Editor’s Note: This interview took place via zoom on 11/12/21.
Garrit: Can you introduce yourself?
Daniel: Sure. My name is Daniel Miller. I’m a sixth-generation Texan, President of the Texas Nationalist Movement, and candidate for lieutenant governor.
Garrit: Okay, excellent. Starting off, can you make a case for Texas leaving the Union?
Daniel: Yeah. Wow. I had to write an entire book for that. I have spent 25 years making a case for Texit, but several years ago, I started shifting the narrative and going around asking the people of Texas this question instead, which is, “if Texas was already a free, independent, self-governing nation state, just like 200 other nations around the world, where we had control over our own border and immigration policy and we had our own military and currency, you know, everything that independent nations around the world have, instead of talking about Texit, we were talking about Texas joining the union—right now, knowing what you know about the federal government, would you vote to join the union, and if you wouldn’t vote to join them why would you ever vote to stay?”
Garrit: Interesting. As you stated, you’re the president of the Texas Nationalist Movement. Now, nationalism has become a taboo word in establishment politics and the media. Can you explain what nationalism is?
Daniel: Sure, nationalism is love for one’s country and putting the interests of your country and your nation-state ahead of the interests of other nation-states. It’s always interesting to put the word nationalist in the name… I’ll roll you back a bit. In 2005, we did an exhaustive two-year study of independence movements around the world. It was propelled by a statement that I had read many years prior, a book called Global Paradox by John Naisbitt. He talked about the world’s trends pointing overwhelmingly toward economic interdependence on one hand and political independence on the other. Naisbitt quoted this statistic that talked about at the end of World War Two; there were roughly 54 recognized, fully sovereign, fully self-governing countries around the world. By the end of the 20th century, there were 192 (or at least by the time the book had been written). So, that statistic had always really stood out, and what it meant was, when it came time to create a political advocacy organization for Texas independence, there were a lot of examples to look at around the world. So, we did this exhaustive two-year study of independence movements around the world. One of the things is, as I went into that study with that notion that nationalism and nationalist were terrible terms, is that independence movements around the world, and even into the present day, use some form of nationalism or nationalist in the names of their advocacy organizations. It was really and truly a matter of understanding what that word was, being committed to the truth in labeling, and making sure that the organization was exactly what it said it would be. When we understood what nationalism was, in that context, and precisely the definition of people and the principle of advocating for independence for your country, it was the natural fit. So, much of that notion of nationalism and nationalist being derogatory terms or evil ideologies is rooted in what happened during World War Two, but, as with many things, the world moved on. Nationalism began to get this clear definition. Essentially, what’s happened is with post-World-War-Two, we have seen this ideology of globalism begin to take root in many places—it’s that shadow Communism that Lenin talked about where globalism was the erasure of the borders of the nation-states and this amalgamation into one world governing body. You find that nationalism, the respect for the principle of the nation-state, and the advocacy for self-government of that nation-state have become the natural counterpoint to globalism. So, what we find here is that people that have an aversion to the term nationalism are stuck in about a 75- to-80-year-old definition of the term. Now, we have seen the birth of 140 plus independent self-governing nation-states driven by the actual definition—today’s definition of nationalism, which is a love for one’s country and seeking political independence for that country.
Garrit: What are some common misunderstandings of the Texit movement?
Daniel: Oh, there are so many. A lot of it…and much of what our organization does is related to the educational process and educating people on what Texit is. Many people have this preconceived notion of “it’s Texit, we Texit, and it’s done.” So much of what we do is educating people that, number one, Texit is not an act—it’s a process. The non-negotiable referendum component must end in a referendum—Article One, Section Two of the Texas Constitution says so. But helping people understand that the referendum is the first step of the process, and then as we go through that process…day one after that Texit vote, after we win, nothing is different. We have a lot of policies that we have to deal with and a lot of things that have to happen in the machinery of government to carry out the will of the people. So, you know, there are some misconceptions out there like “this is going to end in violence or a civil war,” or that it’s “unconstitutional.” We shoot those things down all the time. Those claims are just easy to stuff in the wastebasket.
