In many respects watching US Politics is like watching two great sporting teams fighting for the most petty trophy in the world. The two teams largely exist for the sole purpose of playing the game and the fame and ovation of the people. The big problem with US Politics, is that neither of the two teams have much of a grand plan for making the country better, other than tearing down what the other builds.
Especially over the past 15 years, US Politics has devolved into an identity outrage shouting match; where both sides of the match have abandoned any and all logic, morality, and sense, in the name of winning the pile of beans.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to want to play the game for no other reason than to cause as much outrage as possible and this week this has included nominating a murderer for the Congressional Gold Medal. If you want to lay any hint of morality aside for the purposes of political point scoring, then already I want to discount anything further that such a person has to say as being worthless.
Nevertheless, I found other comments made by Representative Greene this week to be intriguing:
https://twitter.com/RepMTG/status/1627726254320365569
Impeach Biden or give us a national divorce.
We don’t pay taxes to fund foreign country’s wars who aren’t even NATO ally’s.
We aren’t sending our sons & daughters to dies for foreign borders & foreign “democracy.”
America is BROKE.
Criminals & Cartels reign.
And you’re a fool.
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, 21 Jan 2023
And:
Why the left and right should consider a national divorce, not a civil war but a legal agreement to separate our ideological and political disagreements by states while maintaining our legal union.
Definition of irreconcilable differences:
inability to agree on most things or on important things.
Tragically, I think we, the left and right, have reached irreconcilable differences.
I’ll speak for the right and say, we are absolutely disgusted and fed up with the left cramming and forcing their ways on us and our children with no respect for our religion/faith, traditional values, and economic & government policy beliefs.
With our federal government in over $34 TRILLION in debt and on the verge of default, clearly both left and right have proven that together they both aren’t responsible with hard working Americans tax dollars.
A national divorce would require a much smaller federal government with more power given to the states.
Hence, we would solve our debt and spending problems immediately.
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, 22 Jan 2023
As well as:
Imagine if America decided to just go ahead and have a national divorce.
Hollywood elites and celebrities and all the brainwashed leftists women who watch the nasty women on the View, men who identify as women, and Democrat voters who suffer from the lifelong debilitating disease Trump Derangement Syndrome they caught from CNN wouldn’t have to see much less tolerate deplorables anymore.
They could live in their safe space blue states, own nothing, let their government decide and control everything, and most importantly protect their fragile minds from being shocked and insulted by those of us on the right who believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Then Americans could choose which way, left or right, provides them with the best quality of life, and we don’t have to argue with one another anymore.
I am starting to feel like it’s the right thing to do for everyone.
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, 22 Jan 2023
The commentariat of the United States has gone into overdrive, spinning faster than a rotisserie chicken attached to the prop shaft of a Renault V10 Formula One engine, over the comments made by Representative Greene is the Representative for Georgia and represents a significant proportion of the United States' citizenry who is increasingly unhappy at the state of the nation; egged on by the non-news sources of Fox News, One America Network, and talkback radio.
This wave of blancohysteria comes in the wake of the first black President, the Tea Party, the Freedom Coalition, the return of an openly white President, and metastasised into the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol Building. This is possibly representative of as much as 35% of the American population, as evidenced by the rusted on portion of the electorate who continued to vote for Donald Trump despite and in spite of him being impeached and having various criminal indictments recommended against him.
Looking in from the outside, the comments from Representative Greene can either be seen as inflammatory or taken at face value, strangely correct. If this sounds like I want to endorse the comments made by an obvious wingnut, then please do not take away that impression, however, they do represent a distinct undercurrent of thinking and should be taken seriously.
If we accept the stupid as as serious, then what would actually be so bad about an American National Divorce?
It should be taken as a truth which is self-evident, that half the country hates the other half of the country and everything they stand for. The two great political football teams aren't the whole story though. What lies underneath this stupid veneer which is papered over in various wraps of nationalism, are actually several pieces which probably don't actually belong together.
The US Constitution is a bad constitution for a number of reasons and one of those reasons is that although there are mechanisms to allow states to enter the union, no such mechanism exists for states to leave. The most obvious landmark case which reinforces this was Texas v. White (1868) which stated that the Civil War was illegal and that states had no right to leave. This is a sharp contradiction to the principle that the states have a republican form of government because while on one hand the states appear to have rights, the right to self determination is not one of them.
