A friend sent this to me. As one of those who would be left behind, I have mixed feelings.It has a California feel to it.
DEAR RED STATES; WE'RE LEAVING.
We've decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own
country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.
In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon,
California, New Mexico, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois
and all the Northeast.
We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and
especially to the people of the new country that includes Puerto Rico, U.S.
Virgin Islands, Guam and Washington D.C.
We also get the vast majority of the major shipping ports.
So good luck with getting goods in or out of the country affordably.
We also get Costco, Starbucks and Boeing. You get Texas,
Oklahoma and all the slave states.
We get stem cell research and the best beaches.
We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Branson, Missouri.
We get Intel, Apple and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.
We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and
entrepreneurs. You get Mississippi.
We get two-thirds of the tax revenue; you get to make the
red states pay their fair share.
Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than
the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happier, intact families.
Please be aware that California will be pro-choice and
anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once. If
you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have kids they're
apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care
if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.
With the Blue States unified, we will have firm control of
80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple
and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's
quality wines (you can serve French wines at your state dinners) 90 percent of
all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur
coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister
schools -- Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, the Penn, Princeton,
and Yale; and Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Barnard, and
Radcliffe colleges; plus UCLA, UCB, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.
With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to
cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care
costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes,
90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually
100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and Rand Paul.
We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.
Additionally, 62 percent of you believe life is sacred
unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution
is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of
you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
(See that part about divorces. ...)
Oh, and you can have all the new COVID-19 cases since you're
too dumb and self-centered to wear masks.
Peace out.
We are the people of the Blue States
Very amusing. If only.
ReplyDeleteAt least s/he included Michigan. Go Blue!
MS
I often think about how in any solidly "red" state, there are still lots of "blue" voters, and vice-versa.
ReplyDeleteAside from his inflammatory rhetoric about blue states, it's no small measure of T***p's disregard for his supporters in blue states that he continually threatens to (and often does) withhold certain material resources (funding, etc.) to those same states.
It only has a "California feel" to it if you think of California as the coastal region between Los Angeles and Sonoma County. Northern California outside of the San Francisco Bay is culturally and politically similar to Mountain West states like Idaho and Montana, while the Central Valley - one of the most productive and impoverished agricultural regions in the world - is culturally, politically, economically and demographically more like the rural south (swapping the Mexican population for the black population) than Los Angeles or San Diego. Including the accents.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to read up on the State of Jefferson movement if you're interested: https://soj51.org/
Anyways, if California tried to secede from the US, half of California would try to secede from itself.
I've never quite understood how "evolution is only a theory" became a code phrase for "I don't believe in evolution." Take out the word "only" and the statement is one that I think (?) scientists would subscribe to: i.e., evolution is a theory, one that happens to have a great deal of empirical support. Some people seem to think a "theory" in this context is a surmise plucked out of thin air, but of course that's not, afaik, how natural scientists, or most social scientists for that matter, use the word "theory."
ReplyDeleteP.s. The letter is amusing, if a tad slanted.
LFC, most people who say "evolution is only a theory" mean "evolution is just a speculative hypothesis for which there is little or no evidence," with a very pejorative tone.
ReplyDeleteHaha. Good for a laugh, Prof Wolff.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, not very practical. I do think it's worth considering whether the Red and Blue Americas both might not be more satisfied dividing into two separate nations existing side-by-side rather than continuing to fight each other on every damn issue as a single country. I often wonder whether there could be some way to amicably part ways. Reality answers, of course, that there is not. While there might be many younger people who might leap at the opportunity to cross the continent moving to a community they feel better suits their social and political values, probably most people would balk at the suggestion. They'd rather just stay put where they are, where their families have roots and where their jobs and friends are. In many cases, the local ties are so strong that having to sever them in order to move would be extremely painful. Just think how hard it would be on many elderly people to have to choose between leaving their friends, faith communities, trusted doctors, etc and being separated from their loved ones who have decided to permanently move to a new country.
Another major problem, though, involves an issue that has been a source of much controversy in American politics over the past few years, and especially during the Democratic primary campaigns. The writer frames the fundamental divisions in American politics (the Red-Blue divide) as being centered around issues such as gun and abortion laws; views about science and the role of education; and religious orientations more generally, with all that they entail. While those are certainly all very important matters that Americans do tend to divide over, the author seems to completely miss other divisions that are just as, if not more, important: views on economic classes and inequality. Unlike the Obamas, Clintons, Bidens, the Rahm & Zeke Emanuels, the Pod Save America crew, and really the whole MSNBC/upper middle-class PMC crowd that the Democratic Party leadership represents, I don't see getting 85% of America's venture capitalists and entrepreneurs, and corporations like Intel, Microsoft, Apple, and Boeing as they currently exist, as a plus for the Blue States, because the activies of the venture capitalists and the giant capitalist corporations are a very large part of our (humankind's generally and Americans' specifically) problems.
