[Sunday Night Anything-But-Trump Thread] Thought Experiment: Is Disunion In Our Future?

@EthicsAlarm

 

Yeh! Another thread from a right-wing blog!

 

???

 

From two years ago:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/maybe-its-time-for-america-to-split-up.html

 

Does that mean we shouldn't consider the discussion ?

Think about it , this isn't the same country we grew up in ....

This is a nation being torn apart from the inside by a two party system and the philosophical differences are .... irreconcilable. We're not getting closer to a solution , the divide is growing wider by the day.

Something's got to give .... and what better solution than one where both sides get what they want ?

 

"Is there any set of shared assumptions and values that will allow normal Americans and leftists to work together as fellow citizens? One begins to wonder."

Good lord.

Even if a reader can stomach that kind of rhetoric, I find it hard to take the overall idea very seriously. It is a fun idea though, and something kind of satisfying as a fantasy. But if both new countries kept watching cable "news" or clicking on inflammation-as-profit internet outlets, the two new countries would soon need to be four, and so on.

 

As much as i think breaking up is an option, it's like saying who keeps the house, kids, dogs but with each side holding more guns than they have hands.

You want me to move? **** *** My family was here first. I get the football team!

We also have an Everest of debt that our 1% overlords would never unbind our grandchildren from. The almighty dollar only works if we're together...

As for the rest of us, everyone has an opinion on what the pecking order is to make outrage culture primetime viewing on a medium dying for attention. So is breaking up America really worth it? Corona already proved the limit of states handling things by themselves. Emergencies need a Lincoln rather than a Jefferson Davis. Oops, did i broach right-wing dog whistles?

We can only hope current disintegration of social norms is a cultural tipping point where old timers and cons naturally feel out of place with their children becoming more predispositioned to adjust.

Then again, we're electing another ****ing boomer for president regardless off outcome, so That Generation is fighting it's exit tooth and nail.

A truly selfish and ugly generation that's bankrupting our country financially and spiritually.

But of course... It's whiny woke kids on their tic tacs shaming me and marching in my well maintained country club lawns. ****ing trespassers made me change my diapers.

Bizarre reverse psychology thing you got there... How's the quarantine holding up?

 

I think most Americans, when they really talk to one another and listen to one another (and it does still happen, instead of just clicking within our bubbles) have a ton in common and want a lot of the same things: decent jobs and decent wages, healthcare that doesn't bankrupt families, politicians who actually do their jobs instead of lying and working to consolidate power. Most of us think the wealth divide is way too big right now, that it's not a healthy system when so much money is in the hands of so few. Most want streets with law and order, but law and order than includes an ethos of protect and serve, treating people equally and justly. Most people think our militarized police forces are ****ing creepy and a bad move. Most of think we could spend a little less on the defense industry and fix some deferred maintenance at home. (One of Trump's promises that I really liked was infrastructure.)

Sure, a few social issues get dicey and politicians inflame those (some more than others). But so many polls show that a strong majority of Americans agree on a lot of issues, even some scary ones like common sense gun legislation.

On a dogwalk this weekend, I stopped and talked to two of my fave lesbian neighbors who have been gone for a year. It was nice to catch up. They got an RV and traveled the country, mainly reds states they had never visited. They said even in areas they were scared of at first, (deep south), people were real nice. They had cookouts with people in MAGA hats and made new friends. People didn't care in general that they were two lesbians in love. And they in turn stopped assuming things as readily about people in red states. Sure, RV parks might have more 'live and let live' types, but it's still an interesting story. I've heard others with the same conclusions.

I've always wondered (and complete 180 from divorce-the-country fantasizing): what if we instituted a sort of draft, but it just paid young people to spend a year with a host family in a different part of the country. Would have to be a different state and ideally a different population density. Yeah yeah, big government program, but it would be so cool, especially if you had some kind of useful work for the youth to do in the communities they visited. That generation might grow up with a different perspective and might demand a different mode from our politicians.

Okay, I guess that's just as big a fantasy as the divorce one. Let's just ****ing split up already. LOL

 

How would the split go? The old north south lines?

 

The United States is staying intact. Any efforts to break it up is treason and those actively attempting to do so should be properly tried and punished accordingly.

 

The Boomers are no worse or better than any other Generation.

 

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They've been in the driver's seat far too long and I'm sick of dealing with their culture wars.

 

I love how the article divides Americans into "leftists" and "normal" Americans - presumably those who wear MAGA hats. It's threads like this that makes you wonder about @Os Trigonum actual viewpoints no matter what picture of a ballot he posts on the board.

To make @Corrosion happy, let's look at this blog post seriously for the 18 seconds it deserves. First of all the line between blue and red isn't on state boundaries - it's based more on urban vs rural - and furthermore you have still have sizeable number of liberals in conservative states and sizeable numbers of conservatives (aka "normal" people) in blue states. How would these disenfranchised people handle separation?

Finally, how do you deintegrate our economies? Blue states provide most of the tax revenue that goes to red states. Without NY, CA, IL, etc, Nebraska goes financially belly up.

 

We tried it once and it didn’t work out so well.

I vote no.

 

That's a funny blog entry. And how would disunion work in Texas when every city worth a damn from Longview to the H is blue? You would have to have a disunion within the disunion of the disunion.