by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The Traditionalists in my family are enraged about a whole host of issues that have been fed them by either Fox News or Right wing podcasts. As a someone who is by nature a center-Left person to varying degrees, I am alarmed at this development.
The situation is so dire, with my Traditionalist relatives assuming that all center-Left people are “groomers” and members of the “woke cancel culture mob” that wants to turn everyone gay that it’s beginning to sink in that maybe this marriage, this Union, can no longer be saved.
As such, I continue to have the idea of the practical nature of a National Divorce rolling around in my mind. It seems, on paper, at least, that if all the Reds in Blue States left for Red States and vis versa, that Blues would definitely be in a better position to thrive than Red States.
The key issue is, if all the highly educated, well trained Blues simply no longer live in Red States, those very Red States are going to have to figure out to pick up the slack. And there are plenty of very smart Reds who could be trained to help that very thing happen.
But. And this is a very big but — the whole reason why Reds hate Blues is they hate taxes that are…often used to train people. So, Reds would find themselves in a position where they could finally gut the tax system so only the Poors paid taxes….but they would also have to find some way for a massive re-training effort of all the good ol boys who are no longer driving trucks cross country, but are ready to “learn to code.” (I’m not picking on good ol boys, a lot of them really are very smart, but I use the term as a shorthand for your average Red State person, even though that may not be entirely fair.)
Add to this that the natural inclination of Red States with the power to do whatever they want on race relations is to go to extreme and you have a very unstable situation. Say what you will about corporate sensitivity training, it’s a lot better than having a race war in Deep South states.
Meanwhile, the case can be made that Blue States shorn from Red States would thrive. You would have California as your economic hub. And, the absence of all those center-Right truckers will eliminate the friction when it comes to Elon Musk flipping the switch on automation of the trucking industry. I’m not suggesting the a Blue Republic would be some sort of utopia, but I do believe it that once things were stabilized that it would thrive.
Of course the “once things stabilize” phrase is doing a lot of work.
It’s very possible that after their initial joy that Blue States are leaving the Union, Red States would freak the fuck out and start to bomb Blue States into submission, which would cause them, in turn, to return fire. Then you have the two sides bombing the most stable, most powerful, wealthiest democracy to ever exist….into the Stone Age.
Just figuring out what constitutes a Red or Blue State would likely be the source of severe political violence. Throw in WW3 happening at the same time because the United States is out of commission and…oh boy.
Anyway, hopefully we won’t have to worry about that. Hopefully, something other than civil war, autocracy or military junta will happen and all my hysterical predictions on the issues before us will be just that. But, who knows at this point?
