Will the Texas Border Confrontation Cause A Civil War? (No)

Season one was made a big splash. Now, we kind of covered the dystopia beat in general, but today we're getting back to our mother fucking roots because the state of Texas has recently declared a big old fuck you to the federal government r having its National guardsmen deploy razor wire at the border and stop border patrol people from, for example, performing rescues of people who are trapped in

the water drowning. It's a whole thing. At least three migrants have already died as a result of this fuckery by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, and now, like, I don't know, twenty states something near to that have There may be more by the time you hear this, but something like twenty states have declared that they're in support of Governor Abbott's refusal to let the Feds in and insistence that he's dealing with an invasion and must take on the

border texas'self, and some of those states are now sending or at least claim they're going to send national guardsmen. So when this all started happening, we all got a lot of messages. I got about a billion from people being like, is this it? Is this the civil war? And obviously a big chuck of that comes from right wing memes because they are all talking about like, yeah,

let's do it, Let's have us a civil war. We're all going to start fighting over some guy posted his handgun collection like we're ready.

on the border. So you know, how serious is this and is this the kind of thing that's going to lead to a twenty four's New Civil War movie, and

my quick take on this is no, probably not. I think what this is is in fact, a governor stretching out his authority and testing how much he can get away with against the overall federal government, because he and a lot of other conservative governors want to do things that are directly in contravention of the Civil Rights Act, of the Bill of Rights, of numerous federal protections for

their citizens. And this is kind of a way of being like, well, if they won't fuck with us over this, then we can probably start imprisoning journalists and you know, killing people that or at least imprisoning people that otherwise we would not be able to write like this is a right wing power grab, and it's an attempt to see is the central government weak enough that we can get away with this stuff. I don't think they're all

going to start shooting at each other. I don't think Greg abbott is wants to get in the shooting war with the federal government over Mostly the dimensions of the crisis are gend up and fake in terms of what he is claiming it is. There is, in fact the humanitarian crisis at our border, but that's not what his issue is. So that's my quick take. We're going to

get into more of all of that. But James, you are our resident border correspondent correspondent, and you have some very strong feelings on how all of this has been interpreted in the media. So I wanted to pull to you first and then we'll get to Mia and we'll just kind of roundtable after that.

context free. Like there are people, as there always are with the border, and there always are with the right, who just tourists outside things that they understand and try and generate clicks by geeing up the fear of a civil war. And yes, I've seen dozens of people sharing headlines about national Guard deployments. So happened years ago. The National Guard have been deployed to our border for years.

I see national Guard troops every day. I had a National Guard guy shooting me and shoot at me, shout at me.

aren't getting any of their federal deployment benefits. So they won't be getting the tricare, they won't be getting the time towards their retirement, they won't be getting their GI bill, etc. So, like the Texas guys who are deployed on state orders are really the National Guard are getting barked by Greg Abbott like it's laughable that that, like, you know, he's pretending that he cares about Texas while actively screwing over and Rober and I have spoken to some of those

Texas National Guard folks last time we were in Texas did not seem to be super motivated to be They're the only military unit i've seen tried to form a union because they're not in a federal they're not in a federal orders, so they're going to attempt to form a union.

pro and anti immigration. It's like, no, there is a fight between whether you think these people should be killed incredibly quickly by a combination of razor wire and rivers, or whether you think they should starve the death.

his understanding, it seems of a lot of things. But the Biden administration's policy is to deter people by making crossing more difficult and more dangerous, which de facto makes it more deadly. What Abbot is doing with his razor wire and his floating fence is a version of the same thing. Like they are not distinctly different. When everyone was up and now it's about the three people drowning.

