Capitulate or Perish: Why Daniel Miller Says Independence Is the Only Answer Left
Back behind the desk after an unexplained week away, Daniel Miller opened this Late Night Coffee Talk with the news that had filled the gap. The Uvalde shooting, Beto O’Rourke turning a press conference into a stunt, and the slow drip of reporting on a police department that held parents back while children died. Miller’s verdict on the response was blunt. If a politician like Travis Clardy wants to see real cowardice, he argued, he should look at what happened in that hallway rather than aiming the word at the Texans who support independence.
From there the show settled into its real thesis. Washington tells you what it intends to do, then does it, and the Texas officials who are supposed to stand in the way fold like Superman on laundry day. Miller’s answer to all of it was the same one he has given for years. If Texas were already a self-governing independent nation, what Joe Biden or Hollywood or anyone else thinks would not reach into Texans’ lives at all. Staying in the union is what makes their words a threat. He had little patience for Texans who go inert out of disgust, calling that kind of surrender a quiet form of participation, and he pushed the people actually doing the work not to let the sideline critics drag them down.
The night also leaned hard on language. Miller spent a long stretch dismantling the word secession, drawing on the Declaration of Independence and its claim that the colonies were free and independent states, equal to the state of Great Britain. The term you choose, he said, depends entirely on whether you believe Texas surrendered its identity when it joined the union or simply entered a voluntary relationship it retains the right to leave.
Questions answered in this episode
- If Texas were already an independent nation, would you vote to join the United States, and what exactly are the benefits of the union supposed to be?
- Would the TNM help other states that want to leave, and is the right to withdraw unique to Texas? (Miller covered the Alaska, California and New Hampshire movements, his role with Americans United for Peaceful Separation, and why every state but Nevada retains that right.)
- Now that the Mises Caucus has taken over the Libertarian Party, has Miller considered using the Texas Libertarian Party as a vector for the TNM’s message?
- After Texas wins independence, how do you keep it from being undermined by unionist politicians who remain in office? (The Brexit lesson, and the price of leaving anti-exit officials in place.)
- Is there a real difference between secession and independence, and how do you answer someone who sneers “you Texas secessionists”?
- Once Texas leaves, are there specific Supreme Court rulings that stop applying and make the case for independence even stronger? (Plyler v. Doe and birthright citizenship.)
- How long would Texas spend negotiating with the United States before a full withdrawal? (Miller’s four-step sequence: constitutional changes, statutory changes, international treaties, then the negotiating table, where the federal debt share likely nets to zero.)
- How do you find the new TNM channel on Roku?
Miller closed by pointing viewers to take candidates to the Texas First Pledge, urging supporters to update their addresses on the TNM website ahead of a major announcement he has been building toward for years, and reminding the audience the movement would be out in force at the Republican convention the following week.
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