Time to Break Up?

This is a map of the United States. I’m no longer sure whether we should remain United.

Polls indicate that some 40% percent of Americans plan to vote for Trump. This leaves a person (note: by “a person” I mean me 😁) spluttering in frustration. “But how can you?! Why?! Don’t you see that he is” – are there any adjectives that haven’t been used? Ignorant, lying, narcissistic, incompetent, insecure, greedy, self-centered, stupid, shallow, lying, lying, lying. Oh who are we kidding, they know all that.

So, Why? Some are so virulently determined that every girl or woman who becomes pregnant be forced to deliver a baby that nothing else matters. Apparently polls indicate that 20% of all Americans favor outlawing abortion in every case, and another 30% think strict limits are in order.

Another big group of Trump supporters are people who love guns more than they love human beings. So, the ostensible devotion to unborn embryos doesn’t translate into any concern for living children. Nope, these folks are willing to risk their own tender children being slaughtered by a random madman as long as they can keep their military rapid assault I-dont-care-what-the-tecnical-term-is weapons.

I despair of people who are so anti-intellectual that, rather than aspiring to read, learn, master a new skill, or grow, they use the word “elite” as a sneering curse. update – a poll reports thst 33% of Republicans think colleges are bad for the country. What the actual hell?

How can one get through to someone who actually believes what they hear from Trump, Fox Spews, or online conspiracy nuts? (by “one” I also mean me of course 😀).

Trump voters are all either stone cold racists or so het up about some issue like immigration or guns that they will overlook his constant, blatant, incessant racism.

But, really, a lot of it really, is racism. Trump voters are folks who are so convinced that their taxes mostly provide assistance to nonwhite transgender immigrants that they are willing to die – literally die from lack of medical care – rather than expand Medicaid.

Or they have been tricked into believing that “government regulation” is the source of all evil. Trump voters are prepared to breathe poisoned air and drink polluted water if it means thwarting the wishes of the “coastal elites.” What is WRONG with them? Stupidity? Bitterness? So, okay, I admit “a person” can get kind of foaming at the mouth about all this.

The point is this: apparently a sizeable percentage of our population would prefer a country that (1) is a fundamentalist Christian theocracy, in which religious beliefs are a legal excuse to discriminate and public meetings are opened with explicitly Christian prayer, (2) spending on education, parks, libraries, public health, and other services is reduced or eliminated lest these benefits be used by “those others” (3) regulation of industry, employment, and the environment is reduced or eliminated because guvmint regulation, and (4) anyone can walk around anywhere with a military assault rifle.

So, let them have that country, I want no part of it.

The question, nonexistent readers, is how to divide up the country? Should we use state lines? Should we split into two, or maybe more? Look at the map up top and try to figure it out. When one (me again) starts fiddling with the map, several problems are apparent.

First, places that seem to belong together are not all next to each other. The coastal elites are on different coasts, so do we connect them with a band across the top? Secondly, a lot of people might end up in the wrong country – looking at you, Austin, New Orleans, Chapel Hill, Athens Ohio, Athens Georgia, etc. Finally, it’s kind of sad, as break ups are. Kentucky and West Virginia can’t really survive without the taxes collected in New York and Massachusetts. A person could miss Miami and Charleston.

If anyone has thoughts on this, I’d love to hear them.