Which brings us to another one of the practical problems in the proposal to split into two separate nations. As others have noted in the comments here, within any region of the United States, within most smaller communities even, there usually are haves and have-nots. Owners and workers (and often the very poor as well, many of whom may not have jobs and may be homeless). Even within Blue States, there are haves and have-nots. The haves, by and large, tend to favor policies that allow them to keep being haves, generally at the expense of the have-nots—such as having government work more for their benefit in policing, taxation, regulation of businesses, providing financial support for business ventures, or engaging in foreign military adventures than for the benefit of the have-nots. In terms of electoral politics, we see that in so-called blue states like New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California, and blue cities like New York City, the default position in policy-making is to favor the haves. (Take the battles in New York between landlords and tenants as a perfect encapsulation of that). In many cases, the "blue" states are only reliably blue during presidential elections. Many of these states frequently tend to elect Republican governors and have at least one house of the state legislature that tends to be dominated by Republicans or by conservative Democrats, even if their Republican governors run more toward the likes of Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzeneggar than Scott Walker and Sam Brownback.
ReplyDeleteThe point being that if the country were to divide into "Red" and "Blue" states as the author proposes, without also seeking in the process to divide between red and blue economic policies, many of the problems average blue-state folks might be seeking to eliminate by embracing secession would just be replicated in their new nation.
Lettuce? I can see bragging about cheese- but lettuce? That isn't going to worry many people.
ReplyDelete"We've got ours, so fuck you" is Trump's basic mindset. I no desire to associate with those who have no basic sense of sympathy for their fellow citizens, whether "Blue" or "Red".
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who doesn't like this? It feels like exactly the type of condescension that fuels resentment of people in red states. What's wrong with Mississippi? There are plenty of decent, friendly people there.
ReplyDeleteI agree there are elements of condescension in the letter.
ReplyDeleteA basic problem is that the structure of U.S. institutions, esp the Electoral College and the Senate, overrepresents parts of the country, so that one has now for ex a situation in which a President elected by a minority of those who voted is about to get a SCOTUS nominee confirmed by a Senate whose controlling Repub caucus does not represent, most likely, a majority of the population. The country is far more urbanized, obviously, than it was when the basic structure of the govt was set up, so the power exercised by non-urban and non-suburban voters (i.e., small town, rural, and perhaps voters in so-called exurbs) is quite disproportionate to their numbers in the pop. This exacerbates divisions on substance and deepens mutual recriminations, resentment, etc.
Without making the Senate another House of Representatives, it seems to me that some measured reforms in its structure are called for. If it were in fact operating as a great deliberative body, there might be a case for keeping it as it is, but it isn't. Of course some of this may require amending the Constitution, which is difficult, but I think the conclusion is almost inescapable that the basic structure of the US's governing institutions has stopped being functional in some key respects.
"What's wrong with Mississippi?"
ReplyDeleteTwo centuries of being wrong about most everything. Had Reconstruction continued until white southerners were truly reconstructed things would be different. currently Mississippi regularly completes with West Virginia for the bottom slot in most every quality of life indicator.
I would bet that if a split occurred Texas would look around and decide it really didn't want to tax itself to bail out some of the other Confederate states. A split would likely be into multiple nations on a general north/south axis.
BTW, the red parts of the large blue states are sparsely populated. Any secession notions would be quickly dealt with.
Dear Dr. Wolff,
ReplyDeleteDo you know the origin of this meme/"letter"? I've seen it circulating around, and I am fascinating by some of the cultural objects placed in one category or another. I'd love to find the original author.
Has it ever occurred to anybody that perhaps "leaving" England was a foolish, cowardly, self-serving move? According to the story, we were founded by a bunch of chicken-shit religious weirdos who didn't want to pay taxes. Frankly, I'm not sure this has ever worked out well. Who cares about blue or red? We've all made a massive mistake, don't you think?
ReplyDeleteBill Connolly said several things that have stuck in my mind. One of them was, "If you're not talking institutions, you're not talking politics."
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that the Blue State Utopia, within a century, would reproduce its rightwing-Red menace and both Blue and Red leaders, using Blue state surveillance systems, would be tracking down Marxists and anti-facists.
To someone from outside the US, this reads more or less as 'You're poor, so we don't need you or even need to listen to you'. In other words, behind the humour is the genuine feeling that citizenship of the poor should be conditional on agreeing with the consensus of the rich. If I was American, it would make me want to join the other side, whoever they were.
ReplyDeleteAall
ReplyDelete“Here’s to the State of Mississippi
“And here's to the government of Mississippi
In the swamp of their bureaucracy they're always bogging down
And criminals are posing as the mayors of the towns
And they hope that no one sees the sights and no one hears the sounds
And the speeches of the governor are the ravings of a clown
Oh, here's to the land you've torn out the heart of
Mississippi find yourself another country to be part of”.
Phil Ochs (1965)
Another verse on Mississippi’s failures to take adequate public health measures is needed.
@Joanna
ReplyDeleteDo you know the origin of this meme/"letter"? I've seen it circulating around, and I am fascinating by some of the cultural objects placed in one category or another. I'd love to find the original author.
