Where Are We Headed?
The Sovereign States of Texas, Florida, Georgia and More.
During the Vietnam War, some suggested that the U.S. pave over Vietnam and be done with it. I propose the same be done in Texas, Florida and all the other seriously red states, turning them into gigantic parking lots or flea markets and then we would be done.
Such drastic measures might be necessary as politics become hyper inflamed and there is talk among right wing Republicans about secession from the union. Polling also points to growing support for secession. A September 2020 Hofstra University poll found that “nearly 40 percent of likely voters would support state secession if their candidate loses.” A You Gov and Bright Line Watch survey last June that revealed that 37 percent of Americans supported a “willingness to secede” when asked: “Would you support or oppose [your state] seceding from the United States to join a new union with [list of states in new union]?” Support was highest in the South and among Republicans.
Liberals also showed interest. In a July 2021 University of Virginia poll, 41 percent of Biden supporters (as well as 52 percent of Trump voters) were somewhat in agreement with the idea “that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.”
There has been limited talk among elected officials about secession, coming largely from Texas, where else, including comments from Texas GOP chair Allen West who suggested a new union be created of “law-abiding states” while Texas state Rep. Kyle Biedermann, who once dressed as a “gay Hitler,” has pledged to file a bill to put the question of Texas secession to voters. Another one to suggest secession is Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, who was one of 126 GOP house members to support a lawsuit challenging the victory of Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Weber posted pro-secession information on his Facebook page while the late Rush Limbaugh, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, claimed the country was “trending toward secession.” Conspiracist Glenn Beck made the same comments and militias have urged “all conservative states to join together to secede.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., tweeted last week that “brainwashed” Democrats from blue states should be given a “cooling down period” where they are not allowed to vote if they move to a red state. Greene argued that a ban could be possible during a so-called “National Divorce”otherwise known as a civil war.
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis stopped short of a call for secession but instead proposed the creation of a “Florida State Guard” that he would control, not the Pentagon or the Florida National Guard. He requested $3.5 million to establish this unit, which would have 200 civilian members.
I don’t support secession for many reasons, not least of all would be just how many new, sovereign nations would be formed, would there be a Texas Nation, a South Dakota Nation, a Florida Nation and where would it stop. Other countries wouldn’t recognize the newly declared sovereignty and international flights to Texas or Florida wouldn’t be permitted to land and they would be detoured to blue states where we would have to deal with them somehow. And we would have to remake the NFL because the Cowboys would not be allowed to play the Eagles, Giants, Forty-Niners or any teams from blue states and the same for Major League Baseball, although not having to play the Astros would give the Yankees a better shot at winning another World Series.
And there’s the thorny question of nuclear weapons and should the red states get the bomb as they would undoubtedly demand. If not, could we, the good guys, always hold the bomb over their southern heads like a sword of Damocles if they didn’t do what they were told. And if there was nuclear parity, the blue states could always just cut all of the red states from the Internet, a move that would be considered an act of war and intolerable to anybody who likes Netflix or Hulu or who lives vicariously on Facebook.
And if the red pulled away and they fulfilled their mission of being anti-science then nobody would wear facial masks and nobody would get vaccinated against COVID-19 which would all be alright because all of Texas would collapse in an ocean of COVID-19 but the problem is that Texans could still travel to New Jersey and infect the rest of us.
This is not 1860 and the thing about secession is that it would be about impossible, given the spider web of regulations and laws and the interdependence of states on each other for travel, tourism, commercialism and the rest. So nobody in their right minds would seriously call for secession just like nobody in their right minds would storm the capitol, believing they could actually take over the government and keep trump in the driver’s seat and nobody could reasonably believe that the election was rigged, after every report showed it was fair and square and nobody would really believe that the COVID-19 pandemic is a giant farce orchestrated by the Democrats and Bill Gates. And the trumpers, white supremacists and other disturbed rioters insist they were in their right minds. Wrong.
The only thing a move toward secession would do would be to cause more bloodshed, more violence, more hatred. And nobody wants that, except for trump, Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Tom Cotton, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Mike Pompeo, Kristi Noem and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, coincidentally are potentially in the hunt for the likely GOP nomination in the 2024 presidential primaries and who want to cancel all gun laws and make it easier for the well-meaning and well-educated right wing nut faction to get really violent in the streets.
The wahoos like Greene and the rest don’t really want secession because that would require too much work. They just want to rile their base enough to take control of the Congress and then install their king again. The trouble is that they are playing with fire because many of those prone to violence are not necessarily well schooled in the art of nuance and if they rebel again, there is no telling where the chips would fall.
Rather than call for something as radical as secession, right wingers might instead push for legislation known as nullification, a pre-Civil War and pre-secession plan under which states could simply ignore federal legislation they deemed unfit, which would essentially make the Supreme Court irrelevant. Another possible alternative to secession and nullification is known as “interposition,” where local governments could “interpose” to avoid unwanted federal laws, like civil rights protections.
Claims of states rights and a call for secession are obvious smokescreens for deeper and more sinister goals, to totally disenfrachise people of color and to take over the schools, the places of worship and every other institution so they could be smashed and remolded to fit the racist, mysogenistic, xenophobic. anti science values that are at the bottom of the whole mess.