Not Ready To Break Up?
Miles north of SMU, where U.S. 75 crosses Beltline Road, a Ford truck painted the color of a MAGA hat sported a sticker urging a massive expansion of Texas’ international border.
“Make Texas A Country Again,” proclaimed the decal in the rear window.
“Now there’s an idea whose time has come,” says Mataca.net, a website that offers a range of shirts, hats, and other products to “Let them know how you feel!”
How seriously should other Texans take such decidedly unpatriotic messaging?
Probably not so much, says a researcher who authored a study recently published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“We don’t find strong evidence of California or Texas wanting to secede,” said Klaus Desmet, the Ruth and Kenneth Altshuler Centennial Interdisciplinary Professor of Economics at SMU. “Although occasionally there are calls for secession there, these movements tend to be quite small and anecdotal.”
His recent research with colleagues at UC3M (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain) explored how regional differences in identity and per capita income influence secessionist movements.
Researchers looked at 173 countries with 3,003 subnational regions, like Texas and California in the United States or Canadian provinces in Quebec and Ontario.
“What we found is striking: separatism would be alive and well even if there were no income differences between regions, whereas it would almost completely die out if everyone spoke the same language,” Desmet said. “From this, we can conclude that the key driver of secessionist sentiment is identity rather than income.”
State Rep. Bryan Slaton (R-Greenville) recently filed H.B. 3569, titled the “Texas Independence Referendum Act” and dubbed “TEXIT” by Slaton. The bill seeks a referendum on whether the state should seek secession.
Perhaps the Van Zandt County legislator should enroll in one of Desmet’s classes.
People Newspapers editor William Taylor, who enjoys singing the national anthem at ball games and Rotary Club meetings, wishes lawmakers like Bryan Slaton would also act “Proud to be an American.”