Garrit: Could you talk more about the constitutionality of Texit because I hear that one a lot?
Daniel: Yeah, here’s what’s funny about that, you know, after being at this for 25 years, when I hear things like that, my responses and patience have gotten far shorter. When I hear that it’s unconstitutional, my first reaction is, “hey, break out a copy of the US Constitution or Texas Constitution and show me where it’s forbidden.” If you pull out the US Constitution and go to Article One, Section 10, there’s a long list of things states are forbidden from doing as part of the Union—leaving the Union is not on that list. Because it’s not on that list, what that means is, under the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution, it is a reserved right to the states and the people. So then we have to look at the Texas Constitution to see what it says. Our Constitution here in Texas is very explicit about two things—number one, in Article One, Section One in the Texas Constitution says that the perpetuity of the Union depends on the right of local self-government unimpaired to all the states. Well, effectively, what that means is at the moment that our freedom of local self-government is impaired—AKA the federal government steps out of its constitutional bounds and prevents us from exercising any portion of our right of self-government here in Texas—that means that the Union is done. So, the Constitution is evident on that. Then, Article One, Section two is even more apparent when it reserves the inalienable right to alter, reform, or abolish our government in such a manner as we may think expedient. It reserves that right to the people. So, ultimately, for people who say that it’s unconstitutional—number one—they can’t pick it out of the Constitution (because it doesn’t exist), and—number two—it is not explicitly forbidden to the States. It is a power reserved to the states, and the Texas Constitution is abundantly clear as to whose decision it is on how we are governed.
Garrit: So, what happens after a referendum, and we do leave? What do we do then?
Daniel: Sure, we start the process of acting like and transitioning to the status of a self-governing independent nation. Four things have to be done post Texit vote. The first thing is the constitutional issues have to be dealt with. We have a constitution that is for the state of Texas. While functionally and structurally, it is very closely aligned with a self-governing independent nation, some things will have to be done constitutionally. There are simple things like changing the name from the “State of Texas” to the “Republic of Texas” to, perhaps, changing the titles of elected officers from Governor and Lieutenant Governor to President and Vice President. Additionally, in the constitutional issues, we have some established constitutional offices, like the Secretary of State. If that is the office that we want to engage in foreign affairs or things of that nature, we will have to expand the duties and powers of that office constitutionally. An Amendment can accomplish those. We don’t have to write a brand-new constitution. We can do a blanket set of amendments, like those done in the 60s with the Deadwood amendments, to make those changes. The second is the statutory things that will have to be done—it’s going to have to be agencies that are going to be expanded, and some agencies are going to shift over. There’s going to have to be provision statutorily made, including the ones where there have been gaps left in the state law that has relied on federal preemption to fill those gaps throughout our more recent history. So, there are some things that we’re going to want to do, statutorily, to fill those gaps because the federal system won’t be there anymore to cover those bases. Then we begin the process of executing any international covenants and agreements. Some international covenants and conventions deal with things like air traffic control. So, there will be some of those that are multilateral agreements; nation-states sign on to them all the time when they become new nation-states. So, we will have to look at all of those and determine which ones we want to sign on to. The final step is the negotiation process. That’s the first time that we began to interact with the federal system related to the outcome of that vote. We’re talking about negotiating our share of the national debt, mutual defense, and trade. It’s very similar, a good recent example, to some of the UK’s negotiations with the European Union post-Brexit. There were a lot of those types of talks that had to happen over a host of issues. It wasn’t a deal-breaker, but they had to be negotiated and had to be dealt with.
Garrit: Let’s talk about your run for Lieutenant Governor. First off, why are you running for Lieutenant Governor?
