A growing number of Texans believe their state would be better off independent of the United States. There's a clear and growing divide in the country and Texas is no exception to that. In fact, independence movements are inseparable from Texas' DNA — the state began as an independent nation and later succeeded during the Civil War. Miller's group claims it has over 300,000 supporters of Texan independence.

Here's how an independent Texas nation could work according to Miller:

Miller makes his case in language inspired by liberation struggles around the globe, and he calls his plan “Texit”—recalling the latest model for secession. Brexiteers claimed that Britain needed the European Union less than the EU needed Britain. Miller argues that Texas sends the U.S. government more in taxes than it receives in federal funds. (To arrive at his numbers, he doesn’t count Social Security benefits, which are paid out handsomely to retirees along the Rio Grande.) Unfettered by federal taxes and regulation, Miller claims, household incomes would sextuple.

Texas’s GDP, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, is about $1.7 trillion, which would make it the 10th largest economy in the world, ahead of both Canada and Australia. Miller told me the United States’ $714 billion in trade with Canada could serve as an example of how trade relations between Austin and Washington would work. He foresees not a war of secession but a conscious uncoupling followed by cordial relations, with a largely undefended border. The United States has “over a million legal crossings with Mexico and Canada every day,” Miller said, adding that Texas’s border with the United States could remain just as permeable.

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