So how big is this thing at the border?

6 states siding against a supreme court decision to deny access to federal authorities seems big, if thats happened in my lifetime I've not heard of it before

187 comments

Probably it'll blow over in a couple of weeks. The feds next step for things like this is usually to find something they fund and pull funding...probably in this case they could just pull any border funding they give to Texas, and that would be enough for Texas to say "fuck it, we can't buy more razor wire without the funds" and give it up. That's almost always how these things end up.
If not, next step would be to use force, which at worst would result in a minor skirmish at one or two spots between the local forces and the feds. The local forces would lose that fight pretty much immediately. I would guess most of them are all talk and as soon as the feds roll up with tanks and start shooting, they'll give up because they'd rather not die for some stupid border skirmish. The feds may not even have to shoot, what tools do the local forces have to stop an APC from just running over the razor wire? The die hards might stick around and they would die, hard. Perhaps there will be some token fall guy somewhere that spends a long time in jail afterwards, we don't know about him yet because he's not going to be anyone relevant. Nobody that matters will be punished for this in any capacity, just a few local goons will die and some middle manager soldier type will be made an example of.
Either way it ends with Texas and their allied states using this as yet another campaign talking point to show how the fed is doing le government overreach, push their agenda as usual, and the racists will eat it the fuck up forever. There's no way in hell this is anything more than a political stunt, even if it gets a few folks at the border shot by the feds. A small price to pay for the GOP to push their agenda. Sure, their stunts are getting flashier and flashier because they need to, but the GOP doesn't want to balkanize so there's no way it'll go that far.
- Either way it ends with Texas and their allied states using this as yet another campaign talking point to show how the fed is doing le government overreach
  Exactly. That's the whole point of doing this for them, and the entire reason its happening in an election year.
  It is just a stunt. Its a stunt that has some really high stakes implications that should matter in a functioning society - but we don't live in one if those. We live in one where you can throw a political stunt thats equivalent to sedition and its no big deal because no one wants to deal with that, just enjoy the spectacle
- You still feel that way knowing that now it's not 6 states supporting it it's 25?
  
  I do, yes. Republicans aren't going to go to start a countrywide civil war over some razor wire on the border. That's the only other way this ends, either the funding cuts and a few local force deaths stop this, or it's literally civil war. I guess the secret 3rd option is that Biden just does nothing and Texas keeps doing what they're doing. That's also pretty likely. Either way 2 of those 3 options are basically systemically nothings, and a civil war is highly highly highly unlikely.
  
  It's option 3.
  Biden will do nothing and lose another 15 points in the polls when he clearly demonstrates he's not only full steam ahead on genocide abroad, he's also not gonna do a goddamn thing about the rapidly expanding fascism at home either.
  
  Sure, but Yugoslavia was never the heart of the imperial core. There's no way the US balkanizes over something like this, it would be completely devastating to global capitalist hegemony. They won't destroy themselves over something like this.
  
  If they really thought like this they would have made sure Bernie won so that they could buy themselves more time before worsening material conditions radicalize people.
  Objectively that would be better for the survival of capital than leaning harder into neoliberal austerity
  This is not a rational system making careful decisions
  
  were the yugoslavians not invested in not detonating the country too? civil war is generally to the common ruin of the contending interests, but in spite of not being in people's best interest it still happens
  
  I mean, Brexit was the same kind of irrational, if lower stakes.

187 comments