"Don't mess with Texas! We're serious about defending the border. "US Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick recently publicly warned the Democratic-dominated Biden administration in the media. On the Chinese Internet, Texas is called "Texas" this time, not the previous Texas, probably to avoid being confused with Texas in Shandong.
What the hell is going on in Texas? What's going on?
The Texas standoff has continued to ferment recently, with former U.S. President Donald Trump and 25 Republican governors publicly expressing their support for Texas calling for the White House. What's more, Nikki Haley, a Republican presidential candidate in the United States, said in an interview that Texas "has the right to secede from the United States."
Nikki Haley
The conflict between Texas and the U.S. federal government stems from a bill passed on Jan. 22 that would allow U.S. Border Patrol to remove part of the barbed wire fence along the Texas border. Biden's Democratic administration believes that the barbed wire fence at the Texas border should be completely removed, and they believe that the fence is inhumane because many refugees have been injured while climbing the barbed wire, and the US Supreme Court has upheld this claim.
However, the Texas government strongly opposed it, which not only directly triggered a confrontation between the Democratic-run central government and Texas, where politicians on both sides not only scolded each other, but also armed confrontations between the state-controlled National Guard and the US Border Patrol. For a time, words such as civil war and division appeared for the first time in the world's number one power after World War II.
Don't mess with Texas Is there a simple difference in immigration policy, or is there a deeper bipartisan struggle? This is an election year in the United States, how will a Texas turmoil affect American politics? As the largest state in the United States, what kind of historical and economic status does Texas have?
forced the opposition to Texas and fought for the votes of the Democratic Party
First of all, the premise is that this "rebellion" in Texas was obviously forced by the federal government of the Democratic Party, and it can even be said that it is a trap deliberately calculated by the Democratic Party.
Let's take a look at Biden's policies since he took office, according to the new tax mechanism and federal appropriation mechanism. After 2021, Texas will pay $400 billion in federal taxes, but only $200 billion will be allocated to Texas in federal grants.
There is also the well-known immigration problem, open the map and you will find that Texas accounts for half of the U.S.-Mexico border, and it is all super convenient land and water routes, unlike other states, many of which are deserts. Immigrants from Central and South America basically end up in Texas, and many end up staying. If we look at the population data, the population of Texas in 2010 has reached 25 million, and there are still 300,000 immigrants every year. According to USCIS statistics, in 2023, the number of immigrants entering the United States through illegal channels is about 3.2 million, of which 2.5 million came in through Texas. It can be said that once immigrants are opened, Texas will always bear the brunt.
Texas has a well-developed industry and many job opportunities. Every time the Democratic Party adjusts its immigration policy, many immigrants who remain in Texas will be the first to get their citizenship, and then who will they vote for?
In the face of Texas, which has been a Republican vote since the 70s, the Democratic Party can only take a little means to turn around. The solution is actually very simple, open up more immigrants and encourage them to vote. The Democrats nearly topped Texas in the 2020 election. That year, the Democrats received 43 percent of the vote in Texas.
Seeing this, you will definitely feel that the Democratic Party's approach is somewhat low-level, but let's look at what the Republican Trump did before and after his election?
In 2017, Trump sought out all the white people who never voted through racial sentiment. Then as soon as Trump took office, he kept his promise to build a wall on the Mexican border, half of which is in Texas, to help Republicans hold back immigrants and keep the iron vote warehouse.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott
Judging from this Texas confrontation, Texas has been calculated by the Democratic Party for too long, and if Trump had not come out to support them and build a border wall, then today's Texas would have been overturned by the Democratic Party. So this time, Texas Governor Abbott was also forced to jump out against Biden's Democratic Party.
As one of the few loyal followers of Trump, Abbott is not only a well-known conservative politician in the United States, but also a native of Texan, so this rebellion is also in his vital interests, after all, once the Democratic Party continues to come to power, the increase in immigration in Texas will turn around, and his position as Republican governor may also be lost.
There is Musk's second-largest state, and it has the confidence to call it
Claiming to be "invaded", often ridiculing independence, Texas calls for the US government every day, what strength does it have?
With a land area of 696,000 square kilometers, it is second only to Alaska and is the largest state in the United States by metropolitan area. With a population of more than 30 million, it is also the second largest in the United States after California.
Texas has maintained a leading position among U.S. states in oil production for many years, and could rank sixth in the world when converted into a country.
Texas is also the state with the richest agricultural resources in the United States, and its total income from livestock and livestock products ranks first in the United States all year round, and the total agricultural income ranks second in the country. George W. Bush's famous Crawford Farm is located in Texas.
