Daniel Miller opened this Late Night Coffee Talk with a guest driveby. Executive vice president Nate Smith and chief of staff Daphne Armor stopped in to tease the Texan Arise campaign, a statewide series of free volunteer training workshops built to plug supporters into the campaign and election process. They announced the first location: Rudy’s Barbecue in New Braunfels on October 2, the anniversary of the Battle of Gonzales, better known as Come and Take It Day. The goal is to train a thousand new campaign volunteers over the run of the effort.
From there it was into the questions, and the recurring theme was the same one driving everything in Texas politics right now: people are fed up with their representation, and the country feels like it is splintering. Miller spent real time on the climate of hostility after Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller reported death threats against Texas elected officials, including the governor. He argued we are closer to balkanization than at any point he can remember, that there are not two clean sides to a civil war but a country fracturing into a thousand pieces, and that the answer is to let each state become independent and then associate however it chooses. He returned again and again to his litmus test for candidates: have they signed the Texas First Pledge at taketexasback.com.
On the practical front, he handled the most-asked question of all, what happens to federal pensions and Social Security after independence, and pointed people to texitnow.org for the documented answers. He made the case that the real risk is staying chained to an insolvent federal system, not leaving it, and reminded viewers that Texas overpays the federal government 103 to 160 billion dollars a year that it never gets back. He also committed to writing a longer piece on the full slate of independence-advancing legislation, from a strategic reserve to currency to water infrastructure.
Questions answered in this episode
- If Texas becomes independent, what happens to federal employee retirement pay, Social Security, and Medicare benefits?
- Sid Miller says Texas elected officials, including the governor, are receiving death threats. What is driving this climate, and what does it mean?
- With states on the West Coast and the eastern seaboard talking about seceding to merge with Canada or form their own blocs, how should we view those secession schemes?
- Will Chip Roy help the cause of Texas independence if he is elected, and how can voters hold candidates accountable?
- Is there a TNM chapter in the Rio Grande Valley, and how do you get involved locally?
- If we regain independence, how do we stop the same people who hijacked the United States from co-opting Texas the same way?
- Is Representative Hunt running for Senate?
- Could the TNM give priority status to water conservation and infrastructure bills, the way it has with other priority legislation?
- What other initiatives can the TNM push in the Texas Legislature to reduce dependence on the federal government, such as a currency bill or a Texas strategic reserve?
- Has John Boucher signed the Texas First Pledge?
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