That's a tragedy. At eight hundred and fifty people died crossing the border in twenty twenty two, that was a normal day. Like the distinction is maybe in degree, but really it's an aesthetic between Abbott and Biden on this, and it's just two dudes chest stump each other trying to not look weak. There is not an option in the US system which allows you to vote for the party that doesn't want migrants to die like that. Both of the parties are completely in lockstep on that.

treatment in decent lives. This is a fight that the left has lost comprehensively, mostly in large part because the left has completely given up on it, which is why you've got fucking a lot of these nasbol assholes saying shit like you know this is we have like saying basically protectionist, nativist kind of shit these yes, right, because.

they don't have the language skills. There are people who have the language skills who don't who don't get these jobs, and are people who don't have the language skills and who don't have the understanding of how the border on the ground works as opposed to immigration policy in DC works. And you're going to see a lot of people who don't live at the border, who don't come to the border, writing about the border and yeah, that's how we got here, and that's how we're getting to this largely like a

giant panic about a nothing burger. But yeah, it's the reporting has been in continued to be responsible, and that is in some degree complicit.

the same policy. He doesn't care, right, Like, there's not actually substantive disagreements except over like whether it should be like some like a really super political stunt over whether it should be like federal troops like on or like federal agents like on the border, or whether it should be the razor wire like he doesn't care.

It's just a dick measuring contest that goes too far. I just don't think this is the dick measuring contest. But to be fair, it will be something this dumb. Don't worry, folks, don't worry. If we do start shooting each other, it will be just as stupid as this.

I mean, we saw in twenty eighteen, right, and we've covered this extensively, the Tree of Life shooting was in large part motivated by right wing rhetoric about a caravan of migrants. I was in Tijuana in twenty eighteen. I spent months of my life helping people down there. Like anyone who's scared of those people is paranoid to say, at least right that they were mostly fine, wonderful, very

friendly people. I spent Christmas with them. But yeah, the twenty eighteen Tree of Life shooting came from paranoia about the border. We're seeing that same paranoia from right wing media and from liberal media now, and I think that it would not be unreasonable to have that fear of individual acts of violence and terrorism along the border.

their revolutionaries. Now that said, what is the right thing to do, because like the the what the Biden administrations seems to be doing right now is largely kind of ignoring it. I think at some point they will probably try to nationalize the Guard and we'll see what happens. Then. One thing that's kind of worth noting is that this has primarily gone viral on right wing media. I'm seeing very little of this on like mainstream centrist like liberal

media sources. And I'm seeing little on this because like most of those sources don't really care about the border. Unless there's some way to like drum up fear against migrants like that, they'll do a caravans story. But this

just this just simply doesn't sell. I think when it comes to like what is a responsible way to report on this, I think you have to start by centering what's actually happening to the migrants, what's being done to them, as opposed to focusing on this Dick measuring, because that's the actual harm here. The harm here is not that Abbott has been mean to the border patrol, and it's not that Texas and these other states, these rebel states,

are raising an army to fight the federal government. It's that there's this argument between the people in power and our country about like how bad should things be for people who are already desperate? And I think that's where you should center your focus. Also, I've just noticed this on my other screen. This is a bit off topic, but you know that movie Rebel Moon by Zack Snyder.

Oh god, An, there's an ad for the canned water company Liquid Death that just is showing a bunch of like Imperial troops from that movie beating a man and then drinking Liquid Death water as they relax afterwards. And it's the most unhinged ad I've ever seen. It's like running aside a box article. I've never seen anything like this before. It's just like, what the wait a second, what,

Zack Snyder? Come on, you can't do Zach's no, that fucking guy, Jesus talking of advertising, Buy some Liquid Death. We're back.

you know what you're doing. You can can stuff that is in season and get it really cheap from the grocery store. And you can pickle and do other kinds of can't pressure canning. It's really economical and it will last a long time. If you are going to spend a shitload of money on storable freeze dried food, you're going to be spending a bunch of money anyway. Just go buy Mountain House. Buy Mountain House. It's the good stuff. It's tasty. As far as I know, no right winger

advertises on them and it's actually pretty good food. Yeah, that's what I keep in my car for emergencies. You will not shit ever ever again. Yeah, you may never poop again, but the fucking biscuits and gravy breakfast selection there. Man, when you're alone in the mountains, that ship is fucking fire. Oh my god. Yeah, that will.