Daniel: I ran for public office twice before in my life—I ran for mayor of my hometown of 5000 people when I was 18 years old, and I ran for state representative back in 2012 as part of a slate of candidates that were part of an overall larger coalition. That was it. I ran for mayor of my hometown as a teen because I thought I could make a difference. I ran in 2012 because I thought I could make a difference, but I’m running primarily because we were asking people in the organization to step up and run for office. I’ve always believed that you should never ask people to do something you have not done yourself or would not do yourself. So, I ran in 2012, not just to help the slate, make those changes, and advocate for strong Texas first policies and Texas independence, but to set a good leadership example. Since 2012, I have always said that I had no intention of ever running for office. I never saw that in the plans—but something interesting started happening. At the beginning of the year, when we were on the Texit Tour, I started getting asked by people if I would challenge Dan Patrick in the Republican primary for Lieutenant Governor. Honestly, I don’t know where it came from, but it started happening the more I was on the road. So, we started having discussions, not just within the TNM but also about where this is coming from. Is this for real? Is there a necessity for us to do this, and then I started getting asked, not by TNM people, but conservative political activists around the state—people with freedom and liberty-oriented organizations? It culminated in an open letter that they submitted to me from a whole coalition of people from all these organizations, just asking me to run. They were fed up with Dan Patrick and his empty campaign promises. Frankly, a lot of the angst that they were feeling came from the fact that, as President of the Senate, Dan Patrick was exceptionally ineffective when it came to some of the core issues they were concerned with. So, they submitted the open letter, and that kicked this into overdrive. After sitting down with all those people, specifically the people in the TNM, we knew that it was an opportunity to practice what we preach. Suppose the Texas Legislature and the elected officials in Texas are a significant impediment to things like getting a vote on Texit, abolishing the property tax, or securing the border. How could we not do it? How could I not answer the call when, for so many years, I’ve preached to people that they needed the answer to the call to save Texas?
Garrit: President Trump has endorsed Dan Patrick; Dan Patrick has a lot of money and political capital. How do you plan on winning the primary?
Daniel: It’s pretty straightforward for us. We enter the race in a far better position than someone who just decided to do this on a lark. With the TNM, we’re a half-million votes ahead of the starting line on day one. That’s an important thing. That’s just the TNM statewide presence—which puts us a little over halfway to winning against Dan Patrick based on what the projected voter turnout is going to be in the Republican primary. So, you’ve got that aspect. Additionally, for us to go out and get those additional votes, we’re also rolling into this thing over 3000 volunteers strong. The fact of the matter is, even with some of the weak polling that’s out there, Dan Patrick is underwater on his approval rating. Additionally, you’ve already got 44% of people who say that they would vote for someone other than Dan Patrick, and I suspect that number will be higher. So, between starting a half-million votes, having a broad base of volunteers across the state that are committed to getting us across the finish line, and the massive discontent that people have over things like the border, property taxes, and vaccine mandates, we’ve got an opportunity to take our case to the people that few other candidates could match.
Garrit: Moving on to your policy positions. So, you are lieutenant governor. What is the course of action regarding Texit?
Daniel: It’s simple. The course of action regarding Texit is to get filed and passed the Texas Independence Referendum Act. It’s not in power, nor should it ever be, of any single elected official to decide on Texit. Article One, Section Two of the Texas Constitution dictates a power reserved to the people. So, getting the Texas Independence Referendum Act filed and passed, so the people of Texas have an opportunity to publicly debate this issue that culminates in a vote that is binding that expresses a genuine political will of the people of Texas. That is priority number one on the Texit issue.
Garrit: Another significant issue is border security. What do you think needs to be done regarding border and border security?
