Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com did a decent analysis of politics in a post-Texan-secession United States. As he puts it, if Texans follow the charge of Governor Rick Perry, Democrats would control Congress with a fillibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and Republicans would be severely weakened.
Here are a few of Nate’s key points:
- If Texas were not in the Union, the Democrats would currently have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate — or at least they would once Al Franken gets seated. This is because, in a 98-seat Senate, only 59 votes would be required to break a filibuster.
- If Texas were not in the Union, the Republicans would operate from a significantly weakened position in the House, since the net 8-vote advantage their congressional delegation gives them in the state (they have 20 seats to the Democrats’ 12) is by far their largest.
- If Texas were not in the Union, George W. Bush would never have become President in 2000 — not because he’d be constitutionally ineligible (Bush, despite his Texas twang, was born in posh New Haven, Connecticut). Rather, he wouldn’t have had enough Electoral Votes to defeat Al Gore.
Let Texas secede! Let’s build a wall to keep out the illegal Texans who try to cross our borders! Give the Republicans their own country! Let them have little government or no government, executions on every street corner, no health care, no welfare, no social security! Let them “Drill, Baby Drill!” until they’re drunk on oil as the United States of America freely moves away from oil to green technology! Let’s impose huge tariffs on imports from Texas!
Let the lunatics run the asylum! Let Texas go!
Enough exclamation points for you? Notice I’m not classifying this one under “Humor.” This Republican idea has promise.