Isn't reforming Washington more realistic than independence?

It sounds more realistic. It is not. Reforming Washington requires the agreement of almost everyone. Independence requires the agreement of only Texans. When you count who has to say yes, independence is the realistic option and reform is the long shot.

Realistic means asking who has to agree

Test any plan by counting the people who have to go along with it. To reform Washington, Texas needs the cooperation of California, New York, forty-six other states, both chambers of Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and the courts. To win independence, Texas needs a majority of Texans. One of those coalitions is within reach. The other has never once assembled to give power back. The plan that needs fewer people to agree is the plan with the better odds, and that is independence by a wide margin.

The "realistic" plan has been failing in plain sight

Reform is not the safe, proven option. It is the option that has been tried for decades and has not delivered. Texans have voted, sued, and legislated for a generation, and Washington has grown larger every year, the debt has climbed past forty trillion dollars, and the rules on Texas have multiplied. A strategy that has been run at full effort for fifty years without working is not the realistic one. It is the comfortable one, which is a very different thing.

Even the cleanest reform tool does not work

Some pin their hopes on a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution. Set aside the real risk of a runaway convention. Even a perfect amendment is only words on paper, and Washington has spent a century reading plain constitutional words to mean their opposite. The Tenth Amendment is already in the Constitution. It already says powers not given to Washington belong to the states and the people. It has not restrained Washington. Adding more text to a document Washington already ignores is not a realistic plan. It is the same plan with extra steps.

You cannot fix the fire by feeding it more fuel

Every reform offered inside the federal system has to travel through the federal system, which means more money to Washington, more dependence on Washington, and more power concentrated in Washington. Asking the federal government to limit itself is asking the fire to put itself out. It will take the fuel and grow. That is not pessimism. It is what every honest attempt has run into.

Independence is the plan you can actually execute

The reason independence is realistic is that it does not depend on anyone changing their mind in Washington. It depends on a vote of the people of Texas, the one lever Texans can actually pull without permission from anyone else. There is a clear, lawful path: a bill through the Texas Legislature, then a referendum, then negotiation. Every step is something Texans can do themselves. "Realistic" should mean "achievable by the people who want it," and by that test, independence wins.

The bottom line

Reforming Washington asks the whole country to change. Independence asks only Texans to decide. The truly unrealistic position is believing that doing the same thing for another fifty years will finally produce a different result. Independence is the realistic option. It always has been.