Even the most sensible of Americans will likely agree to the proposition that in reality, there are probably seven nations trapped inside the Union; all waiting to be set free. Although actually letting them free is something which most people would baulk at. As far as I can tell, the seven nation army being held back is made up of:
The South: which includes Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky and the Carolinas
The West: which is California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii and maybe Nevada.
New England: which includes Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The North East: which is New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The Wild West: of the Dakotas, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Montana and Idaho
The Rusty Mid-West: of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, Illiois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio
Texas: Texas is, was, and will be, distinctly different enough that it doesn't fit into anything sensible, and Oklahoma can join them because those two states are way closer than either of them will admit.
By my reckoning, the United States isn't really one country but maybe seven masquerading as a unified country. If we take Representative Greene's comments as genuine sentiment, with the evidence of what we've seen rumbling over the last 15 years, then it is reasonable to assume that the great experiment, bound by an idiotic constitution, may have run its course.
Maybe it's best if The Confederacy, Columbia, New England, Ferrousonia, The Plains, Texas and Neptunia should part ways. Uncle Sam, Columbia, Lady Liberty, Rosie The Riveter, Texas Pete, the Mountain Man, and Caliwia'na all hate each other and shouldn't really be living in the same house any more. They don't want to speak to each other and they increasingly do not understand what each other has to say.
Of course undoing the Union would be something of a transitional logistical challenge and most of the infrastructure would still have remain in control but under the control of the new nations but this isn't impossible. Although there is currently a maniacal eejit in the Kremlin, his predecessor reasonably peacefully oversaw the undoing of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Most of the nations of the former USSR are quite happy doing their own thing.
The state of Georgia where Representative Taylor is from, was one of those states which formed part of the Confederacy, lost the Civil War; and then spent from 1865 until 1965 trying to skirt around the basic extensions of decency at law which they were forced to implement. It would appear as though the fissures which drove that split, were never properly mended, if in fact they were ever meant to be mended in the first place.
If the Confederacy wants to be a bunch of -ist nutjobs (pick your favourite -ism), then the breakup of the Union would allow them to do so. So long as people could leave peacefully during the transition period, then the terms of entry would be known. Texas who is forever whinging about the southern border with Mexico would finally have control over its own stuff.
What I find particularly interesting about Representative Greene's comments is that if you replaced key words with different colours and words of identity, then you have something that could have just as been easily said on the other side of the aisle. Speaking as someone who lives in that great portion of the world called "Not America", I have difficulty quite often in looking from left to right to right to left, to red to blue to blue to red, from man to pig and from pig to man, and telling which is which.
Actually granting this strange suggestion would mean that something would have to be done to address the apportionment of the national debt, the transition of various institutions which are currently run Federally to the new smaller nations, the building of internal border defences and walls.
The US Military would cease to be funded to the same degree it was before, which would arguably be safer for the rest of the world; for the same reasons that removing Prussia from West Germany was one of the key drivers of "peace" in Europe for 70 years. Of course it does mean that the United States wouldn't be a superpower any more but Ms Greene clearly doesn't care about that an iota.
It might actually be good news for the other nations though. The Plains would find itself as the new grain and produce Tsar; with Idaho in particular becoming its own potato based paradise. Do I like Wyoming? I do not know as I have never Wyomed. Ferrousonia would retain its motor industry. Columbia would become even more insanely rich without the weight of the rest of the six nations to drag it down. New England might be tempted to join Canada.
Her own nation of the Confederate States of America, would instantly find itself cut off from the financial markets of New York in the new nation of Columbia, find itself having to negotiate with Ferrousonia for the importation of steel, and Texas and Neptunia for oil.
The whole idea of the modern nation state only really came about after the Treaty of Westphalia. Since them oceans have risen, empires fallen, and France and Britain have sort of dealt with their own colonial past. The United States which manifest destinied its way across a continent, kind of pretended that it wasn't an empire and hid the truth from itself. Maybe Representative Greene's ramblings although nuttier than Whittaker's Nut Slab with Extra Nuts, contain a truth which should be taken seriously.
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