Secession! Secession! Secession!
Okay, that’s as far as I’m going with that, I’m not Randy Rainbow.
I’m just not . . .
Here in the United States, a hundred sixty years ago,
the south started a civil war when it tried to secede to keep its slaves. Today,
a bunch of Republicans want to secede again because they don’t like being called racist
for thinking the ones who seceded to keep their slaves were the good guys.
Recently — on Presidents’ Day, in fact — member of Congress from Georgia’s 14th
district Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted: “We need a national divorce. We need to separate
by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says
this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our
throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”
Leaving aside the heavy “everyone I talk to says The Last Jedi is the worst Star Wars
movie” energy there, Greene’s idea is nothing new. It’s not even new for her — over a year ago
she mentioned “national divorce” in support of a tweet suggesting that people who move
to a red state from a blue state shouldn’t be allowed to vote for a certain period of time.
She really seems to think it’s a good idea. After her more recent tweets on the subject,
Greene went on Charlie Kirk’s show and explained further:
“What I think would be something that some red states could propose is: well, okay,
if Democrat voters choose to flee these blue states where they cannot tolerate the
living conditions, they don't want their children taught these horrible things,
and they really change their mind on the types of policies that they support,
well once they move to a red state, guess what, maybe you don't get to vote for five years.”
So, let’s break this down for a second: Greene’s idea is that red states should
pass laws preventing people who move there from blue states from voting for five years.
There are a few problems with this that jump out right away, first and foremost how crude
her concept of what constitutes a “red state” and a “blue state” seems to be. There are varying
definitions of what makes a given state red or blue — sometimes it’s as basic as which party’s
candidate got that state’s electoral votes in the most recent presidential election.
Greene seems to be going with the idea that a red state is a state where the Republican
Party is the dominant political power, where Republicans control the legislature and the
governorship and therefore get to make the laws in that state. A blue state,
then, would be the same situation only with Democrats in charge. And that’s a
fair enough definition. The problem is, the conditions which make a state red or blue
under that definition are not immutable — a blue state can become a red state,
and vice versa, due to the results of elections. Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Another problem is, Greene is treating the populations of these states as monolithic — she
wants to impose restrictions on the voting rights of people who move to red states from blue states
because she wants to keep these nefarious ultra-woke blue staters from moving in to
her beloved red states, implementing their leftist agenda, and imposing their tyrannical policies of
equal rights for LGBTQ people, higher wages, and responsible industrial and environmental
regulations. But, at the same time, she’s also acknowledging that the populations aren’t
monolithic, because in her example she describes people who leave blue states due to the fact that
they don’t like the policies in force there — but they still lose their right to vote for five
years! Even though, presumably, if they voted, they would vote the way Greene wants them to.
One of the most troubling aspects of what Greene is saying is the suggestion that, in states where
the Republican Party currently holds power, it has the right to enact laws designed to guarantee that
it remains in power forever. “We’re in charge now, we’re going to stay in charge permanently,
regardless of whatever demographic changes occur among our population in the future.”
That she would even dare to suggest such a thing in public demonstrates that Marjorie
Taylor Greene, and all those who agree with her — which is apparently everyone she talks
to — either don’t understand what democracy is, or do understand it, and absolutely do not want it.
I want to point out a couple of things: first, most of Greene’s fellow Republicans have either
been silent regarding her recent “national divorce” remarks, or spoken out against them;
and second, I would take the negative reactions or non-reactions of her fellow Republicans with
a grain of salt, because I’m pretty sure most of them would be all for Greene’s
“national divorce” idea if they thought for a second they could get away with it,
and they’re mostly just mad at her for saying it outloud.
Greene’s proposal is just another form of voter suppression, and Republicans love
voter suppression. Whether it’s gerrymandering — which, in fairness, Democrats are guilty of,
too — or limiting access to polling places in ways that disproportionately affect communities
that tend to vote for Democrats, or mandating voter ID, or opposing the restoration of voting
rights to felons who have done their time, or obstructing early voting or voting by mail,
or demanding that entire elections be nullified because they just didn’t like the result,
depriving citizens of their right to vote isn’t so much a plank in the
party platform as it is the foundation upon which the entire platform stands.
