Recently there’s been a spate of diaries about how Texas should secede. These pop up practically every time Texas is in the news. I personally find them rather counter productive and insulting. There’s a world of difference between saying, “Hey Texans, as the last few weeks have shown yet again, your state government is literally trying to kill you, you should really vote them out” and the type of screed saying that Texas should secede and that all of us Texans deserve whatever happens to us because our state government is truly terrible.
I’m a Texan generations back on both sides of my family, and I’d yell the first sentiment from the rooftops because its true now, and has been true for decades. The Texas GOP doesn’t care one damn bit whether Texans freeze to death, die from COVID, get shot by the police, or die from a lack of health care, live with dirty air and unsafe water, or a million other ways they show their active contempt for our very lives. They do not care. I can’t state that any more bluntly than that. The entire party has adopted murderous sociopathy as their guiding principle.
There are only two things that the Texas GOP cares about: 1) keeping power, and 2) making money for their donors. Everything they do is in service to those two goals. Culture war battles (e.g.- reproductive rights and gun control) keep the fanatical wing of their base in a frenzy while gerrymandering and voter suppression keep them in office. All the while deregulating everything in sight keeps the money flowing to their donors (and frequently themselves).
Aside from the fact that secession isn’t legal, aside from the fact that the vast majority of Texans don’t want to secede, aside from the fact that Pres. Biden got more votes in Texas than every other state but California, as has been stated every time one of these types of bullshit posts pops up, there are people who can’t up and leave a red state they live in for a variety of reasons, that, quite frankly, are nobody’s business but their own. Telling people in those circumstances to just move is as useless as it is insulting.
Here’s my sure to be unpopular belief on this. If you’re sincerely espousing these beliefs, what you’re really saying when you spout off bullshit about just let Texas (or pick any other red state) secede is that you don’t really care about the lives of the people here who can’t vote because they’re too young like my 19 month old son, or who are unable to navigate the Kafkaesque obstacle course to register to vote, or those who can’t afford to take time off work to vote, or whose votes has been denied them for any number of other reasons. You’re saying that you don’t really care about the millions of Texans who are just trying to make ends meet day to day. You’re saying that you don’t really care about the health and safety of your fellow Americans, but more importantly your fellow human beings. That’s better than the GOP I suppose because at least you’re not actively trying to kill us, but let’s be brutally honest, that’s a low bar. After espousing your belief that Texans, or Louisianans, or Mississippians, or Floridians, etc. should just secede and they all have it coming and deserve whatever happens to then, then any genuine care you say you have is little more than meaningless performance.
It’s so much easier to just scream into the void, get angry about the state of things, and eventually arrive at a place of “those idiots deserve whatever happens to them” than to do something constructive to fight for others. Lord knows I’ve screamed into the void more times than I care to think of, and I’ve for damn sure fought the urge to just say “fuck it” and withdraw into my own little world. But I can’t do that. I won’t do that. I refuse to let the bastards win. I refuse to give up my home to these white supremacist fanatics. I refuse to give up the fight for my son and his generation’s future. I want to be able to look him in the eye as he grows up, and let him know that his old man fought for him as much as I could.
So if you’ve stuck around this long, my ask is simple. Show some of that compassion that we so frequently decry Republicans for lacking. Slam our awful elected officials, assail policies that hurt poor and minority communities, fight against actions that are actively killing our fellow human beings. Support those of us fighting for that better future we all want. Fight with us, don’t belittle us or insult us. Our individual voices may be small, but raise your voices with ours, and together we can make a sound so loud that it can’t be ignored.