion, while the Biden administration has made it worse,’ said Ken Cuccinelli, a former Homeland Security official under Trump, now a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America and one of the plan’s main proponents.

“It wouldn’t be the first time states used the invasion clause to confront the federal government over immigration. In the mid-1990s, half a dozen states, including Arizona, California and Texas, sued the federal government alleging its failure to stop illegal immigration violated the invasion clause. But federal courts rejected the claims, ruling they were ‘political questions.’

“Simply because the courts didn’t decide the issue doesn’t mean a governor has the power to declare a migrant invasion and start enforcing federal immigration law, said Emily Berman, an associate professor who teaches constitutional law at the University of Houston.

‘There’s nothing that gives the governor authority to ‘invoke’ the ‘invasion clause,’ ’ Berman said. ‘It would be a stretch to think that it was up to a governor to unilaterally determine the existence of an invasion.… Even a common-sense interpretation of the word ‘invasion’ does not describe what is happening. Russian tanks are not rolling over the border. That’s what an invasion looks like.’ ” Yup, those same cartels who benefitted from lax gun laws, particularly in Texas and Arizona, that are the clear and unequivocal source of almost the entirety of the cartels’ guns, particularly those with large magazines easily converted to fully automatic.

Just as Florida’s Ron DeSantis, probably jealous that he does have a border war to fight with Mexico, is willing to punish Disney for its political speech by taking away their tax breaks, a flagrant violation of the First Amendment, the Arizona and Texas (the two red states that border Mexico) are willing to usurp the federal government’s constitutional control over international borders and the military by simply applying a judicially rejected “invasion” label. Oh, it does seem as if calling the January 6th attack on the US Capitol “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse” (an official GOP statement) nullified, at least for that red state constituency, any thought that that assault was the insurrection effort it was. Tell that to the almost 800 individuals criminally charged (where trials have advanced, almost all have pled guilty or have be convicted) in connection with that coup attempt. So much for a party that supports “law and order” and then makes a mockery of our own Constitution.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it’s just too bad there isn’t an easier way to let red America go and be their own country, hanging itself by a seriously retrograde radical right, rather than having to endure such absurd populist rantings and unconstitutional efforts.