But, Greene’s “national divorce” idea goes beyond blatant, widespread ideologically based voter
suppression to embrace perhaps the most enduring fantasy of the American right: . . . secession.
I told you, I’m not going any farther with that bit. It’s not — I’m . . . That is not who I am.
A lot of this — most of this — is just straight up racism, same as it was leading up to the Civil
War. Racist white folks want to have their white ethnostate, and if they can’t have it
under the American flag, they’ll just go start their own even shittier country — and don’t you
think they won’t! They’re serious! They mean it! They’re . . . they’re really gonna go.
Some of it is also because the dipshits who think this would be a good idea either don’t know or
know but somehow don’t grasp the significance of the fact that many of their cherished
Republican-dominated red states are among the states deepest in the hole in terms of federal
funding. According to a study published last year on the website MoneyGeek, seven of the ten states
most dependent on funding from the federal government were Republican-controlled states.
As the article detailing the study puts it, “Democratic-leaning blue states tend to be
wealthier and pay more to the federal government than they get. In contrast, Republican-leaning
red states tend to have less wealth and receive more federal government funds than they pay.”
So, go ahead, shitheads, secede. Cut yourselves
off from the federal funding you depend on. See how that works out.
Although, now that I think about it, perhaps I’m not giving Marjorie Taylor Greene enough
credit. . . . Quick aside: appreciate that moment, because I’ll probably never speak
that sentence again. But, really — when she says “national divorce,” she doesn’t seem to be calling
for a Civil War-style secession where a group of states leaves the union to form their own
country. Instead, she’s saying that Republicans should be allowed to permanently consolidate
their power in states they currently control, while still receiving that federal funding.
Which is . . . kinda smart, and also consistent with the practiced ideology of the Republican
Party, if not the professed ideology. Republicans love to complain about the size of the federal
government, and how much money the federal government spends, but they only really have
a problem with the federal government telling them what to do, and spending money on things
they don’t like. It’s similar to how they only oppose redistribution of wealth when it
would be from the rich to the poor — they have no objection whatsoever when wealth is redistributed
in the opposite direction, and in fact they are actively working to do that all the time.
Maybe Marjorie Taylor Greene realizes the problem with the poorest states in the country seceding
and cutting themselves off from the federal funding they depend on, and came up with
this national divorce scheme as a clever way for them to have their cake and eat it, too.
Or maybe not — she’s so proudly, painfully clueless that the few times where it seems
like she might know what she’s doing, I can’t tell if that’s what’s actually happening,
or if it only looks that way due to a kind of political pareidolia.
Either way, the “national divorce” idea takes into account what for Republicans
is a very uncomfortable political reality, and in doing so betrays the weakness of the party’s
position. And that weakness goes beyond how dependent upon the federal government
so many current red states are. It’s not just money they’re lacking — it’s voters.
That a Republican member of Congress, even one as credulous and intellectually vapid as Marjorie
Taylor Greene, would even go so far as to publicly muse about Republican majorities in red states
passing laws to restrict Democrats from voting speaks to how illusory its popular mandate is.
Republicans rely on voter suppression so heavily because in much of the country,
it’s the only hope they have of gaining and maintaining power. If every eligible
voter everywhere in the country were able to vote, quite a few currently red states
would turn blue overnight — including, quite possibly, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s own state
of Georgia — and that’s with no mass migration of people from blue states to red states necessary.
The only way they can enact the policies they want to enact — policies which are
so unpopular and potentially unconstitutional that they have lead some Republicans to suggest
secession might be necessary — and still keep the federal funding their governments need to
function and many of their voters need to survive, is to make sure that their voters
are the only ones who get to vote, and their leaders are the only ones who get to lead.
Not quite secession. More of a soft secession — a softcession!
Have fun with that. Whatever you call it, it seems the American right’s
secession fantasy has evolved. And here I thought they didn’t believe in evolution!
Shouldn’t be surprising — hypocrisy is their tradition. It’s what tells them who they are.
How will the right accomplish its agenda Indoctrinate the children, closet all the queers?
And how will the whites, as masters of the nation, Keep the Black folks in their place?
Oppression! Suppression! Secession!