A Texas secessionist warned the United States that Alex Garland’s Civil War was “pouring gasoline on the fire” of “Texit” arguments, as he renewed calls for a referendum on the Lone Star State’s split from the union.
Daniel Miller, the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, said the movie was “not as implausible as some people would have you believe.” The film depicts the U.S. military dropping bombs on its own citizens and a president barricaded inside the White House in fear of separatist rebels.
The campaign for Texas to secede from the union through a referendum and restore its independence after almost 200 years is still confined to a relative fringe movement. But polling has suggested that the movement is gaining traction, with a Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey showing that 33 percent of voters would back independence if a referendum was held.
“The release of movie, and now that people are actually getting to see it, is again pouring gasoline on the fire of the conversation around Texit,” Miller said on his podcast Texas News, mirroring the “Brexit” portmanteau used to describe Britain’s exit from the European Union.
Newsweek has contacted Daniel Miller and representatives for Alex Garland for comment via email.
Miller continued: “People may say: ‘Look, it’s a movie. It’s Hollywood. Why would you give it that much thought?’
“Simply because there is a clear nexus between what is portrayed in that movie and current political discourse around the issue of Texas independence.”
Texas was an independent nation for almost 10 years between declaring independence from Mexico in 1836 and being annexed by the U.S. in 1845. Its declaration of secession alongside other southern states in 1861 led to the Civil War, the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. Renewed calls for secession have largely intensified over the federal government’s handling of migration across the U.S.-Mexico border.
Miller said the “opposition has used the idea of civil war,” which is depicted in the film, to “bludgeon Texit supporters repeatedly.”
The movie follows a group of journalists traveling across the U.S. amid the Second American Civil War, hoping to reach Washington, D.C., before it falls to rebel factions—made up of Texas and California.
Miller said the movie’s plot, although fictional, “plays out aspects of Texas that [the Texas Nationalist Movement] has addressed for years.”
“It’s almost as if Alex Garland combed through old TNM Q&A sessions from my speeches or interviews that I’ve given. So many aspects of that movie, when you unpack them, are things we have talked about or dealt with,” he continued.
“I’m not asking for my name in the credits,” Miller said, adding, “but I think it is important to acknowledge that a good bit of what we are seeing in the background of this movie are issues that we have addressed repeatedly.”
He said he hoped the film’s crew had not seen any of his content because he wanted a third party to independently come to “the same conclusions” on how he thought a Texan secession would play out.
Miller said the movie had “elicited a tremendous amount of discussion about the future of independence and the future of the United States.”
Concluding his thoughts on the movie, Miller said he wanted to avoid the dystopian situation portrayed in Civil War and called for a “peaceful legislative process that culminates in a referendum on Texas independence.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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