Brother against brother, sister against sister, we’re a nation divided, no doubt about it. An amazing feat, considering how centrist and moderate most party politics had become in the last decade, but true nonetheless.
And as they say, 49/51 does not a mandate make. Seemed like everyone I talked to after the election was flabbergasted, dejected, incredulous — how could He Who Must Not Be Named be elected? Or even “re-elected,” if you’re playing loose with the truth.
Then the little colored maps came out, and showed us how: Red-state vs. blue-state. Then the more telling county-by-county maps. And, finally, the Big Purple America map.
Faced with such overwhelming conservativism, and with more fervor than in 2000, the talk of Canada began again, sometimes in earnest.
Now discussion leans toward old ideas that are new again: Secession and state’s rights, two ways the liberal half of this country can create a nation that is at least a somewhat-palatable place to live, giving us some modicum of hope.
From Salon.com:
“For now, of course, secession remains an escapist fantasy. But its resonance with liberals points to some modest potential for constructive political action. After all, as the South knows well, there are interim measures between splitting the nation and submitting to a culture pushed by a hostile federal government. Having lost any say in how the nation is run, liberals may be about to discover states’ rights — for better or worse.”
Statewide measures protecting abortion, gay marriage, affordable health care and other hot-button issues could protect the things 49 percent of us — the blue-staters, as we’re becoming called — value dearly, while leaving the other 51 percent in that vast expanse of red to do things their own way.
Quite appealing. But another problem is raised, and succinctly, by the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger: It could be said that the divide between the Two Americas is Red vs. Blue. But more accurately, the line comes down between city and country, urban and suburban. The country is not made up of red states and blue states, but rather is a sea of red dotted by an “urban archipelago.” To leave decisions up to states independently means abandoning the liberal residents of cities within conservative states.
So what’s the answer? Do we, the “blue minority” of today’s America, sit back and wait for four more years of this bullshit to end? Do we emigrate to the Great White North? Do we hunker down with our muskets and prepare for a civil war? Flee to the cities to be with the rest of our kind?
I know how hard it is to be Blue when you’re living in a sea of Red, and fleeing is not always an easy option. I was a midwestern college girl, after all, stuck amid the cows and corn with only my pierced nose and combat boots to protect me. I did eventually seek shelter in the Blue [a Northeastern city, natch], but my bleeding heart still goes out to those I left behind who are trying to keep their hopes up in Ohio.
I don’t know what the answer is, and I don’t know how to make America bland, moderate and whole again, like it was under the comparatively-glorious reign of Clinton. My only consolation is that if Beaner makes it to his 18th birthday we’ll have one more Blue vote to get us out of this mess.