I find it almost impossible to imagine how people like Chuck Norris and Ted Cruz think.
OTOH, Texas for about 10 years was in fact its own independent republic, and I can imagine how some very conservative or very paranoid Texans might still want it that way, and might have somewhat strange ideas about -- say -- Obama trying to establish a dictatorship across the US that would threaten Texas independence.
The truth is, the super-rich and the biggest multinational corporations, thanks to the "Citizens United" ruling and other recent Supreme Court decisions on campaign financing, have a virtual monopoly over control of our two major political parties.
Also, the Patriot Act and the "war on terror" that's occurred since the 9/11 attacks really have given the federal government sweeping new powers to spy on average citizens. In a real sense, most Americans -- inside & outside of Texas -- probably have lost some important freedoms that our ancestors enjoyed. Or at least, those of us who are white men have lost some freedoms. I think America was never all that "free" for nonwhites and women before the mid-1960s.
So the Texas independence fanatics aren't totally out of touch with reality, I think. But they are wrong in the details, wrong in their fantasies about Obama ordering a federal "invasion" of the Lone Star State.
Looks to me as if some Texans have just never accepted the results of the Civil War, which pretty much ended the possibility of "secession" in the US for all time.
-- democratic socialist