Cowards at the Alamo: The Legislators Who Won’t Debate, and the Governor Who Won’t Act

This Late Night Coffee Talk turned into an indictment of Texas officials who run their mouths and then run for cover. Daniel Miller opened on Travis Clardy, the state representative who went on Facebook Live during the fight over House Bill 1359 and compared people who support a vote on Texas independence to the men who slipped over the wall of the Alamo in the dead of night to avoid the fight. Miller’s read was simple. Clardy called pro-independence Texans cowards without using the word, then refused the public debate Miller challenged him to. More than a year later, the challenge still stands unanswered, and so does the one issued to Jeff Leach, who could only manage a ha-ha on Twitter. The pattern, Miller argued, is not cowardice from the people asking for a vote. It is cowardice from the men who know they would lose that vote by twenty to twenty-five points and will do anything to avoid it.

From there it was the same theme applied to the border. Miller recounted the word on the street that Greg Abbott was prepared to declare an invasion and exercise his authority as commander-in-chief of the Texas Military Department, only to be talked out of it at the eleventh hour by the head of the Department of Public Safety, who reportedly did not trust the state to back his officers if the federal government came after them. That, Miller said, is the whole problem with nullification and interposition: when you break a federal law, the IRS does not come for the governor or the attorney general, it comes for you, and these officials have shown they will fold like Superman on laundry day the moment Washington pushes back. He pointed to Dan Patrick withdrawing his anti-groping TSA bill after an Obama-era threat as the template.

He also took on the idea that California transplants are dooming Texas, citing Cruz-O’Rourke exit polling that showed non-native Texans broke for Ted Cruz, and noting that first-generation Texans identify as Texans first at higher rates than almost anyone. The real fix, he kept insisting, is independence, because there is no way to control who comes to Texas inside the federal system. And on the movement’s only litmus test, he was unbending: Travis, Bowie, and Crockett were not from Texas either, so the only question the TNM asks is whether you adhere to its mission, vision, and values.

Questions answered in this episode

• Tom called Travis Clardy’s office over the cowards comment and wanted Daniel to know he still supports the movement. What is the full story behind that Clardy clash and the unanswered debate challenge?
• Ralph, a longtime microprocessor engineer, agreed that no electronic voting machine can be trusted. Why does Daniel say paper-first is the only sound baseline, and what did DEFCON’s hackers prove?
• Benny asked whether Daniel wants to be governor and urged him to call out Greg Abbott’s World Economic Forum ties. Does he want the office, and is Abbott a globalist?
• Eric asked whether Line in the Sand, now selling used for over a thousand dollars, will ever be reprinted. Is a revised, expanded edition coming?
• Carlton asked how Texans can convince the governor to declare an invasion at the border. Why won’t Abbott act, and what does that say about nullification?
• Stan asked how the TNM addresses West Coast liberals moving in and diluting the Texas electorate. Is the transplant threat real, and what is the movement’s only membership test?