Daniel: The border is in crisis. Regardless of what the legacy media says, the border is probably the number one concern across a whole sphere of issues. It’s a national security concern, a public safety concern, a public health concern, and a situation that’s been exacerbated by the federal government. Given the way they handle illegal immigration and the border, the federal government might as well say they’re in a partnership with the cartels and human trafficking operations. We have seen previously on the border issue a lot of campaign rhetoric but very little policy. I’m sure some people would want to debate that, but I would suggest going down to the border and experiencing it firsthand yourself. When Abbott and Patrick come out, they tout that they’ve “secured $2 billion to secure the border,” you have to understand what that means. A few sessions back, when they touted that significant multi-billion-dollar infusion in securing the border, what it amounted to was repositioning the Department of Public Safety personnel from other areas of the state to run traffic patrols about 30 to 40 miles inland from the border—that’s not securing the border. Federal policy is that the moment an illegal immigrant sets foot here in Texas, they will be processed. We’ve seen various ways that the federal government handles it. You can go back to when Perry was governor when they had the Alien-Transfer-Exit Program, you’ve got catch and release that has been the hallmark, and now you’ve got a situation where the federal government is taking them into custody and then effectively repatriating them throughout the rest of the United States. So, it is a significant issue, and what we’ve been treated to is billions of dollars spent on half measures that don’t fix the problem. So much so that people in other states are asking why in the world our government here in Texas isn’t taking the reins on this issue. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that with the cartels effectively in control of the border—they are a narco-terrorist criminal organization (they’re like ISIS but with cocaine and marijuana)—they have turned Texas into the number one in the United States for human and sex trafficking. It’s an invasion—especially when the cartels are shooting at our people on this side of the border. We also must remember that the federal government is hell-bent on Texas not taking any action on this border issue. So we have to be smart about it. There have been many calls to make a full deployment of the National Guard on the border, and I think that is at least worth trying. There are 1254 miles of the Texas border. Greg Abbott deploying them across one mile does not count—that’s a photo op. We need to take that investment in border security and not just complete the border wall but also utilize that money to fully militarize the Texas State Guard. One of three branches of the Texas military department, the Texas State Guard, cannot be federalized. So, it is an entirely state-run operation. We need to take that money, fully militarize the state guard, expand enlistment, prioritize enlistment for former service military, and specifically say that we’re going to take the Texas State Guard right now on a full deployment for border operations not just to catch these people when they come across, but to prevent the crossings altogether. That’s how you secure the border, and it’s how you stop this border invasion.
Garrit: So, another big issue is property taxes. You mentioned earlier that you want to see the abolishment of property tax. What you often hear from the media and the establishment is that you can’t abolish property taxes. “We won’t have any money to fund schools or anything like that.” What is your response to that?
Daniel: These are the same people who don’t understand math or economics. These are the same people who say that when Texit happens, we’re going to “let grandma die in a ditch because they’ll get their Social Security cut off.” They don’t understand. There have been multiple plans over many years that have laid out pathways to abolishing the property tax. All of them, to some degree, have some merit. There’s a phenomenal plan right now on the table from the Texas Public Policy Foundation that includes a phase-out of property taxes within ten years. Here is where I’m at on that issue. Number one, I want to see that before we ever start tinkering with property tax relief or property tax reform, two things need to be done. Number one is this there needs to be legislation that establishes an immediate moratorium on homestead foreclosures for property tax delinquencies, period. If we’re going to stop kicking people out of their homes, let’s stop taking people out of their homes for property taxes—it’s immoral. That’s number one. Number two is a constitutional amendment that needs to be passed, just like the one given to prohibit and abolish an income tax here in Texas, to abolish the property tax here in Texas by a specific date. Within that timeframe, we need to go to the next level: let’s figure out how we’re going to adjust the system. We no longer need that property tax. The TPPF has a phenomenal plan on the table right now that does three things. Number one is it restructures how the funding mechanisms work for those property taxes—where the property taxes go, how the schools are funded because that’s where people kind of squeal a little bit that public schools are going to get those funds. Number two is it expands the sales tax base to have that consumption tax, but it covers a few more things that increase that revenue. The third thing, which I think plays not just to abolish the property tax but to good governance overall, is reviewing every agency, all the recommendations made by the Sunset Commission over the last several years, and finding out where we can cut spending in Texas. We’ve got a lot of inefficiency and waste in state government. We’re talking about the political subdivisions of the state government—some of the recipients of that property tax funding. We see where we can begin to eliminate; we can increase efficiency, eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, restructure how those taxes are paid out, how those funds are allocated, and finally expand the tax base. At the end of it, you wind up with people no longer being kicked out of their homes, the abolition of the property tax, and a far more efficient government. That effectively means that no one’s tax burden goes up, and the property tax goes away. That’s what we need to do.
