/ world today news/ What is happening in Eagle Pass, Texas – the confrontation between Governor Greg Abbott and the Biden administration regarding border security – is an important legal issue related to the powers of the federal government against the right of a state to defend itself.
It’s also an important political issue because border security, or the lack of it, will be the dominant issue this November.
But perhaps most of all, it is an important national question as Americans grapple with the basics: Can the federal government be trusted to provide for the common defense? Are we still one people?
Or is the polarization between red and blue so deep that both sides of the divide would be better off looking for some new constitutional solution? One that allows wall builders to get their way and sanctuary city builders to get theirs?
Am I being melodramatic? I don’t think so, but at least I’m consistent. Here at The American Conservative, in 2005 I wrote an article about uncontrolled immigration and the resulting chaos in France under the title “National Suicide.”
I noted that the problems facing the French were foreshadowed in a novel published three decades earlier, Jean Raspal’s The Camp of the Saints, which described a liberalism so deeply self-loathing that the only decision is to destroy the homeland. And we should all keep in mind John O’Sullivan’s apophthegm at the time the globalists pushed him out of National Review:
“You can have open borders, but you can’t have anything else.”
This means that mass migration is taking over everything, and the US will be no exception. (O’Sullivan has since moved to Hungary, a country that does take border security seriously.)
Meanwhile, the newspaper headlines spoke of the heated passions stirred up in and by Eagle Pass. MarketWatch described the confrontation as a “clash,” and the New York Post, a tabloid to the extreme, declared it a “war.” (At the time of writing, there was no actual violence.)
Certainly the left views the meeting in apocalyptic terms. “Eagle Pass is today’s Fort Sumter,” boomed a January 25 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Will there be a civil war? I doubt.
As I argued here at TAC two years ago, the existence of 50 separate states makes it relatively easy to foresee an internal division that would preserve the union, albeit in a modified form. (The upcoming Hollywood movie, aptly titled “Civil War,” doesn’t change my mind; the studios have proven they don’t know modern politics.)
Still, the sovereignty of states must be jealously guarded. So it’s inspiring to see Texas defend itself against foreign invasion, even against the wishes of the Biden administration. Today, no American stands taller than wheelchair-bound Greg Abbott.
What’s more, it’s encouraging that so many other governors are joining Abbott. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt was succinct and to the point: “Oklahoma stands with Texas.”
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp added: “Enough is enough. Our southern border is in crisis thanks to the Biden administration’s refusal to do its job”; Kemp added that Abbott and Texas “have our full support.”
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said: “The Biden administration has turned every state into border territory. We must stop the flow of fentanyl, save lives and secure our southern border.”
Then Idaho State’s Brad Little: “The lawless southern border threatens the lives of all Americans, including Idahoans.”
Now Nebraska’s Jim Pillen: “I was proud to order the state troopers and the Nebraska National Guard to the border last year, and Nebraska is proud to stand by Texas now.”
Alabama Executive Kay Ivey: “Texas and the states have stood up time and time again. The White House? Willfully absent. I’ve had enough.”
Doug Burgham of North Dakota said Abbott “deserves our thanks for taking action to stop the illegal crossing and interdiction of drug and human trafficking.”
Kim Reynolds of Iowa added, “When the federal government fails, states step in. Last year, Iowa sent the Iowa National Guard and state troopers to the border to stop this invasion.”
Whistleblower Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “If President Biden won’t defend us, the states will have to defend themselves. Arkansas stands with Texas.”
Length limitations preclude listing all the righteous governors, but special mention to Florida’s Ron DeSantis. His presidential campaign may have failed, but his activism as governor showed us that a state leader can shift the national debate to the right. So it’s no surprise that he was persuasive and eloquent when he threw his support behind Abbott:
“If the Constitution really made the states powerless to defend themselves against invasion, it would never have been ratified and Texas would never have joined the union when it did. Texas is following the law while Biden is ignoring it. Florida will continue to help Texas with personnel and funds.”
In fact, in just one day, 25 of the 26 Republican governors joined their Texas brother. In this way, all these heads of state have inscribed their names on the roll of honor of destiny.
Now it would be melodramatic to compare these figures to William Travis, the heroic defender of the Alamo. Legend has it that during the 1836 battle, he drew a line in the sand with his sword, asking every Texan to cross to the other side and stand by him, knowing that martyrdom awaited him. All but one person did.
But hey, stuck in the Grand Old Party, it happens to represent a state where Joe Biden got 66% of the vote.
To be sure, none of the governors are at personal risk, but the political risk may be another story. Among the 50 U.S. senators representing those 25 states, there are eight Democrats. Which one reads each state correctly?
