An Alaska writer just said the quiet part out loud: America isn’t a republic anymore. It’s an empire. And like all empires, it’s collapsing.
Bob Bird, a longtime Alaska independence advocate, published an essay this week asking whether the United States is “verging on open civil war.” His answer? Yes. And Texans better pay attention.
Bird’s argument is simple but devastating. The federal system has become so dysfunctional, so hostile to regional self-governance, that states are already engaging in what he calls “micro-secession.” Sanctuary cities defying federal immigration law. States calling out militias against federal authorities. Governors threatening to block ICE operations within their borders.
Sound familiar? It should. Texas has been fighting these battles for years. Just this week, a federal judge struck down Texas’s anti-ESG law—a clear attempt to protect our energy economy from woke capital. The ruling proved what Bird argues: states no longer control their own domestic affairs.
But Bird goes further. He traces American imperial ambition back to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Thomas Jefferson knew it was unconstitutional. He did it anyway. When the American flag went up in New Orleans, diplomat Robert Livingston proclaimed: “From this day, America takes its place among the powers of the first rank.”
Translation: We became an empire. And we never looked back.
Texas joined that empire in 1845. We were an independent republic for nine years—proof that self-governance works. We had diplomatic relations with France and Britain. We controlled our own borders and managed our own economy. Then we voluntarily joined a republic that promised limited federal power.
That republic doesn’t exist anymore.
Bird makes a point Texas nationalists have been making for years: secession is a natural law right. The Declaration of Independence says so explicitly. “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” When that consent is withdrawn, the people have the right to alter or abolish their government.
Northern states understood this once. John Quincy Adams, before he died in the 1840s, thought New England should secede rather than remain in a union that tolerated slavery. Anti-slavery Americans wanted to remove themselves from the “pollution” of a government that protected slavery.
The principle hasn’t changed. Only the grievances.
Today, Texas faces federal interference at every turn. Washington mandates how we run our schools, regulate our energy grid, and police our borders. Federal judges overturn our laws protecting local industries. Federal bureaucrats block infrastructure projects that would strengthen our economy.
And we’re supposed to pretend this is normal.
Bird identifies the fault line that’s tearing America apart: rural versus urban. It’s the same geographic divide that drove the 1860s conflict, except now it exists within states. “Looking at a county map of presidential elections,” he writes, “you can see this in many of our liberal states.”
Texas has that same divide. Austin, Dallas, Houston—these urban centers push policies that rural Texas despises. But unlike other states, Texas has the economic strength and historical precedent to chart its own course. We’re the eighth-largest economy in the world. We’re larger than Canada, Australia, or South Korea.
We don’t need Washington. Washington needs us.
Bird warns that empires collapse. Rome fell. Britain declined. The American empire shows every sign of the same trajectory: overextended militarily, divided culturally, bankrupt financially. When Minnesota’s governor threatens to use state militia to block federal immigration enforcement, you’re watching the empire crack in real time.
Bird concludes with a warning for Alaska: “Like Britannia, which was hung out to dry when Rome collapsed, Alaska stands in a precarious position.” The same applies to Texas. When the federal system finally breaks—and Bird argues we’re watching it happen—Texas must be ready to govern itself.
We’ve done it before. We can do it again.
The question isn’t whether America is collapsing. The question is whether Texas will go down with it. Bird’s essay makes clear that independence movements aren’t fringe theories—they’re rational responses to a dying empire.
Texas nationalists have been saying this for years. Now Alaska is saying it too. When two of America’s most resource-rich, economically powerful regions both see the writing on the wall, maybe it’s time to take the warning seriously.
The empire is dying. Texas must decide: do we chain ourselves to the wreckage, or do we reclaim the independence we had in 1836?
Join the fight for Texas independence at tnm.me.
