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Notes -
Texas Border Flareup... Again
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23A607/295564/20240112012220571_23a607%20DHS%20v%20TX%20supplement.pdf
Texas has seized a public park in Eagle Pass to take control of a 2.5 mile stretch of the border(https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-blocks-federal-border-agents-processing-migrants-eagle-pass-shelby-park/). This is a bigger deal than it seems; the only boat launch and main surveillance point for miles is located there, effectively preventing border patrol from operating over a relatively wider frontage.
Context
The State of Texas has long been adding concertina wire to the border to prevent crossings, and has been accusing the federal government of cutting it to allow migrants to cross. Recently Texas won an injunction in court blocking the federal government from doing this, and the federal government has of course appealed, but the injunction includes an exception for if cutting the wire is necessary to assist migrants experiencing a medical emergency.
So Texas seized the main surveillance point and boat launch(in this sector) for the border patrol to prevent them seeing migrants experiencing a medical emergency. For the record, I don't trust the federal government with this "medical emergency" exception either, but this is flatly illegal in, well, pretty much every way you approach it.
https://news4sanantonio.com/news/trouble-shooters/texas-blocks-border-patrol-from-entering-key-area-for-illegal-crossings
Of course the border patrol union is siding with Abbott, which would make it awkward for fedgov if they cared. Although Abbott's justification has nothing to do with the border patrol union's:
And anecdotally his fundraising emails are talking a lot more about state sovereignty than normal. It led to a twitter breakdown by Gina Hinojosa(head of the Texas democrats) accusing him of being a secessionist, and the admittedly low chance of Gina Hinojosa of all people meming Texas independence into the political mainstream through the power of negative partisanship is kind of hilarious.
But back to the topic at hand; it's unclear what Abbott's actual game is; he's an accomplished constitutional lawyer(literally; that's how he became governor) and knows he's going to lose at court. He's also never been the reckless type and so it's unlikely he did this without thinking it through. Angling for a Trump cabinet seat, maybe? It also surprises me that he did this now; primaries are coming up in March, and Abbott endorsed a relatively wide array of candidates to try to shift the house in a more partisan republican direction; taking a political risk like this one is unlike him.
On a very tangential note, I saw the Twitterati point and laugh at that upcoming movie about an American Civil War that somehow has California and Texas on the same side. Ignore the fact that that happened in my novel, but it was more that they both happened to oppose the Federal Government (well, you'd resent them a bit if they nuked every data center around to contain an AGI getting uppity, and Texas is surprisingly popular for those, not to mention glassing SF).
As such, if these secessionary sentiments ever become something more than posturing, at least I can get points for prescience.
Only people who have never seriously considered the idea could mock the possibility of an alliance between the two states with the strongest national identities against USG in a CW scenario.
They do so because it doesn't neatly follow from their political intuitions. And ignore that in an open conflict ideological loyalty is even more tenuous than normal.
Any look at Syria shows alliances of circumstance are routine. And any look at the middle east more broadly should complete this understanding with the practical reality that ideology is one of the last predictors of political loyalties if you stand to lose something more significant than your pride.
Texas and California can be friends like the IRA and the PLO.
You're not wrong and yet I feel like that if shit were to hit the fan tomorrow it would be the coastal cities vs the Mormons, the Episcopalians, and the Texans.
Episcopalians? The denomination that couldn't turn liberal fast enough and thus provoked some vicious lawsuits over parishes trying to leave? First women clergy, first trans likewise, first gay/lesbian bishops, first female primate, first first first - of course, they've never been dominant numerically and they've been leaking numbers like a sieve, but they boast of having the richest parish in the nation, of being the National Cathedral (even though you guys don't have a state church) and, under the First Female Ever, a rather desperate claim to being a mini-communion of their own - they're so international, you see, with "108 dioceses and three mission areas in 22 countries or territories" which totally makes them the equivalent of the Anglicans or the Romans!
Since the end of the tenure of the First Female Ever and her replacement by a cis, straight, male (though he is African-American), they've quietened down a lot on all that, but still - the Episcopalians versus the coastal cities? Noo Yawk is a coastal city, is it not, and that's where they're headquartered and where all their historical associations are, and you think they'd throw that over to row in with a buncha flyover rednecks?
Blaim my general ignorance of protestant denominations, I'm always getting the Congregationalists, the Episcopalians, and the Presbyterians, flipped around in my head.
All three of those are liberal Protestant groups with membership that couldn’t get older if they tried.
The largest segment of conservative Protestantism are evangelicals(mostly Baptist with a large pentecostal minority), with confessional Lutherans and continuing anglicans vying for a very distant second and groups like churches of Christ and orthodox Presbyterians being practically tiny. The supermajority of socially conservative Christians and Christian adjacent believers in the US are evangelical, catholic, or restorationist(mostly mormon). Non-evangelical conservative Protestantism and Orthodoxy(to the point where sociological surveys usually don’t bother distinguishing mass attending orthodox from Catholics) are rounding errors nationally although some of them are concentrated enough to be regionally important.
Well, I wouldn't either, if the orthodox in question are attending the sacrifice of the mass and not the divine liturgy! (this is tongue in cheek)
Maybe it's just my local area, but conservative Presbyterians seem bigger than Lutherans or the continuing Anglicans. Though I do get the sense they're much older than even the Lutherans or Anglicans, who seem to have at least a few younger members and families.
I think Presbyterians just have a hard time distinguishing themselves from the Reformed Baptists, especially given their generally low/moderate sacramental theology. My sense is that conservative Christians who get themselves interested in some Calvin just stay where they are and see their Calvinism as a theological spin on their existing denominational affiliation (heck, around here even the continuing Anglicans are calvinists, much to my chagrin). I actually think Calvinism is kind of the evangelical Protestant version of being a trad -- male, intellectual, a little stuck up. And I say this as someone who was really attracted to Calvinism before I realized I had to find a place where the eucharistic theology was unapologetically realist and baptism was regeneration ipso facto -- so you can infer from that what you will about me.
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