Texas Secession / TEXIT / Texas Independence Movement

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Overview

Texas Secession, also known as the Texas Independence Movement or TEXIT, refers to the secession of Texas across multiple decades from the American Civil War to recent organizations supporting the idea of the state seceding from the United States and becoming an independent sovereign state. The term "TEXIT" is a portmanteau of the words "Texas" and "exit," which surfaced online in discussions about the state of Texas seceding from the U.S. amid the mid-2016 vote for the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union, colloquially known as "Brexit." The topic resurfaced on the internet in January 2024 as tensions escalated regarding the Texas Border Crisis in an ongoing standoff between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Biden Administration.

Background

Texas secession movements have been present in the United States history since the Civil War when the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White^[10] that states strictly cannot unilaterally secede except through revolution or the expressed consent of the other states. On December 4th, 2012, YouTube^[11] channel CGP Grey posted a video (shown below) titled "Can Texas Secede from the Union?", which tries to explain how the region could become an independent sovereign state and its consequences. The video amassed over 8 million views and 107,000 likes in 12 years.

Developments

TEXIT

On May 16th, 2016, the Alex Jones YouTube channel uploaded a video titled "#TEXIT: 8 Reasons for Texas Secession," which featured a list of reasons in favor of the state of Texas to declare independence from the United States (since deleted).

One of the earliest online mentions of the Texas secession movement around this same timeframe was posted on June 24th, 2016, in an article from The Texas Tribune^[12] titled "Texplainer: If Brexit Can Happen, Can Texit?" The piece compared the United Kingdom's Brexit movement to see if it was actually legal for Texas to leave the United States.

Texas Independence Referendum Act

On January 26th, 2021, the first version of the Texas Independence Referendum Act (HB 1359), a bill to provide for a nonbinding statewide referendum on secession, was filed by Texas House member Kyle Biedermann.^[13] The bill was never given a hearing or voted on by the committee before the end of the session but gave the first sparks of the "TEXIT" movement online.

For example, on January 26th, 2021, the creator of the bill shared on his X^[14] account a call out saying, "… is the time for the People of Texas to have the right to decide their own future." The post (shown below) amassed roughly 1,300 likes and 820 retweets in three years.

Online Reactions

On June 19th, 2016, The Guardian^[1] published an article titled "Why not Texit?", reporting that the Texas Nationalist Movement was promoting the secession of Texas from the United States with the "Texit" portmanteau. On June 23rd, the referendum for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union ended with 51.89 percent voting in favor. The following day, the hashtag "#Texit"^[4] began trending on Twitter (shown below).

On June 25th, 2016, The Guardian's "Why Not Texit?" article was submitted to the /r/nottheonion^[2] subreddit where it gathered upwards of 7,600 votes and 6,200 comments in six months. On June 26th, Redditor Fat_Guy_With_Snacks posted a Polandball style comic about Texit to the /r/stateball^[3] subreddit (shown below).

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the trending hashtag, including Fox News,^[6] Yahoo News,^[7] NY Daily News,^[8] Vice News^[9] and Breitbart.^[5]

2024 Texas Secession Discourse

The standoff between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Biden Administration in January 2024 instigated TEXIT and Texas secession content to go viral on social media. For example, on January 31st, 2024, TIkTok^[15] user @nekoashi222 posted a comedy skit video (shown below, left) pretending that Texas was able to secede from the United States, amassing more than 437,000 plays and 28,000 likes in a day.

On January 29th, TikTok^[16] user @rayansajidgoat posted an explanation video on what would happen to Texas if it were an independent country. The video (shown below, right) received more than 4 million plays and 320,000 likes in three days.