During an event at Texas A&M University last month, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) expressed understanding for the desire to have Texas secede from the United States, and although Cruz said that he wasn’t in support of immediate secession, he seemed to indicate that there could come a point when he’d be open to such a move. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) joined those demolishing Cruz for his nonsense. On Twitter, she posted a quote from Abraham Lincoln arguing against the notion that any state has a “right” to secede at all. Lincoln would have obviously been in a position to have spoken authoritatively on the subject.
As it went, per Cheney’s post:
‘“The right of a state to secede is not an open or debatable question…it is the duty of a President to execute the laws and maintain the existing Government. He cannot entertain any proposition for dissolution or dismemberment.” Abraham Lincoln’
“The right of a state to secede is not an open or debatable question…it is the duty of a President to execute the laws and maintain the existing Government. He cannot entertain any proposition for dissolution or dismemberment.” Abraham Lincoln https://t.co/uBx7um2vQL
— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) November 10, 2021
Originally, Cruz identified a selection of specific scenarios that he said could lead him to supporting the secession of Texas. As he put it:
‘If the Democrats end the filibuster, if they fundamentally destroy the country, if they pack the Supreme Court, if they make D.C. a state, if they federalize elections, if they massively expand voter fraud, there may come a point where it’s hopeless.’
Democrats are not threatening to “fundamentally destroy” the country in any meaningful sense — Cruz simply sounds nuts. The filibuster as referenced by Cruz is a procedural rule in the Senate that demands the agreement of at least 60 Senators before moving forward on most bills. Without it, legislation across the board could pass the Senate with the support of a simple majority of the chamber — which seems to be quite in line with the basic principles of democracy. The filibuster is not enshrined in the Constitution — it’s essentially a procedural invention. And Cruz thinks that eliminating it would be among the factors leading to the destruction of the country? He’s not a credible person — and none of that even gets to the utterly reality-disconnected nonsense of the notion that there’s “voter fraud” (along the lines Cruz means) to “massively expand” in the first place.
