Jack of Harts

The Borderplex, as the region around El Paso, Juarez, and Las Cruces was known, had a long history of fighting the drug cartels and various gangs. Some of their history was good. Some was bad. The Second Great Depression deprived them of the federal support they had long enjoyed, and the Drug Wars quickly escalated into high gear as the cartels thought they saw a chance to improve their position. Running gunfights passed through much of the Borderplex for months, placing the cities under conditions of virtual siege. Police, Sheriffs, and Texas Rangers fought the gangs and cartels every day, and citizen militias defended neighborhoods from rooftops and walls. They built or printed makeshift guns and mixed explosives in their backyards and garages, all in the fight to bring law and order back to their ravaged neighborhoods. It was a dangerous time to live in the Borderplex, and the cost in lives was heartbreaking, but they stood on their own in the end. They drove the drug cartels out, and they tamed the worst of the gang problem. They survived and thrived and help provide an example of how the Mexican States could move into a new future with their American neighbors.

It is an interesting historical point that the term Drug Lords was not common when the Second Great Depression began. They were drug cartels and gangs, and while some of them were certainly rich and powerful enough to rule small nations, it was not what they were called. Drug Lord was a fictitious title created for the Dixie the Drug Lord Slayer show. It was silly and ridiculous entertainment, with only a passing resemblance to historical accuracy, especially in the first season. But Dixie was alive, and the kernel of her story that was real struck home with a people caught in the midst of a world-ending financial collapse. She laughed and joked as she killed stereotypical, black hat-wearing, mustache twirling, liberally-tattooed drug gang lords who pushed old people into streets as object lessons and kicked little dogs for the thrill of it. It was a gleeful-dark parody of real life, with some rather painful depictions of certain marginalized groups by modern standards, but the clarity of the good versus evil fight resonated with everything the watchers of the day wanted to see. Especially the Texans who knew her real story. They welcomed and supported the show with nearly religious fervor and Drug Lord became part of the common parlance, where it has remained ever since.

The Texas State Guard went to great lengths to secure the Texas borders during the Second Great Depression. They also worked with neighboring reserve and national guard agencies to further encourage order where it could be maintained. All while working to not officially mobilize on American soil. It was a delicate balance, and many of them went to work under the official command of local law offices. The Texas Rangers as an example assembled more of their men and women on the old Mexican border to answer rising drug cartel attacks, and the Texas State Guard effectively became their heaviest hammer when drug cartel nails needed extreme reactions. So when Texas finally moved to deal with the Drug Lord problem once and for all, they gave the job to the Texas Rangers. Who called their good friends in the Texas State Guard, who called their good friends in the neighboring States, who all went to work with a coordination that stunned the Drug Lords on the other side of the Mexican border. It was this action that historians credit with creating the reborn Republic of Texas we all know in the present day.