Back behind the microphone after weeks out sick, Daniel Miller opened a backlog of viewer questions and spent the bulk of the night relitigating how the Republican Party of Texas killed the TEXIT referendum in 2024. His read: the SREC nearly voted it down in late 2023, then forced the movement to deliver petition signatures anyway, and the final rejection came not from the party but from one man, then-chairman Matt Rinaldi, acting as the authority under the Texas Election Code. The stated reasons, an argument about the filing deadline and the use of electronic signatures, were flimsy. The real tell, Miller argued, was Rinaldi’s own admission on the Chris Salcedo Show that the petition would draw “the wrong kind of people.” By dragging out the rejection to the edge of the new year, Rinaldi ran out the clock on any court relief and silenced roughly 140,000 Texans who had signed.
On the question of when independence actually arrives, Miller was blunt: it happens by design or by default. Either Texans make the decision and drive the timeline, or it comes as a byproduct of a collapsing United States. One of those paths, he said, is far more optimal than the other, and sitting it out only stretches the timeline. He also previewed two books headed for release. The Tethered Sovereign, three years in the making, is a deconstruction of the Texas v. White Supreme Court case with a foreword by Brian McClanahan, now in final editing. The second, Crossing the Line, began as an attempt to aggregate institutional knowledge and grew into a 400-to-500-page, 30-year retrospective on the modern Texas independence movement, expected in the fall.
The rest ranged across the looming GOP convention, where Miller noted the party cannot afford to alienate a single voter given soft polling and an internal civil war, Houston’s standoff with Governor Abbott over ICE cooperation that cost the city state funding, and the long-running fight over how Texas history is taught after the State Board of Education tried to strip “hero” from references to the Alamo defenders.
Questions answered in this episode
- How soon can Texas realistically separate from the rest of the Union?
- Why did the Republican Party reject the TEXIT referendum in 2024, and who was actually responsible?
- What would be the highest-priority and most contentious negotiation between a Republic of Texas and the United States?
- What is the status of the Travis County ruling on the Epic Neighborhood case?
- What is Daniel’s read on the upcoming Republican Party of Texas convention?
- What is happening with the Texas history curriculum and the State Board of Education?
- Should the TNM recruit a celebrity or influencer to promote the movement?
- When is Daniel’s new book coming, and will it be on Audible?
- What do you make of Houston defying Abbott on ICE and losing state funds?
- Are there local groups that meet to discuss the issues, and how do you connect with them?
- Will TEXIT have a booth at the GOP convention this year?
- Can you do a full breakdown of the Bellamy pledge?
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