I don't think most users here understand how serious this situation is. I have lived my entire life in Texas. In the eyes of most people here, the Federal government is actively blocking their attempts to defend themselves from a (peaceful) invasion. In the eyes of people here, the enemy isn't in Moscow or Beijing anymore, its in Washington. Keep in mind that we really do think of Texas as its own country. We even have a national beer. It's not like the rest of the US.
1957: Gov Faubus attempts a ridiculous political stunt, even mobilising the AK Nat'l Guard, but Eisenhower federalises them, and —the guard having been an actual well regulated milita— they follow orders so the stunt is over.
1963: Gov Wallace attempts a ridiculous political stunt, but Kennedy federalises the AL Nat'l Guard, and —the guard having been an actual well regulated militia— they follow orders so the stunt is over.
2024: Gov Abbott attempts a ridiculous political stunt, even mobilising the TX Nat'l Guard, and... ?
Western society and especially the US are wide open to manipulation, the unregulated nature of the internet + free speech are an amazing propaganda weapon for foreign adversaries (it’s likely a significant portion of posters on this site are part of influence campaigns, and a certainty on the big social networks).
Not saying grievances in TX are not from real Texans, but like during BLM they are being played and manipulated for wider outside goals. Absolutely nothing good would come out of an attempt at secession or civil war, Americans do not have a realistic assessment of what horrors await if we go down that route.
There was a story on HN a couple of weeks ago where the article mentioned China actively having some number of millions of shills/bots/ai/etc which they use to carefully manipulate public opinion within the Chinese internet.
Do people really not believe that some percentage of those resources, and resources from other countries as well, aren't being used to manipulate the population of rival countries via the internet as well?
I firmly believe we're already actively deep in a cold war, where countries are trying to take down other countries, without firing a single shot, by using the internet (among other forums) to convince citizens in rival countries to believe in ideas and to act in ways that will in the end harm their country and society.
Now we're seeing people, usually younger / more internet connected people, all of the sudden have radically different ideas and belief systems than all the generations that came before them. Quite suspicious isn't it?
I was on Chinese TikTok: Douyin, I only saw two videos reporting this, it is a recording from a news reporting with translation on top of it. The video clip is 30s long. That's it. To be honest, I don't think many Chinese care/know what's going on.
[I didn't read the bbc article, and do not know what it is talking about, just providing some information for you all]
I just watched Musk's "what's going on at the border" video from four months ago (I usually don't, today I randomly clicked.) The next in queue was a legal guy discussing the talk of succession. People are really going on about it. Not just people, the politico.
People want it. No shots are fired, though we live in a different age and this is sort of how things are done.
They should go for it. I mean, TX does have a 1 for 2 record on secession, and although the Union (assuming Texian antiship tech isn't much better than the Houthi's) should be able to hold Houston, Nederland, and Corpus Christi (as well as Port Fourchon should the Texians attempt to take it), sadly Austin (and its weirdness?) would probably be lost... ;-P
What China’s media are reporting is a bit more than “talk of secession”:
> Social media users in China on Friday, for example, were able to read reports that Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis is sending up to 1,000 members of the National Guard to Texas
I live in a country much closer to the US sphere of influence, and even here the news is reporting that Americans are claiming Taylor Swift will use witchcraft to influence the 2024 election. My parents always told me "when you read news about the Old Country, remember it's not as bad as it sounds", so I have to assume that anyone looking to run an "Americans Do Weird Things" story (much like US news orgs used to run Japanese Do Weird Things stories back in the day) doesn't have to look far to find sources.
