Let's be honest here. Not so much.
It may be time to consider that this "union" just isn't valid anymore.
Can there be any common ground at all anymore?
We may have to consider that there is none. None whatsoever.
Consider the liberal ideal, which at its core was always about nurturing new shoots of enlightenment and a belief that such enlightenment was as likely to spring up in a farmhouse dinner table, or on a ghetto block, as at some great center of power or finance. The promise of liberalism was that we would reach out toward one another, focus on building and connecting. A belief that all Americans and beyond could participate and benefit from diverse, democratic, and yes, brilliant societies, “the broad, sunlit uplands” that Churchill envisioned, or Dr. King’s “nation that will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.”
But that was long ago now.
I would certainly prefer to persuade people to work together, to find common goals.
That is, after all, what elections are supposed to be about—instead of, say, suborning the head of the FBI, or getting foreigners to commit felonies on your behalf.
It’s true that even the most dominant of powers can be dissolved by the right idea, carried forward by enough people who believe in it. The Republican landslides of the 1920s were reversed nearly overnight when they ran up against the liberal program of the New Deal.
Meanwhile Republicans tried to pretend, in 1932 that the Great Depression was already over. (WASN’T THE DEPRESSION TERRIBLE? read their billboards).
But that isn't likely going to happen again.
We now live in a world where concrete reality is replaced with delusions.
A world where President Obama was somehow a secret Kenyan, and Clinton runs a pizza take out joint that has child sex slaves in the back. A world of complete and obvious bullshit.
Where the most greedy immoral opportunist is a champion of the "common man", and unethical hollow men who lie every time they open their mouths somehow are stalwarts of Christianity.
The reality is there is little hope of any conversation with people who willingly choose a fantasy to live in over observable reality. Why would there be hope of common ground between people who seek to find economic justice, and those who seek it's destruction? Between desire to build, and desire to destroy? Between funding new research to improve our lot, and funding a creationist unicorn museum?
The truth is there isn't much in common.We can not find common cause in public policy when we do not even share something resembling the same idea of objective reality. It is a tragedy that so much of the work that so many men and women toiled at for so long to make this a better country, and a better world, has been thrown away, leaving us all in such needless peril.
To fall to this place, with this hollow man assuming leadership, is in itself a refutation of the hope that sustained human progress is possible and will prevail.
What remains for those of us who are not fooled by a parade of fascism wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross, is to regroup, to salvage what we might, and to begin again where we can.
This is the bleakest new reality of all: That common ground is gone. Trumpists don’t read or listen to legitimate news sources. They don’t even care what a legitimate news source is, as the rise of all those fake news sites has demonstrated. Two-thirds of them believe that unemployment rose under Obama, (even though his policies actually cut it by more than half). Only 17 percent of Trumpists acknowledge that Obamacare has driven the percentage of Americans without health insurance to a record low. Exactly what is the messaging strategy to win over those willing to believe that a routine military training exercise is a UN attempt to conquer Texas? Or any of the other bizarre and inane conspiracy theories that are now promulgated daily as the gospel truth not just by a few, fringe elements but by leading members of Trump's government’s security apparatus? Thanks to the last election, the federal and state judiciaries Republicans will now fill with far-right ideologues who will rubber-stamp every one of the voter suppression tactics the GOP currently employs, along with any new devilry that Trump and his insurgent saboteurs dream up.
And once the president delivers on his campaign promise to Jerry Falwell Jr. and other evangelical leaders by making it legal for churches and other nonprofit organizations to funnel tax-deductible donations directly to political candidates, we can expect a fresh Niagara of cash to pour into our elections, one that will make Citizens United look like a dried up little creek during climate change. Perhaps it is just time to admit this marriage just isn't working and everyone in it is miserable.
Besides, what have the righties always wanted? Pay no taxes, have no federal authority, dismantle the social safety net, loot social security, and kill medicare.
So perhaps we should just do all that...I mean Trump and Ryan will do their best to accomplish that anyway...but why resist? And why stop there? Just dissolve the whole mess.
Let the "liberal" areas create a new federalism. A new alliance. And let the red states form their confederate states again.
let’s be clear: The problem isn’t that Trump won, thanks to fatally antiquated Electoral College (is there another republic in the world, or indeed the history of the world, where a party has won a national election by nearly three million votes and still lost?) that was designed for the 13 colonies who shared many common political goals and interests.
This hasn't been the case for a long time.
The problem is that he has made it abundantly clear that he intends to rule without regard for the Constitution, let alone the majority of Americans (who actually voted against him.)
In this new alliance, we would be free to use our revenues for the things that matter to us.
Infrastructure, a high speed rail system, a new modern electrical grid, public education, research, things that improve our standard of living. The truth is, most of the "trump states" are a drain on our treasury anyway. 20 of the 26 states most dependent on federal aid went to Trump.
Take Mississippi (please!), famous for being 49th or 50th in everything. When it comes to sucking at the federal teat, the Magnolia State is the undisputed champ. More than 40 percent of Mississippi’s state revenue comes from federal funding; one-third of its GDP comes from federal spending; for every dollar it pays out in federal taxes, it takes in $4.70 in federal aid; one in five residents are on food stamps—all national highs. Your Trump-loving congressmen will discover if and when they fulfill their vow to gut the social safety net that most of it's recipients are actually in their states. Bullshit rhetoric may rule now, but take their food stamps away and see if the reality of starvation doesn't make them turn on your privileged sorry asses.
What’s the matter with Kansas? They went broke enacting right wing nut job economics?
Nothing trickled down? Who cares! This is the good thing about a divorce—the chance to get all of your crazy, deadbeat in-laws out of the house.
How can we save Detroit? Hey, she’s your baby now. Didn’t you say something about the private sector, or maybe casinos, or that mortgage loans guy who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers? I’m sure that’ll work out just fine for you.
With all the extra money we’ll have, we can fund own Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid systems once Paul Ryan manages to “privatize” them for you Trump Staters. And what city is all that privatized money likely to come to, on its way to the markets? Oh, right, New York, The one which you hate so much! All those extra Wall Street bonuses and dividends will really help the local economy!
the Northeast Corridor is the only part of our national train system that makes an operating profit. But every year, your Trump State congressmen threaten to pull the plug on Amtrak unless it continues to guarantee daily, money-losing service to all the little towns out on the prairie, in empty, gas guzzling red states like Montana, Idaho, Nebraska, and Kansas. Then you go right back to fulminating about how much Amtrak costs. This is the legislative equivalent of Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles holding himself hostage at gunpoint to fend off a lynch mob.
Go ahead, end your federal Amtrak subsidies. In their place, The new alliance will build fantastic, new high-speed rail systems of our own. They’ll run past our state-of-the-art wind farms, fiber-optic networks, and highways that recharge our self-driving cars as we travel. Do not bother us about money to repair your Trump State airports since, as you always claim, we will just be flying over them anyway.There are still a few kinks to work out, of course. What to do, for instance, about the likes of Illinois and Minnesota, blue states adrift in a red sea? Or all those individual “blue cities” trapped in red states, like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, or Cleveland and Columbus? We’ll need to reach cooperative agreements with them to exchange goods and services as needed. They will become stops on our new information superhighways, or on our superfast rail networks, or self-driving highways. Our cool new trains and cars will glide past you all the faster, now that we don’t have to stop in between.
Be sure to wave!
