Thread by @egavactip

1. Secession efforts--which happen regularly--tend to bore me. But this one, promoted by Biedermann and the so-called Texas Nationalist Movement, is interesting (to

"Texas Lawmaker Kyle Biedermann Introduces Bill Aimed at Seceding from the Union"

thedailybeast.com/gay-hitler-tex…

2. me) largely because of the history of the latter. The TNM, headed by Daniel Miller, traces its history back to the 1990s and one of the factions of the Republic of Texas, an anti-government extremist sovereign citizen group that plagued the state at the time with sovereign

3. "paper terrorism" tactics and, in 1997, a kidnapping and armed standoff in west Texas at the (double-wide) "Embassy" for the group and its then-leader, Richard McLaren. In the 90s, Daniel Miller was "vice-president," then later "provisional president" of one of the Republic

4. of Texas factions. Miller was only in his 20s at the time. By the late 2000s, Miller had renamed his group the Texas Nationalist Movement. It had already dropped most of its sovereign citizen trappings by then and instead was doing things like holding "Take Back Texas"

5. rallies and garnering interviews with journalists who sometimes treated the fringe group with a seriousness it never deserved. Despite claiming 250,000 members, this line from an article in 2015 provides a clearer indication of support: "[Miller] begins his pitch before the

6. three dozen people in a La Quinta conference room by rolling up his sleeves." But perhaps the most interesting thing in the recent history of the group is the fact that it has developed ties to Russia, making multiple trips there and even allegedly getting a "small grant" from

7. the Russian government.