Thomas ZimmerJan 30, 2024
The Texas Border Standoff Is an Acute Crisis with Terrifying Implications
 
Is this how America ends? Echoes of nullification crises and Civil War, and the dissolution of the Union.
 
New piece:
 
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https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-texas-border-standoff-is-an-acute
The Texas Border Standoff Is an Acute Crisis with Terrifying Implications

Is this how America ends? Echoes of nullification crises and Civil War, and the dissolution of the Union

Democracy Americana
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 30, 2024

Last Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott released a remarkable statement that opened with an astonishing line: “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States.”

Republican leaders are explicitly endorsing (neo-)confederate legal theory. 2/

Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 30, 2024
Abbott claims Texas has a “right to self-defense” – by which he means the right to militarize the border without permission from the federal government, under whose purview immigration and border protection clearly fall, to defy the president’s authority and nullify federal law. 3/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 30, 2024
The position Texas is taking is morally abhorrent – insisting on cruel border barriers and inhumane policies – and legally radical: Abbott has announced that the government of the United States does no longer have authority over a part of its international border. 4/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 30, 2024
The legal and constitutional case Texas is advancing rests on two pillars. The first one is the idea that Texas is being “invaded.” But people crossing the border in order to seek asylum is very clearly not what the founders had in mind when they used the term “invasion.” 5/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 30, 2024
The second pillar of the argument Texas is making is the so-called “compact theory” according to which the constitution is just a contract that entails certain duties the federal government, and especially the president, has to fulfill. 6/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 30, 2024
If those duties are neglected, the states, understood as sovereign entities, are free to disregard federal authority, ignore federal law, and, ultimately, leave the Union. This is precisely the argument slave states used to justify secession. 7/
Show threadThomas ZimmerJan 30, 2024

It makes sense for Republicans to adopt these neo-confederate arguments, thereby emphasizing the tradition in which their political project stands as they are deploying “states’ rights” in order to justify inhumane brutality in service of upholding white nationalist domination.

More here: https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-texas-border-standoff-is-an-acute

The Texas Border Standoff Is an Acute Crisis with Terrifying Implications

Is this how America ends? Echoes of nullification crises and Civil War, and the dissolution of the Union

Democracy Americana
Show threadLeaveNothingForTheFuture
@tzimmer_history makes me wonder what Greg will do if the Gulf gets hit with a hurricane... Reject FEMA?
Jan 30, 2024 at 3:54pmWeb