WASHINGTON — Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today announced his candidacy for President of the Confederate States of America, a government that hasn’t formally existed since 1865. Cruz—who was considered a likely Republican candidate for President of the United States—announced his intentions in a speech given at The Heritage Foundation, and said that he looks forward to “taking our country back—or at least the Southern part of it.”

Sen. Cruz, 42, explained that his candidacy’s central platform would be “resurrecting a better, simpler time in American history—one in which blacks and whites had the luxury of separate bathrooms and water fountains, and there weren’t a bunch of confusingly-colored, racially mixed babies running around.”

When informed that the Confederacy ceased to exist almost 150 years ago, Sen. Cruz promised that the “hiatus is almost over.” “Sure, right now there’s no Confederacy,” Cruz said. “But there are still three long years left in Obama’s term—which is plenty of time for another round of secession.”

Most experts expressed bewilderment at the senator’s announcement, but others point to recent comments that, in retrospect, seem to foreshow Cruz’s plans. On Wednesday, Sen. Cruz said that the U.S. Senate needs “a hundred more” senators like the late Jesse Helms, a segregationist who has been described as the “last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country” who “subtly carried the torch of white supremacy.”

“Helms was always a hero for me,” explained Cruz, who is half Cuban, “And I know that he always wished he lived in the Confederate States, rather than the United ones. I’m dedicating my candidacy to his memory in hopes that we can make his dream a reality for millions of real Americans.”

Cruz’s decision also simplifies his path to obtaining the nation’s highest office—many observers believe that his birth in Canada would irreparably complicate a candidacy for President of the United States. But according to political science professor Andrew Cole, “since all citizens of the Confederacy have been dead for a long time, all the candidates would by definition be foreign-born, which really levels the playing field for Cruz.”

Many prominent Republican politicians are praising Cruz’s decision and pledging their support for his candidacy. Texas governor Rick Perry—himself a failed candidate for the U.S. presidency—said that he’d be happy to “finally go through with the succession [he’s] been talking about for years, just to give [his] buddy Ted a country to become the president of.”