Garrit: Another issue you talked about on your website is “protecting our history and monuments.” What do you plan on doing, and, in a broader sense, how do we win the culture war?
Daniel: Well, you hit the nail on the head. We know that politics is downstream of culture. One of the things that we have seen, particularly in recent years, is Neo Marxist players attacking the cultural elements. I go back a few years ago where the TNM had to wage a pitched battle against the State Board of Education over their attempt to remove references to the Alamo defenders as heroes in their curriculum guidelines because they said it “was a value charged word.” We look at George P. Bush and the city of San Antonio, walking hand in hand for the Reimagine Alamo Project, and how they wanted to deemphasize the Battle of 1836 and explore the entire 10,000-year history of the site. This idea of moving the Cenotaph from its rightful place in the Alamo to just some of the outright revisionism, and then you get into a couple of years ago with the protests where people were defacing and destroying monuments, memorials, and markers. It’s been a real hardcore battle over the identity of Texas rooted explicitly in our past and who we memorialize. So, when we look at what’s happened in the legislature, we understand that the TNM has been fighting the battle related to the Alamo since 2009. Whether it’s trying to get, it removed as a world heritage site from UNESCO because we know UNESCO is, at its heart, a political advocacy organization. Still, it’s been to protect these things. So, we fought these battles that culminated before this past session with Brandon Creighton filing Senate Bill 1663. Now, 1663 would have established a framework so that defacing or destroying historical monuments, markers. Memorials would have been criminalized even heavier. What SB 1663 did was set a framework so that we didn’t have these rogue local governments or rogue agencies going in there and unilaterally making decisions without the input of Texas voters on whether a statue, memorial, or monument should come down or stay. So, it established a framework so that the people had a voice in that process. We saw it drug out in the Senate. Brandon Creighton did a phenomenal job advocating for monument protection—specifically relating to the Alamo. He did an outstanding job, but it didn’t make it to the house in time because it was slowed down in the Senate. Of course, the clock ran out, which is the usual tactic that they do. So, you come out of that last session, and you see monument protection heat up. If it were not for a last-minute Hail Mary, the Cenotaph would have already been moved and probably destroyed in the process. Then you saw the Republican Party of Texas at its last convention make monument protection a legislative priority, and it was not touched—not in this regular session or any of the special sessions. They wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. So, yet again, we come out of a session where a Republican Party of Texas legislative priority is left entirely untouched. You have folks like Brandon Creighton and Kyle Biederman that were in there fighting the good fight, but leadership could not get the job done. So, it’s time we go in, and what I would do as Lieutenant Governor ensure that 1663 comes back, is refiled, and is made one of the immediate priorities that nothing else gets done until it gets done.
Garrit: My final question to you is, do you have any absolute things to say as we end the interview?
Daniel: Sure. I want to say how much I appreciate this opportunity to visit with you because I am not a politician but have to deal in this realm. This is a bit of a different world for me. I don’t know how to behave like a politician. People keep whispering in my ear, telling me I need to act like one. The fact of the matter is, I will never behave like one. August 24, 1996, when I decided to shove everything I have at making Texas a free and independent nation—I have advocated and pushed for that since then—regardless of what sort of bad advice people give me. I did that all not just for me but for the greater need and serving Texas. That’s really what this is about. I know the political establishment out there. They’re going to hate this, they already know that we’re entering this thing full of fire, full of volunteers, and full of passion, and they’re going to be horrible about who we are. They’re going to mischaracterize; they’re going to lie; they’re going to say all kinds of terrible things about us. All I want people to understand is that at the end of the day, the people of Texas need somebody who represents them, who puts them first, and who understands Article One, Section Two right out of the gate. They need someone to be their champion, their hands, and their voice in the Texas legislature. They need a Lieutenant Governor who will stand between them and the onslaught of the federal government. I hope people understand that I am that person. I will stand with them, and we will go in, and we will take Texas back.
Garrit: Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me today for this interview. It’s been an absolute pleasure. I enjoyed talking with you today. Check out Daniel Miller’s website at danielomiller.com.
