Secessionist sympathy has nearly doubled in the last decade. Micro-level and intermediate-level secessionist actions have taken place. But macro-level secession is still on the margins in terms of on-the-ground action. That is what needs to change. How do we get this ball rolling?

By Patrick Strickland  Dallas Observer

One Saturday in late March, I drove west on a traffic-clogged freeway toward Fort Worth, inching toward state Rep. Craig Goldman’s office. According to the Texas Nationalist Movement, a flag-waving rally was scheduled to take place between 1 and 4 p.m., one of half a dozen around the state where Texans were meant to be fighting for nationhood. Why they wanted to rally outside a state representative’s office on a Saturday, when it would be closed, wasn’t clear.

The parking lot was empty at the office complex where Rep. Goldman’s suite is located. After a few minutes, a blue pickup crept into the lot and parked briefly. A sticker on the truck’s back window read “Texas First,” but the driver rolled away, disappearing down the frontage road. Later, a green Jeep rolled up, the word “TEXIT” scrawled in chalk on the rear window. The driver waited a moment and then sped off.

None of us knew it yet, but organizers had canceled the rally. I didn’t learn that the revolution had been postponed until the next weekend when I found local Texas Nationalist Movement organizer Joe Shehan and a handful of supporters waving flags on the side of a busy road in Arlington. A towering 41-year-old from Aledo, Shehan is a newcomer to Texas independence, but he already oversees local actions for the movement in the state’s Senate District 10.

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