Friday, December 24th, 2021
Stephan: This is another trend that I am seeing being more promoted in MAGAt media. It is a measure of the stupidity of those who promote the idea of state secession that, as in Oregon where several counties want to secede from Oregon and become part of the Idaho, they do not realize MAGAt states all produce inferior social outcomes compared to Democratic governed states. I live in Washington State where we also have MAGAt counties that would like to leave Washington and become counties in Idaho. If that were to happen, Washington State would show increasingly positive social outcome data and Idaho, already inferior to Washington, would get worse. Personally, I would be agreeable on the basis of voting for state boundaries to be realigned, while the states remain the United States. I think we are moving to a time where the Democratically governed states are going to get tired of underwriting the failure of Republican governance. Few Americans seem to realize that all over the country the Blue states pay a dollar into taxes and take less than a dollar back, while Red states put a dollar in and receive more than a dollar back.
One troubling sign of our deteriorating civic mood is the shocking breadth of support for secession in the United States. At a time of widespread polarization—where people are arguing over a supposedly stolen election, vaccine mandates, mask-wearing, and the reality of climate change—a September 2020 Hofstra University poll found that “nearly 40 percent of likely voters would support state secession if their candidate loses.” This was followed by a YouGov and Bright Line Watch survey last June that revealed that 37% 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 for doing this was highest in the South and among Republicans.
But liberals are interested, too. In a July 2021 University of Virginia poll, 41% of Biden supporters (as well as 52% of Trump voters) were at least somewhat in agreement with the idea “that it’s time to split the country, favoring blue/red states seceding from the union.”
In […]
Together we stand as a Democracy; divided we will fall.
Maybe. But Czechoslovakia had done well since the Scechs left the Slovaks and I imagine no one thinks Norway’s leaving Sweden as a mistake. The US constitution is built on a basis of consensus not majority rule. When consensus breaks down on fundamentals. ot ceases to function well.