Looking at economic data, in 2022, Texas' total GDP will be about 2.4 trillion US dollars, second only to California in the United States, and if it is placed in the world, it can rank eighth, and the total GDP will surpass Canada. Fifty-one of the top 500 companies in the U.S. are headquartered in Texas, second only to California and New York.
Cities such as Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas are already known as the second "Silicon Valley" in the United States. Well-known technology companies Texas Instruments and Dell have also settled in Texas. In addition, Musk also has a special relationship with Texas. In December 2023, Musk plans to create a university in Austin, the capital of Texas. In 2021, Tesla's corporate headquarters was also moved from California to Texas, and the original headquarters is now listed on the official website as Tesla's engineering headquarters, and Tesla has also built one of its four gigafactories in the United States.
Culturally and traditionally, Texas is indeed a very special area on the map of the United States. In Texas, many cities and streets are named after the people who led Texas to independence, such as Houston and Austin.
From 1690 to 1821, Texas was the territory of the Spaniards, including the cattle industry that Texas is now proud of, and in fact benefited from the earliest spread of the Spanish here. In 1821, after Mexico's independence, Texas joined Mexico over the United States for the first time.
However, just 14 years after joining Mexico, Texas went to war with Mexico, and Texas was once formed as an independent state called the Lone Star Republic, and the flag of the country became the state flag of today's Texas. Texas has also been dubbed the "Lone Star". In the 21st century, proposals for a referendum on Texas independence are not uncommon.
Civil war or farce?
Recently, the Chinese Internet has stirred up several topics such as the outbreak of the American Civil War and the division of the United States. Whether this struggle will develop into an electoral struggle or turn into internal unrest has attracted the attention of all parties around the world. According to the current data, it is very unlikely that the United States will go to civil war or long-term turmoil in the future. Chinese people don't think it's a big deal to see the excitement, and they may be disappointed again.
According to the U.S. Constitution, if any state wants to secede from the Union, it must have the support of the overwhelming majority of its citizens through a referendum. On top of that, it is necessary to transcend the president's supreme executive power and the Diet's power to interpret the country's territory. In the face of the turmoil in Texas, the future Biden administration is likely to "federalize" the Texas National Guard. So the possibility of states unilaterally and legally declaring secession from the Union is already low. Moreover, there are 24 states in the United States that explicitly oppose the confrontational attitude of Bouat's policies. Texas is not monolithic, and "blue" cities such as Houston, which are run by Democrats, have also publicly stated that cracking down on illegal immigration is not conducive to building harmonious community relations, and falling out with the federal government is obviously not mainstream public opinion.
In addition, this time the federal government and Texas are still working within the framework of the Constitution, and the main demand of the Texas government is also to oppose the Biden administration's immigration policy. While a few administration officials have spoken about independence and secession, the media has also confirmed that Governor Abbott has never explicitly spoken out against the federal government and U.S. national identity.
Finally, the United States has been the product of violence and capital since the founding of the United States, and the federal investment in Texas and the attachment of a large amount of American capital to Texas enterprises have increased the sunk cost of the state's pursuit of independence through violence.
Secession and civil war are just political gimmicks, but the negative impact of the Texas incident on the United States cannot be underestimated. From the timing, it can be found that the time of the outbreak of the Texas incident coincided with the Republican primary, and the two parties used the incident to attack each other and win public support. The Biden administration has gone even further, directly freezing the approval of LNG exports, and using energy means to deter LNG exports to a large state, that is, Texas.
The U.S. election in November will not only affect the political economy of the United States, but will also have an important impact on the global situation. Trump said that if he is re-elected president, he will mobilize all resources to defend the American border and fight illegal immigration.
As the core issue of the US election, the development of the immigration issue into an armed confrontation is obviously not the original intention of the Democratic Party, and the matter has reached this point and has already lifted a stone to shoot itself in the foot. Time should be the most important indicator to observe the events in Texas in the future, and if the Texas crisis continues for a long time, it will obviously highlight the Biden administration's ineffective handling of immigration, and the future will undoubtedly be more favorable to the Republican Party and Trump, who aspires to return to the White House.
Once Trump returns to the White House, his foreign policy will probably be more "rigid", which will have a long-term impact on the global economy and Sino-US relations.
Resources
1. How many times in the history of Texas has beebee parks become independent?
2. Texas declared a state of war? Civil war is on the verge of breaking out?
3. Hai Guozhi丨Texas and the federal government confrontation: the immigration crisis intensifies partisan strife, poster news