Three days after Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Daniel Miller settled in for a packed Late Night Coffee Talk and spent much of it on a single uncomfortable truth. Texans are getting things they have wanted for years. Movement on the border and immigration, the issue that has topped Texas voter concerns for roughly two decades. Cartels named as foreign terrorist organizations. A renamed Gulf. The problem is the mechanism. Almost all of it arrives by executive order, and Miller’s warning was blunt. Anything given by the stroke of a pen can be taken away by the stroke of a pen. The precedent is set, the pendulum swings, and the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can undo every bit of it.
Miller traced the imperial presidency back to Alexander Hamilton, a man he holds in open contempt, and his appetite for an elective monarchy and a strong executive that the Constitution was never quite built to restrain. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, each grew the office, each drew howls from the other side, and the office kept growing. Under it all sits the federal superstate and the permanent bureaucracy that actually runs things no matter who holds the title. His point to the optimists was not to let off the gas. It was the opposite. A friendlier climate is a reprieve, not a finish line, and the right response is to put the pedal down on the work that builds real independence rather than wait on a referendum.
He pointed to the concrete proof that decoupling is already on the table. Rep. Andy Hopper, a Texas First Pledge signer, filed a bill on the heels of the January 6 pardons that would bar state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal arrests and warrants unless the Texas attorney general signs off. Miller framed last session’s transactional gold measure the same way, as Texas inching toward its own currency. He celebrated the homecoming of pardoned J6 defendants Mark and Jalise Middleton, gave an update on the year-long county reorganization now active in 60 counties, and congratulated Angelina County as the very first to cross the threshold and launch under the new leadership structure.
Questions answered in this episode
- Should the movement keep treating the word “secession” as taboo, or embrace it now that the public seems to be warming to it?
- Did taxpayers ever get a full accounting of what the 2024 impeachment effort against Attorney General Ken Paxton actually cost?
- Why do so many people put their faith in one man, like Trump, to reform a bloated and overreaching central government?
- Will the Texas House post the “unusual circumstances” days, when the gallery was closed, on its public calendar?
- Is there any way to stop Democrat committee chairs from being appointed in the Texas House?
- After independence, could Texas rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Texas?
- How can viewers get written transcripts of these videos?
- What would happen to the national parks in Texas once Texas is independent?
- Has the TNM had conversations with the governor, the AG, or other officials about independence, and how did they react?
- Does the TNM have someone in mind to carry this year’s TEXIT bill in the legislature?
- Given the new administration, is now a real opening to push for independence, or will global and border politics hold Texas back?
- Has the Republican Party of Texas done anything further to push the TEXIT referendum?
- How would buying and trading stocks work once Texas reasserts its independence?
- How would an independent Texas keep the cartels from turning it into the next Mexico?
Comments have moved. The real debate about Texas independence now happens with thousands of Texians in the app.
Get the TEXIAN app
