January 2024.
As part of the program Regional Initiative for combating disinformation “Western Balkans Combatting disinformation Center: Exposing malicious influences through fact-checking and Analytical Journalism“, we present you a new analysis of fake news and disinformation narratives.
Texas against invasion: If this were happening in Russia, the Western media would be buzzing that country is falling apart
The last week of January in the pro-Russian media was marked by news about the events in Texas, which were described as a civil war in the United States of America. “America is on fire”, “Texas declares state of war”, “Biden’s three mistakes led to war in America” – these are just some of the headlines that can be seen in these media.
As Sputnik Serbia correctly writes, the problem between Texas and the federal authorities in the USA arose when the Texas National Guard took control of part of the border with Mexico from the federal Border Patrol. The governor of Texas invoked an article of the US Constitution that gives him the right to declare a foreign invasion due to the influx of illegal immigrants. However, the US Supreme Court ruled that Texas authorities must allow the federal Border Patrol access to the border, which could remove the border fence.
The announcement of Republican governors from 25 American states, in which they accuse the White House and the American president of not being ready to protect the country’s southern border, is, for Sputnik, evidence of another division in the already divided American society.
“While Greg Abbott is supported by all Republican governors, pointing to the problem of mass illegal immigration in the US, the federal government has been helped by Democratic governors and the mainstream media so far. In addition, as before the Civil War, the issue of states’ rights is mentioned, i.e. to what level the central government’s competences reach concerning the federal units,” writes Sputnik.
In these events, Sputnik sees the “beginning of the end” of America, which centralized power within the US while simultaneously building a “global empire on the foreign policy front.”
“However, global empire-building undermines democratic institutions at home, just as the levelling of decision-making and its centralization in Washington supports the imperial project.” That’s why limiting the authority of the federal authorities would be suitable for both America and the world,” says Sputnik’s interlocutor. The interlocutor also compares it with what the USA does in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“In a way, it is comparable to what they are trying to do in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although they are doing it there in a much more elaborate and cruder form.” But the bottom line is that they tend to change the constitutional order in favour of the centralized government, and to the detriment of the powers of local administrations – in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina entities, in the case of America, federal states,” the text adds.
Throughout the entire text, the manipulative narrative prevails that the media can not report on this topic and the disintegration within the USA, while if a similar situation were to occur in Russia, the same media would propagandistically say that Russia is disintegrating. Nevertheless, the dispute over border control and immigration authority between Texas authorities and the US federal government is an issue that, in various forms, dates back to 2021 and which the media has paid considerable attention to. Primarily, it is about important interpretations of the constitutional powers of the central government and the federal states of the USA and the delimitation of jurisdiction.
In the polarized atmosphere of American politics, immigration, rightly recognized as one of the long-term risks to the U.S., is among the central issues. However, it is essential to emphasize that from 2021 until today, the moves and rhetoric of the Texas Republican authorities have changed, depending on the electoral circumstances. Thus, the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, rejected the use of the term “invasion” of migrants on the southern border after the “midterm elections” in 2022. Still, in the new circumstances of the election campaign and under local pressure, he again invoked the given “legal theory” in justifying the activities of the Texas National Guard.
While Texas officials are calling on powers supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution, both Governor Abbott and local governments say they will respect the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Therefore, claims by pro-Russians that “state of war” has been declared in Texas or that the United States is headed “towards civil war” are baseless.
It is also a fact that the exaggeration of the situation surrounding border control and the current dispute between Texas and the U.S. Government is also taken from the conservative American media, close to the Republican Party and former President Trump, who seek to capitalize on this issue and build their campaign for the November presidential elections on opposition to the Biden administration.
Author: Sofija Popović
