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Former United States president Donald Trump won a sweeping Super Tuesday victory in Texas – one of more than a dozen states in which he thoroughly trounced his lone remaining rival, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley.
Trump’s resounding win – which finally chased Haley from the 2024 race – marked yet another popular repudiation of her corporate-sponsored, special interest-subsidized brand of “Republicanism.” More importantly, in the Lone Star State it coincided with a decisive rebuke of the costly, outdated (and self-serving) interventionist foreign policy Haley has been pimping for years.
At last count, Trump garnered 1,803,530 votes (or 77.9 percent of ballots cast) in Texas – winning 141 of its 161 delegates. All of those numbers are expected to go up once the final tally is recorded.
In addition to making its presidential preference known (emphatically, at that), Texans also weighed in on thirteen different non-binding ballot referendums. Among them? Proposition six – which addressed America’s policy of waging wars without a congressional declaration.
You know … endless wars. Or … wars that ended poorly. Or proxy wars.
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Anyway, here was the specific wording of the proposition:
“The Texas Legislature should prohibit the deployment of the Texas National Guard to a foreign conflict unless Congress first formally declares war.”
According to the group Texans for Fiscal Responsibility – which urged a “yes” vote on the proposition – prohibiting unconstitutional deployments is every bit as much about dollars and cents as it is about adhering to our nation’s founding principles.
“The Texas National Guard, significantly funded by Texas taxpayers, should not be deployed into harm’s way in a foreign conflict, without Congress fulfilling its constitutional duty and officially declaring war,” the group noted. “The Texas National Guard should be home in Texas, available to support the needs of Texas and Texas taxpayers, unless a constitutional war is declared.”
Speaking of those needs, the Texas Guard has been on the front line of governor Greg Abbott‘s recent push to secure the state’s border with Mexico – a job at which the administration of president Joe Biden has failed miserably.
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How did the measure fare? It won. Bigly. A whopping 1,863,870 Texans – or 84 percent of those who turned out on Tuesday – voted in support of proposition six. Bring Our Troops Home – a national group which has been pushing similar referendums in other states – hailed the outcome as “a clear repudiation of endless undeclared wars” as well as an “encouraging sign that the days of illegal and unconstitutional war is coming to an end.”
“The citizens of Texas have spoken with one unifying voice,” said Dan McKnight, chairman of the national group. “They are demanding an end to unconstitutional wars and a return to adherence to the Constitution. This vote is both an affirmation and a warning. The voters have affirmed their dedication to the Constitution.”
Indeed …
As a strident opponent of unnecessary interventionism, it is refreshing to see voters speak clearly and unambiguously against the failed policies of the past – as well as the failed politicians pushing those policies (and doing so for personal gain). Hopefully the decisive victory of proposition six – and the decisive defeat of warmongering neoconservative Nikki Haley – will be a double blow in support of constitutional, fiscally responsible foreign policy.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven (soon to be eight) children.
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4 comments
Hey, psssst…Trump has repeatedly said he would send American troops into Mexico.
Oh that’s easy, wars are 100% constitutional when the right is for them. So, mainly blowing up brown people, getting cheap oil, etc.
I am having trouble following the logic on this. When was the last time we sent troops to an overseas conflict? Iraq and Afghanistan, right?
While Congress didn’t declare war there, they sure did approve of both actions. As in they voted to approve the funding. Sure, we kept troops there…until we didn’t. And we have plenty of military posts around the world. And ships projecting power and protecting shipping. All things Congress has approved. But I can’t think of a time since Iraq and Afghanistan when we sent troops to an overseas conflict. We didn’t send troops into Syria when Isis became a thing. And we haven’t sent troops into Ukraine or Israel. We have sent money and weapons to both. But again, Congress approved both…until they didn’t.
The concern here is this…if a guardsman is ordered to deploy, and refuses based on a law passed in Texas, who is going to the brig? The Texas legislature and Governor? Or the guardsman? I agree completely that Congress needs to do its job. But I don’t think the Texas legislature should do it for them.
Recovering Lobbyist , obviously you speak without knowledge. We currently have troops ie: war planes deployed to Jordan that routinely bomb targets in Syria. These bombings serve no national interest nor were they authorized by congress. You may counter that these bombings were in response to aggression against our troops stationed there. Well guess what, if they weren’t there they wouldn’t get attacked. Yes we have ships deployed to “protect” shipping but why is it the responsibility of the United States to perform this function on the other side of the world? If we are protecting American owned ships that’s all well and good but I haven’t yet found in the constitution any language stating that a function of our armed forces is to protect world commerce. It’s quite obvious you ascribe to the gospel of Cheney of which Nikki is an acolyte, keep conflicts going and use our soldiers as a tool to enrich yourself and your friends. Texas, and I suspect a lot of other states and their citizens are fed up with this mindset