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Notes -
There is a happening currently happening along the Texas/Mexico border which seems to be escalating in an interesting way.
The state of Texas has been taking measures to secure their border with Mexico. These measures include installing concertina wire (colloquially known as "razor wire") along the border.
A supreme court ruling said that US Border Patrol (the feds) are allowed to go into Texas against Texas's wishes and cut this wire. As /u/slowboy points out below, it is a bit more nuanced than that. There was an injunction preventing CBP from going to cut the wires, and the Supreme Court overruled it. Interesting culture war fodder: Amy Coney Barrett sided with the majority on this.
Yesterday, Greg Abbot signaled that he did not have any intention of complying with this.
Today, President Biden said that Texas has until tomorrow (Friday) to let them in. (Sorry for the low quality link here. If somebody has a better one please share it).
This does seem to be escalating rapidly. I don't see where the offramps are other than Abbot backing down. If he doesn't, what does that mean? Texas National Guard vs the Federal Government sounds awfully close to...I hate saying this, but a civil war? That's not right though since I can't imagine them shooting at each other.
This is also confusing to me politically. The border situation is not a political win for Biden. Even among liberals the cracks are starting to show. Morning Joe (msnbc show) this morning was talking about how there is a border crisis and it's the republicans causing all this illegal immigration by not doing a "Comprehensive Immigration Policy". That's obviously absurd, but it does show that liberals are willing to agree that completely open borders are suboptimal.
Edit: Trump weighs in
This, to my stupid non-lawyer brain, seems way more like an "incitement to insurrection" than anything he said on January 6th. Interesting.
So, some thoughts-
First, Greg Abbott does not take stupid risks. He has thought through, gamed out, and verified his assumptions about every aspect of this scenario, and he has a backup plan in case he turns out to be wrong. That backup plan is probably not "defect to Russia", and it's also probably thoroughly planned with assets in place to activate at a moment's notice. My first thought is "the shooting starts and we take over the pantex plant", but that seems overly dramatic. It seems very plausible that he has a plan to crash the grid in much of the country by cutting off natural gas shipments, and that would explain his timing this for January when late summer gives him political cover. It also seems implausible that support from other republican governors wasn't arranged before releasing a letter essentially claiming the federal government has lost the mandate of Heaven and so Texas doesn't have to listen to the supreme court; the twitter DR is claiming responsibility for convincing them all to throw in with him, but just think about that until you realize why it's probably not the case. At the very least, Stitt, Desantis, and Youngkin were probably in on it. I would not be surprised if there was a pre-planned border patrol mutiny or a few colonels able and willing to do something high-profile and panic-generating.
Second, Greg Abbott backing down is not going to happen unless he can cast it as a win somehow. It's unreasonable to assume the federal government will make large concessions, and the rally around the flag effect in Texas isn't proven but it's intuitively obvious. The most likely scenario to me is a high stakes standoff that goes nowhere. Federal troops shooting at state troops or arresting a sitting governor is the sort of thing that crashes the stock market when Biden's trying to treat it like so many frightened horses, so I don't expect much past posturing and defiance on either side.
Thirdly, the Friday deadline is probably China's last warning; there was a last Wednesday deadline that's come and gone too. While this assuredly represents a decline in the federal state capacity, that's the bigger story than border posturing.
Fourthly, Abbott has endorsed a series of primary challengers to accused rinos in the Texas legislature in the upcoming primary. Given that he became governor by being a constitutional lawyer with a winning record at the supreme court, he knew he was going to lose in court. The rally around the flag effect might be a benefit to him here if he's trying to get rid of enough moderates to solidify one party control over the legislature.
Further context here- https://www.themotte.org/post/824/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/178887?context=8#context
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