Part two. Here's a link if you want to take part, Like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

and you can't buy from anyone else. But yeah, the idea that people are going to spend all their money like driving across the country. It is also just very like there's the meme right of the like the old white guy wearing Oakley wrap around or fake Oakley wrap around sunglasses doing a selfie video in his car to

rent about like anything and everything. But like, I think it's very illustrative of how many of these people don't feel safe outside their vehicles and like need the activism to involve their their.

both have trucks. One of the things about trucks that is nice is that being in a truck, you're elevated above the rest of the road, right, oh yeah, And that that gets to a lot of people's heads, especially if they have absolutely nothing else going on in their lives, which nobody participating in this fucking caravan does, so they this is like it's it's it's there, it's emotional support. Right,

They're sitting in their truck, They've got their gun. They're not breathing hard because they have to like walk around the world, and they they would desperately prefer that they can. That's where how their activism, that's how their participation in the Second Civil War will occur. Yeah, truck A bunch of bunch of fucking wankers. Yeah, So I do want to get into kind of like what we do feel

is the actual threats of this. Again, I think the danger here is you've got a lot of kind of fights going down about like how far can governments take their anti trans legislation, How mean can they be to undocumented immigrants, Like how much violence can they deploy in deporting people? What can they do to journalists? What can they do to people speaking out or engaging in protests

without violating the Bill of Rights? You know? What can they do to marginalized communities about virrelating the Civil Rights Act? I think this is an attempt to set a precedent for ignoring federal control so that they can be crueler to large groups of people within their purview. And I think a lot of this is a reaction to this is kind of there, what if we lose this election? Right? I think there is a fear, and I don't necessarily

think this fear is actually like born out. I don't think the rights national hopes in terms of its ability to get elected again after Trump are as poor as people want them to be, as I might want them

to be. Yeah, but I think there is real fear among the right that if Trump doesn't win this, they're not going to win the presidency again, right, And I think part of what they are doing is setting up all, right, then we will just take over and take increasing autonomy in our red states, and we will effectively govern them very differently and govern them in contravention of how the rest of the country and how the federal government how the Supreme Court says that they can be governed because

we can't be cruel enough without that, And I think that is what they are stepping up to be able to do. If you're asking what do I think will be sort of like line crossings that could lead to mass social violence in this country? One thing, I don't think they're going to take that leap. While a Democrat is in control of the federal government and the defense Department.

I think they will push for a violent crackdown on everything left of the far right if they win power again, because they talk about that repeatedly, because they promised to do that. Yeah, and I think that if they lose, there's an off chance. I don't think this is likely, but it's not impossible that protests and violence as acts of protest against Biden winning a second term could snowball into something that resembles an insurgency. Not impossible. I don't

think that's the likeliest outcome. But I don't see them starting to shoot at federal troops now while Biden is in the White House for one thing. I feel like that's the thing that would really clinch it for Biden. If Texas National Guard trying to secede, well, you've made his reelection campaign easier, right because now none of the red states, like none of the states that secede, You can't also have an election where those states get to vote, right, Like,

that's just not the way it works. Yeah, So I don't feel like that's the likeliest thing. I think this is. Yeah, I think I've made it clear what I think, and I think it's really clear that it's time for our second ad break.

War one, and that is incredibly misleading. It's it's it's it's basically it's like a marketing thing, right because like, and this is only thing we've talked about on this show for like literally since day one, is that like a civil war in the United States is not going to look like a bunch of states like form an alliance and then all in they're fighting all of the other states. Like it's it's not going to look like that. It's going to look closer to Syria than it is

going to look like like the first Civil War. But people haven't shaken like the sort of like brain worms of a civil war is like sixteen states fight sixteen states, even though every single civil war that we've had, like in the intervening like one hundred, like two hundred years, has not been that.

