Do you think the street upheavals of the 1960s were bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet. It is patently obvious that the fractures within the United States are far deeper than red states versus blues states on Election Night. You can wave flags and chant “USA! USA!” at international sporting events all you want, but that will not change the reality that Americans simply don’t like each other very much.
I’m one of them. Even though National Hockey League team rosters are filled with Canadians, Czechs, Finns, Latvians, Russians, and Swedes, I want Colorado to wipe out Florida in the Stanley Cup because ... screw Florida. I don’t watch football because ... screw that redneck sport. I want Scotland to seize Trump’s golf course by eminent domain and would love to see Black athletes refuse to play in Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, and other such sanctimonious but morally bankrupt states.
There simply is no such place as the “United” States. We have a rogue party (Republicans), an inept one (Democrats), and nine justices whose institution needs to be renamed the Extreme Court. The right to choose is gone. Ditto the right of states to demand that industries must clean up their environmental messes. Businesses and forked-tongued ministers have more rights than women. The wall between religion and state has crumbled and demagogic lunatics sandbagged the war against Covid. Just today the Extreme Court took away the right of New York State to regulate who can carry firearms in public. Got that? In the wake of obscene murders of school children, police shootings of unarmed citizens, a massacre in Buffalo, and racists gunning down immigrants and people of color, the Extreme Court made it easier for angry white dudes to carry guns.
What’s it going to be, America, reason or fire? If you think stalking Justice Kavanaugh was a one-off, you’re wrong. So far violence has mostly been the domain of the right, but this will not last. You can only push people so far before they say, “Screw prayers, Teddy bears, and liberals with petitions; I’m out for revenge.” Courtesy of the Extreme Court they can arm themselves with assault rifles and enough ammo to invade Arkansas. It’s just a matter of time until a Catholic church is torched, an Extreme Court justice is assassinated, or a certain ex-president whose hatred and greed are larger than his penis is gunned down.
I don’t advocate that. I’m a Quaker who has never touched a firearm and never will. I don’t think violence solves a bloody thing, but tell that to those being trampled down by rich overlords and plutocrats. As a certain Pulitzer Prize-winning poet once wrote, “You don’t need to a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Prep yourself for movements to break up the nation, some of which will be political and many of which will be violent. Get ready for Chicago 1968: The Sequel.
I’m a senior citizen now, so the dissolution of America may not happen in my lifetime, but the process is inexorably underway. We’re already an afterthought everywhere in Europe except NATO and even it loathes taking marching orders from Washington. It speaks volumes that Trumpinistas have more credibility in Beijing, Moscow, and Riyadh than in Berlin, Copenhagen, Ottawa, Paris, Tokyo, or the entire continent of Africa.
As America disintegrates, the question becomes whether it will happen by mutual agreement or bloodshed. Is there anything that can save us? I see one possible way out. It’s time to hoist the right on its own petard and embrace, of all things, states’ rights. The USA needs to adopt a Canadian-style confederation model and give states the right to “opt out” of laws deemed contrary to its values. This has happened for the political right; now it’s time for the left to seize upon the same tactic.
There is precedent. When the Supreme Court told President Andrew Jackson that Indian removal was unlawful, he ignored it and told the court it could not enforce its own ruling. Massachusetts should follow suit and tell the Extreme Court that reproductive rights will stand in the Commonwealth. New York State should do the same with the gun laws the Extreme Court struck down earlier today. New England would be free to ignore the Interstate Commerce Act and refuse all goods coming from polluting states. Before you assert that no one would care, understand that California, Oregon, and Washington would stand with us. Texas brags it could go its own way, but I can tell you that if California ever chose that route and withheld its federal taxes, the American house of sand would collapse. Add Illinois, New York, and a few others to that list and it’s game, set, match.
The sooner we stop pretending we are “united,” the sooner civility will resume. Opt-out practices can save enough of the USA to allow for cooperation on federal taxes, defense (not offense!) spending, trade agreements, and postal services. That is, by the way, about all that affected the average American citizen before the Civil War. The Bill of Rights now lies in tatters and, as I see it, the only way it can be preserved is to allow it thrive in enclaves that care about it. Your choice: opt out or hunker down.
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