When you look at the map below, it’s easy to draw mistaken conclusions from the 2016 election results. At first glance, one would think “Red” voters outnumber their “Blue” counterparts by a 50-1 margin. Yet we know there were nearly three million more blue votes than red.
Similarly, you would suppose most blue voters are to be found on the coasts, while the interior of the country is painted conservative red. This is generally true, yet there are blue counties in every state on this map, and red counties alongside the two oceans.
The Daily Stormer website, an “alt-right” (read: neo-Nazi) hangout that describes Manhattan as “Shekel Island,” looks at the map above and decides the United States should be partitioned into separate countries. “Do we really want a vicious cycle of the coasts and the core fighting one another to convince a few border regions to flip one way or the other every four years?” the site asks.
It’s a valid question. I come at the issue from the left rather than the right, but I agree with the assessment that the one-step forward, one-step back routine has become counterproductive. America is now so divided that it is difficult to imagine this ever changing, at least under our current antiquated system. Trump showed no inclination to even try and unite the country in his “America First” inauguration speech—he is continuing to play to his base. In response, huge crowds in Washington and elsewhere around the U. S. (and the world) are voicing their opposition today. You do this, I do that. Now I’m up, now I’m down.
You could argue with Martin Luther King, Jr. (paraphrasing the American Transcendentalist Theodore Parker) that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” But that arc is very long indeed, and for now we seem to be stuck in place, at best.
The idea of secession, long a politically taboo topic, is beginning to percolate around the country, particularly in California. I personally think it would make more sense for California and other progressive states (New York, New England, the Pacific Northwest) to band together, rather than California going it alone. Yes, I know this reads like a far-out fringe fantasy and I do realize that the obstacles to realizing such an ambition would be immense.
But consider what’s happening in America. Does it really make sense for progressives to start over at ground level with the goal of returning Democrats to office in 2018 and 2020? Even if this were successful, the seething anger and confounding ignorance that took Trump to Washington would remain and the political back-and-forth would continue, ad infinitum.
There has to be a better alternative.