My guess -- and it's a guess only -- is that the original author of that letter was Ayn Rand. I would go as far as proposing a name for that new blue country: Galt's Gulch.
A question of my own. Is the gap Biden-Trump narrowing?
Just askin' :-)
I find it rather amusing that a tongue-in-cheek hypothetical has generated so much serious analysis.
ReplyDeleteAnd to Dean, those “chicken-shit religious weirdos,” as you call them, were escaping from other “religious weirdos” in England because the latter believed that their brand of religion was superior to that of the Puritans, Quakers and Catholics. So, yes, I am quite pleased that they emigrated to the New World in search of religious freedom, though I would have preferred they had not committed genocide against the Native Americans in the process. And no, it was not “a massive mistake.” We can all be thankful that they did so, so that when 1939 rolled around, there would be a Lend Lease program available to help Great Britain fight off the Nazi marauder – otherwise, we would all be forced to sing the Horst Wessel song.
MS
There is an obvious question that lurks in the background here, which is: why, after spending a lot of political time and energy to lend support to the civil rights movement, end formal de jure segregation, and then, to borrow from the subtitle of Robert Mickey's book _Paths Out of Dixie_, democratize authoritarian enclaves in the South, would the rest of the country now decide that it was all a waste of time? Istm this, i.e. deciding it was a waste of time, is arguably a short-sighted perspective. Complicated and in some respects tragic though it is, the history of the U.S. seems to me to preclude entertaining serious thoughts of splitting up the country. Going back to the Civil War, too much blood and effort has been spent in keeping the union together, however fractiously, to make separation a psychologically viable alternative. This is why that letter seems to be primarily a joke. To take it seriously would amount to erasing a lot of history, which is something that is psychologically difficult and, arguably, politically unwise.
ReplyDeleteIt's not as if the U.S. is like the former Yugoslavia, the site of deep-seated ethnic tensions going back thousands of years. There are no ineradicable hatreds that make the continued existence of a single polity impossible. Instead, there is a history of racial and class and regional divisions best dealt with within the context of a diverse but also singular union. Or at least there is a reasonably good argument in favor of that proposition, istm.
"Am I the only one who doesn't like this? It feels like exactly the type of condescension that fuels resentment of people in red states. What's wrong with Mississippi? There are plenty of decent, friendly people there."
ReplyDeleteYea. It is a joke, but it's also this sort of mentality that fuels a lot of Trump support. Is there anyone on either side who wants to focus more on our similarities than our differences? And to those trashing Mississippi, there is a difference between the people that live in a place and those who govern it, though of course the former do bear some responsibility for the ladder.
Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, as well as "content creators" are already leaving heavily taxed blue states and cities for more red areas. The shift to remote work is also making this much more feasible for many other workers now compared to in the past. This could lead to an interesting change in demographics, population density, and political and economic power throughout the country if it ends up being a long-term trend.
Alternate View:
ReplyDeleteCalifornia secedes. Everyone moves to California. Population weight triggers San Andreas Fault. California sinks.
Native Americans get their country back.
'44 percent say that evolution is only a theory'
ReplyDeleteIt was the theory of evolution through natural selection when Charles Darwin introduced it. What is it now? I might react to this business about 'evolution' being 'only a theory', as if it was tantamount to the proposition that it's only a flawed, poorly supported fantasy? I guess at a response that in fact, the evidence that evolution has occurred is overwhelming, but are we talking about evolution by natural selection? Say that we are. And yet, by the start of the 20th century, evolution was generally accepted by biologists but natural selection was in eclipse. Sure, that's maybe because it lacked mechanisms of mutation and heredity until birth of genetics, 1900. Thus, the modern synthesis a generation later claimed to sweep away all the alternatives to Darwinian evolution. Although, on the other hand, some forms of orthogenesis, epigenetic mechanisms that resemble Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics, catastrophism, structuralism, and mutationism have been revived, such as through the discovery of molecular mechanisms. Different syntheses followed, accompanying the gradual breakup of the early 20th century synthesis. And heck, if it's 'evolution as fact and as theory', then it might seem relevant that Darwin instead proposed pangenesis and some degree of inheritance of acquired characteristics. In any case, the modern synthesis was defined differently by its various founders, with differing numbers of basic postulates. Natural selection then, is that it? But 'natural selection' what? Natural selection perhaps guides changes to gene pool? Whether to put it that way is controversial, and I guess that most wouldn't, but any summary that I give, most wouldn't.
'you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs'
ReplyDeleteso we are just making these numbers up? All states and territories have more than 20% of adults with obesity. The Midwest (33.9%) and South (33.3%) have the highest prevalence of obesity, followed by the Northeast (29.0%), and the West (27.4%). California is, admittedly, way down at 23.9%, but is the most populous state, more than 12 percent of the U.S. population. I suppose that yes, we are just making these numbers up. That's fine, making numbers up is the solution to all of our problems. That's just sarcasm of course, but sarcasm, is the solution, to all of our problems.