Every once in a while, one of those yahoo politicians from a Southern state opens his or her mouth and says that the good people should secede from the Union again so that they can ‘take things back’ to the way they used to be. Meaning, of course, the way things used to be when the non-Whites and the gays and the Planned Parenthood fanatics kept their mouths shut and everything was the way it was supposed to be.
You’ll hear this kind of comment from Ted Cruz who says that Texas has oil and the NASA headquarters so what else do they need? And of course, when it comes to saying dumb things in public there’s always Marjorie Taylor Greene who refers to a ‘national divorce’ because the word ‘secession’ is probably too difficult a word for her to say.
But, sooner or later someone on our side will respond in kind, if only to prove that when it comes to getting your name mentioned on a website which pretends to be dealing with political events and news, the blue team has just as many morons competing for digital space as the other side.
I am referring to an op-ed floating around written by a guy who used to be the Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court who says that our cherished, democratic values were in free-fall during the Trump years, culminating with an insurrection which failed but the ‘dark days’ are still around us and (here’s the great quote) “American values and common ties that once proudly cemented our diverse nation are constantly being undercut by those who would turn back the clock on American progress and continue to create false-flag culture wars that turn Americans against each other.”
His solution is to divide the country into two separate, national states. One new country will “strive to address the real needs of its people, understand, harness and promote its diversity and cherish its democratic values,” while the other country will “stifle dissent, declare martial law to quell protesters, build walls at its borders, rewrite history to suit its needs, disregard realities, overturn election results on false claims of voter fraud, disenfranchise women, cut taxes for the rich, arm all its citizens and ignore the global leadership responsibilities of a great nation.”
Considering the fact that this former Chief Justice(!) comes from a state whose official motto is ‘Live free or die,’ which means you can’t impose state or local taxes of any kind in New Hampshire, he must know what he’s talking about, right?
But let’s go back a few years, okay? Let’s go back to the election of 1984. Remember how many states voted for a guy named Reagan who was opposed to civil rights, who was opposed to women’s lib, who championed the barely-disguised racism of ‘states rights?’ Try 49 states, including the state which produced the author of yesterday’s op-ed.
So, how come in less than two generations more than half the fifty states who joined together to elect Ronald Reagan turned around in 2020 and rejected the warmed-over Reaganisms of Donald Trump? Because in case you didn’t know it, that’s what Trump represents – the same old, same old ‘shining city on the hill’ or the ‘little house on the prairie’ that the POS/GOP has been pushing since Barry Goldwater ran in 1964, or maybe even before.
Think the headline about 2020 election ‘fraud’ is such a big lie? In 1932, when every state bank was closed, when people were standing in long lines not to vote but to get a piece of bread, when the country’s industrial capacity was around 5 percent, Herbert Hoover claimed that real wages were the ‘highest in history,’ and his Administration was ‘creating new jobs and giving the whole system a new breath of life.’
The truth is that nobody really knows what to do about inflation except hope and pray that it eases off somewhat. Nobody really knows what to do about the fact that my local convenience store is advertising for kids to run the cash register at $17 bucks an hour but nobody’s applying for the job.
So, what’s wrong if the Democrats launch their own, little version of the culture wars? We can dress the narrative up to include all kinds of nice, compassionate programs and ideas, but it’s still nothing more than what guys like the former Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court believes his friends, his political associates, and most of all the people who will vote in November want to hear.
Which is what I love about our political system and how we choose the political winners and political losers every two years. Call it secession, call it national divorce, call it democratic values, call it whatever you want.
The bottom line is that I can still pick up a foamy for a buck a can.