Audio By Carbonatix
It’s getting near Christmas, and as far as we’re aware, Texas has yet to secede from the Union. Even Governor Rick Perry thinks it’s a bad idea, and he looks like the sort of man who’d snort wasabi on a bet.
But the Texas Nationalist Movement is still feeling pretty optimistic about the whole secession thing (even though the link above, courtesy of Gawker, explains that we can’t actually do that, nor can any other state). We first wrote about TNM just after the election, when TNM’s president, Daniel Miller, called President Obama’s re-election “a descent into the final destruction of the republican form of government envisioned by the Founders of the United States and Texas.”
Just yesterday, TNM managed to get a U.S. News & World Report columnist to write about their “skyrocketing membership” and “slammed website,” although she does note that the only source for those claims is TNM themselves.
Meanwhile, TNM’s “media coordinator” Dave Mundy writes on their website that the group is becoming “a political force to reckon with in the Lone Star state.” He knows this because of Facebook likes.
Mundy notes that TNM’s Facebook page “has topped 33,500 ‘likes,'” more than either the Texas Democratic or Republican Party official pages.” That’s correct, although, to be fair, Texas Republicans are probably just busy enjoying their absolute hold on the Legislature, or else waiting for their grandchildren to come over and show them how Facebook works. The Texas Democrats, meanwhile, have allowed themselves to get drawn into a pissing contest with the secessionists over Facebook likes, which they are losing (a feeling they should be used to, being Texas Democrats).
“We realize that yes, it’s just Facebook, and there’s no way to really equate that to votes,” Mundy quotes Miller as saying. “But I think it’s indicative of the growing interest in who we are and what we’re doing. We’ve brought the issue of Texas independence into the mainstream.”
Mundy adds, “Could the TNM be considering mounting a ‘third-party’ run at state offices in 2014?” He could probably answer that rhetorical question, since he’s part of the group he’s writing about. But instead, he quotes Miller again, who says it “may be premature to forecast.”
“We’re going to continue to work with our elected officials at the local and state level,” Miller says. “There are a lot of issues in addition to independence that we can weigh in on. It would do little good to win Texas independence if we have the same old people in charge, all we’d be doing is trading one bad system for another.”
TNM appears to be serious about upping their political involvement, though; as Mother Jones noted today, they filed paperwork Tuesday with the Texas Ethics Commission, appointing a treasurer for the newly formed Texas Nationalist Movement Political Action Committee. MJ correctly notes that Rick Perry probably can’t expect a donation, but that the the guy who changed his middle name to SECEDE is likely first in line.
