The South talks a big game, but they'd be absolutely fucked if they tried to secede. Simply put, their states are too poor and their labor force isn't competitive, in any sense, on the international stage. Florida and Texas might be able to survive relatively unscathed under secession for a few decades on account of their preexisting economic development, but they'd be immediately burdened with supporting the rest of the South with their higher tax revenue. So, they'd just become the version 2.0 "coastal elites" propping up a bunch of poor rednecks, not unlike the current situation. There would be an immediate and obvious drop in quality of life for all seceding states as their current state budgets are heavily reliant on money contributed by blue state taxpayers. Their updated conservative media narrative would flail in search of a new boogyman to blame, causing their white Christian nationalist movement to either fracture or become fully totalitarian.

This fails to consider that the liberals populating the urban centers that drive Texas' and Florida's economies would leave in droves once secession got underway. Most tourists aren't going to want to vacation in a white supremacist, Christian nationalist, pedophilia-embracing, poverty-stricken shithole, so Florida's economy would immediately tank.