The GOP governor who supports Abbott, or the Democratic senator who supports Biden and his national security man Alejandro Mayorkas? We’ll find out in the next few election years.
Other major players have also joined Abbott and Texas, suggesting that the wave is now a wave. Here’s what House Speaker Mike Johnson says:
“I stand with Governor Abbott. The House will do everything in its power to support him. The next step is to hold Secretary Mayorkas accountable.”
And then there’s Elon Musk, of indeterminate party affiliation but undeniably a big name on the right: “This administration is willfully breaking the law by facilitating illegal immigration on an unprecedented scale!”
We might add that “TwiX,” in its goofy digital multitudes, is now the right-wing opinion leader, eclipsing the stodgy cable operator Fox News. And Donald Trump, who took time out from his legal ordeal, added his support for Abbott.
For better or worse, Trump has a lot to do with the current Schmittian duality in American politics, but we now see that the red-blue divide has other forces moving on the ground besides him.
In fact, some purples tend toward reds. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tweeted: “Texas is right. Biden’s failure to protect the border leaves states no choice but to take matters into their own hands… A country without borders is no country at all.” .
Kennedy is officially a Democrat, so his move shows where he thinks the Zeitgeist is going.
Historians will wonder how President Biden got into this situation. He won six terms in the US Senate, portraying himself as “Middle-Class Joe” with moderate positions on all issues. Yet somehow, towards the end of his life, he lost his agility.
Obviously, part of the problem is his age, but there’s also the “deep state” that worries any president, and the even deeper abyss of Biden’s own appointments, below Mallorcas.
In 2022, AOC activist Sean McKelvey told Politico, “In fact, that’s one of the biggest reasons why: ‘Do you know how many crypto-communists are now working for the Biden administration?’
“How many ex-Bernie Sanders staffers are there who are pretty much…deep in the White House political network? The phase of revolutionary socialism has kind of faded for the left. But the flip side of that is that a lot of these people have infiltrated to the highest levels of democratic politics,” he declared.
So, here is every Republican’s fears confirmed. But here’s the thing: they are also the fears of any normal Democrat with a normal desire to win elections.
Eventually, the inside story of Gramscian subversion will be told. But in the meantime, in seeking an explanation for Biden’s behavior, we can reach for the explanatory tool provided by the eminent historian Robert Conquest.
His “third law” instructed: “The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret conspiracy of its enemies.”
This point of view is so startlingly cynical that it takes a while for one to grasp it. Yet what else could explain the administration’s devotion to a policy that even NPR admits most Americans see as enabling an “invasion”? And which according to Gallup only 26% of Americans support?
Here’s a prediction: If Texas stands firm, as state Attorney General Ken Paxton claims, the Biden administration will refrain from a real armed confrontation with Texans who are bent on the Molon Paw principle.
Biden’s DOJ will then move on to long-term legal action, and Lone Star will keep its barbed wire and add some more. Migrants and their international sponsors will then move on to softer targets, i.e. to the other three border states, all of which have Democratic governors.
This situation will continue for some time until incumbents remember the fate of a previous Democratic governor who was attacked by migrants allowed in by a previous Democratic president.
That Democratic duo was then-governor Bill Clinton and then-president Jimmy Carter, both defeated for re-election in 1980. Fidel Castro’s Mariel march was a minor factor in Carter’s defeat, but a major factor in Clinton’s defeat, as many of the Cuban criminals ended up at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas.
So, when the 2024 election approaches and migration picks up, Democrats will panic and Biden – then perhaps without the services of Mayorkas – will do something dramatic about migration. October surprise or maybe September surprise. Or, if the polls are really bad, a surprise in August.
For their part, frontier-minded patriots should seek to institutionalize what Abbott has done. They need a Red Bloc for border and national security, complete with a promise of national sovereignty that binds government officials and citizens to a Travisian commitment to the honorable defense of what is ours.
It is true that this block will not differ so much from the Republican Party, but still, as a fresh ad hoc structure, it will have a stronger focus and fewer negatives.
Not all Republicans would want to join, but Democrats and others would find it easier to join a group without elephant emblems.
And once this red block is created, it would be useful for member states to fill in all the necessary mechanisms for solidarity and common protection – well, cooperation.
As I argued here last year, what a wonderful world it would be if the Reds could pursue their bliss of secure borders, low taxes, less “woke culture”, gas powered cars and a firm no to transgenderism. Thanks to Greg Abbott and his allies, we are now on the way to achieving it.
Translation: SM
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