actually be a problem for the US. However, that does not look like sixteen states declaring themselves seceded and going to because that's a conventional war. And you know what happened if Greg Abbott started a conventional war against the US. Greg Abbott doesn't have a fucking bunker, right like we could we could, he could be he could be blown up. He is again nothing against being in a wheelchair, but this is not a man who is capable of like

living underground and hiding from federal bombers. Like that's just not the kind of conflict that you need to be concerned about.

outrage loop, but you still have to. You still have to go after them for this, right, And it's the kind of thing it's probably like too much to hope for any real action being taken, But I would say that's probably the smarter option, right, not to say anything of what the most moral thing to do is, but the smart option is don't feed into the fundraising loop, because we should probably get in on that this is all a fundraising thing, right in addition to them testing

the waters. That's the biggest dimension of this is and that's why we talked earlier. All of these guys Timpoole and Jack Pisoviec and I'm sure the Daily Wire guys are in now are like advertising your storable foods companies and shit. The point of all this all right wing messaging. All far right messaging starts as a grift. It all starts with a product to sell. That's, by the way, how guns became so enmeshed with the far right right.

A lot of gun companies realized that, like Americans only need so many guns for like reasonable self defense and hunting and even even recreational purposes. There's only so many guns a man could shoot at a time. But you can really get people to stockpiles shit like crazy if you convince them they're like preparing to be guerrilla fighters in a future civil war. And so and a lot of these like gun tuber influencers, that's kind of where

they increasingly went because that's where the money was. And so this becomes more and more of a part of right wing politics because a lot of people on the right have a lot of money to be made in messaging this kind of stuff and selling this kind of stuff. The same thing is true with the civil warshit it's true with these like fears that the government. You know, we can sell you storable food, we can sell you fucking bunkers. All of this stuff comes out of some

sort of financial grift. And the biggest thing that most of the people involved and this are hoping for Fucking Jack Pisobiec doesn't want to be fucking hiding underground getting bombed by the US Air Force. Jack Pisobiec wants to make another million dollars off of affiliate sales of bullshit. Right, Yeah, that's what And a lot of these people, these guys doing this caravans to the borders, they're not planning on

spending their own money on gas. They're hoping that they can crowdfund a shitload of money and I'm sure one of them will steal all of it and run away, right, That's what usually happens with this kind of shit. But that's what they're all hoping to do. And so that's kind of the over if you want to actually hurt them, if you're looking at where do we how do we draw a strategic victory out of this, find a way to damage their ability to profit off of this shit?

And I do think part of it is not making this as big a story as that otherwise might be. But that's not simply enough, because the Right is large enough that just through their media hyping this up, they can make a decent amount of money off this stuff, so more complex solutions are needed.

the primaries. But if they don't make if they don't stick the landing with Trump, I think Abbott is waiting in the wings to make perhaps a more competent fascists than Trump and make an attempt at running for the presidency.

There was like, there were mass demonstrations, there was like critical pleasure being applied, and we didn't go far enough. Part of the reason we didn't go far enough is a lot of people fucking a lot of very optimistic political groups, like including like PSL et cetera, et cetera, like hijacked a lot of these things and pulled people

off of occupations. But you know, there was actually there were there have been periods in my lifetime, like not that long ago where there was actually forward progress being made about this shit, to the point where like even that we're like the Democrats were trying to co opt it. And it doesn't fucking have to be like this, Like we don't We don't have to have hundreds of people fucking dying at the border every year. We don't have to have people in open air fuck prisons. It doesn't

have to be like this. We can fight them and we can win, but it requires actually, like it requires actually going and fighting and you know you have you have to act. You have to actually be willing to do this. You have to be willing to commit to the organizing.

not like howling about it. Yeah, yeah, you know, like this this, this, this country is going to go into fucking oblivion and we are we are going, like you're you're going to see in your lifetime the US government shooting people on the border, like with machine guns, right if you if we don't stop this fucking now, that is that is what you are going to live to see. And it does not We don't. We don't have to, We don't have.

I don't know. Go to sleep with dreams of a Jdam taking out Greg Abbott right in the Austin Capitol Building just bam baby. It won't happen, but it is a funny thing to think about.