By Gary Bennett
As I complete my mail-in ballot request and prepare to serve as an election judge again in this great state of Maryland, I can’t help but be grateful I live in a place that comfortably aligns with my political sensibilities and vision for America.
I know that is not true for everyone.
I can’t imagine living in a state like West Virginia or Texas where the majority political opinion is so much different than my own, and the political leaders seem to take such delight in marginalizing the opposition citizenry like they aren’t really citizens at all.
As for my conservative friends, I can’t imagine how it must be for you living in the Old Line State. You must cringe every time the democratic legislature passes a crazy bill like banning the sale and possession of untraceable “ghost” guns or establishing a statewide paid family and medical leave program for millions of workers. Even when a republican governor vetoes a bill, the democratic legislature simply overrides it with little or no fanfare because it’s (ho-hum) business as usual.
Despite the frequent threats I hear to leave Maryland, I know it’s not easy to move. But if I were in the permanent political minority, I would surely make it a priority. In this regard you have to give former Maryland state senator Alex Mooney (R-Mars) credit because he took his political talents from Maryland to West Virginia and picked up right where he left off. Except now, he has more sympathetic ears and has gained higher office, even if it’s in West Virginia.
I might be pessimistic but when you project this state-by-state angst over the entire country, It seems quite possible to me the United States makes a clean, political break one day. It is doubtful there would be all out war—we’ve been down that woeful road before and it didn’t work out so well. But, a political, paperwork-laden solution decades from now? Sure. Just think something like Brexit.
Consider if breaking up would be so bad. California is, by itself, the world’s fifth largest economy. Texas, Florida, and New York could no doubt stand on their own. The remaining states would then band together in one or more conservative-leaning countries or progressive-leaning countries. This could be decided by state referendum but the lead time would be such that the political losers in each new country could find work and swap accommodations with the losers in the other if they wish, sort of like an enormous Airbnb program. Texas could build that wall and California could ban all those guns. We would all be able to move freely about these new countries just like the EU citizens do. We would all be members of NATO.
Politicians are fond of saying we have more in common than we have differences. My observation is we don’t. We have many more differences—certainly too many and too serious to remain in an unhappy marriage. It used to be that a foreign threat would bring us together. Think Cuban missile crisis or 9-11. No longer. All you have to do is watch some Fox News and you’ll see we can’t even agree on our opposition to Russia in their war with Ukraine.
Abortion? As we are now seeing this issue alone has the potential to thwart the very idea of what it means to be American. Most of us want this procedure to be safe, rare and legal. We feel it is none of our business what women do with their own bodies. Others want it to be very much their business. They wish to preserve the fetus at all costs and make criminals out of doctors and desperate women.
Gun rights? Some of us know that more guns do not make us safer and would be happy if we had many less guns than people. Others insist more guns d0 make us safer and there can’t be too many. They should even be at our sides at all times.
Voting rights? Most of us believe there is not a voter fraud problem in this country and wish to make voting as easy as possible. Others believe elections are stolen and voting laws must be tightened up precipitously.
I could go on and on.
If you know a little history, you know this: there is nothing sacred about being a “country.” The list of countries that have come and gone is telling. We only have to look at modern times to remember there used to be independent states like USSR, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, East Pakistan, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. They’ve been replaced by a potpourri of new or merged countries. English- and French-speaking Canada flirts with a split every decade or so. Even on our own sunny shores, Texas and Hawai’i, believe it or not, used to be independent countries. And let’s not forget America itself was not so long ago part of the British Empire.
When you look clear-eyed at this in an historical light, it seems more likely than not that America breaks up with itself one day. And, why not? Most people are either mad, anxious, or apoplectic at the other side. They simply can’t understand why those people think and live the way they do and are always stirring up trouble. The same angst and stress that plays out in red and blue states for the opposition party clearly plays out at the federal level every day. Do you really think it will get better? I don’t. Compromise and “country before party” is a quaint relic of another time. The political class has failed us.
I hope I’m wrong about breaking up. I can’t imagine needing a passport to visit my beloved Siesta Key, Florida, each year. Of course, I don’t think you could pay me to live there now with Ron DeSantis (R-Looney Tunes) gleefully banning books, criticizing mask-wearing students and picking on Mickey Mouse for saying “gay”. But if Florida were in a different country, I’m ashamed to say that I would probably hold my nose and overlook the human rights abuses taking place there in order to visit. After all, I did that when I visited China many years ago.
