No. They’re part of our country, and the only reason that they’re “dead weight” is that the GOP lied to and propagandized their citizens for long enough to extract essentially all the capital out of the land and the people. Now they don’t have enough to keep going on their own, and they’re only as good to the Republicans as their electoral votes.
We have to keep them—that was part of the deal from the beginning, and it’s the right thing to do—but we have to fight back against the propaganda so that the citizens can see what they could be without the GOP.
I would never forgive this country if it abandoned me.
Haven’t they already?
The headline alone tells me this is bad-faith drivel, either meant to inflame tensions or to pander to the unrealistic “leftists” who think we’ll have our glorious revolution aaaannnyyy day now.
The country is not “divorcing” we are nowhere close to a “civil war” and there will be a tomorrow. And a day after. And a day after that.
We can start pushing the pendulum back the other direction on the momentum of whatever the latest scandal is, we can have grass-roots campaigns for people who represent us, we can be more social and more active, we can plant gardens and donate to food banks and attend city council meetings. The whole thing goes on.
Do not trust or even believe headlines that inflame tensions or make things worse. We can work harder to make sure nobody is getting abandoned. We had huge setbacks but over the long arc of history, we are still making progress.
As someone who lived in Texas for a decade, I was fully prepared for the US to abandon me after we voted in Greg Abbott again. Gubnatorial elections are popular vote elections not affected by Gerrymandering. We didn’t even have THAT excuse.
That being said, I always said that the rest of the US should cut off everything Oklahome going South and Texas going East as long as they offered a refugee program for those of us not batshit insane.
The only thing that would suck would be leaving behind the kiddos who dont have a say in where their crazy ass parents choose to live.
The dumbest most neoliberal take ever. Maybe poor people deserve it?
Actually I take it back, dude is probably a white supremacist.
Christopher Armitage @chrisarmitage1 Most tell you what’s wrong. I try to tell you what works. Researcher, Former Law Enforcement Officer, Veteran, Author. Living in Spokane, Washington 🌲🌲🌲 with 3 feline roommates
Wow, a cop and a veteran. Double whammy
Don’t forget “author”, as though that’s relevant for anything
I agree sell them off to Mexico if were going to run the US like a business let’s run it like private equity. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
why would Mexico take on bad debt?
Presumably it would actually be worth it for them.
They would provide Mexican level services to the new Mexicans which is presumably lower than the current services they receive suckling at the teat of the federal government.
So. NO. This is what we are fighting against. We need to make a society where everyone can be included, happy, heallthy, and free. Not just exclude those we don’t currently agree with.
Many of these hard core MAGA people are like super fans of a sports team. They are looking for something to identify as and a group to be part of. Give them better options and they wouldn’t exist.
The problem is that you can’t separate most of MAGA from the hate. If a black person in Mississippi benefits from a federal state service, that cannot be tolerated, even if many whites benefit as well.
It’s more important to protect a non-viable embryo, according to these people, than to protect the mother’s life or health.
I feel like King Theoden from LotR, who says “What can men do against such reckless hate?” Though, it’s valid to substitute “hatred” with “stupidity”
There are several sets of people involved. First you have the ambitious. These are poloticians and such that probably aren’t really racist at the core, but are willing to act and be racist to get ahead. They are the real problem. But it isn’t hate that drives them. It’s ambition. For the people suffering, that doesn’t matter. But when it comes to solving the problem it does.
Then you have the people who are actually racist, hateful people. They do exist, but they are actually a very small minority. The rest are “followers”. They weren’t racist until someone convinced them to be. These are the people you can give better options to. Doing so errodes the power of the other two groups.
These followers aren’t being told black and white. They are be told lazy, or criminal. And when the ambitious people shut services, they don’t mention the “good” people who benefit, they only mention the bad people. So often followers don’t even know who is really losing out. The news is full of trump supporters who are unhappy that a local to them person they knew got picked up by ICE. That’s because they believed the propaganda that it would only be violent illegal immigrants and such. Some were just fooled. But a lot just idolize trump because he filled a place in thier life that was empty. Give them something better, and they won’t idolize him. And idolization causes a lot of people to believe illogical things.
Nope, fuck maga. i have no sympathy for nazis. they want to hate everything and everyone, let them be miserable in their little hate worlds.
There are several sets of people involved. First you have the ambitious. These are politicians and such that probably aren’t really racist at the core, but are willing to act and be racist to get ahead. They are the real problem. But it isn’t hate that drives them. It’s ambition. For the people suffering, that doesn’t matter. But when it comes to solving the problem it does.
Then you have the people who are actually racist, hateful people. They do exist, but they are actually a very small minority. The rest are “followers”. They weren’t racist until someone convinced them to be. These are the people you can give better options to. Doing so errodes the power of the other two groups.
I have no sympathy for the two groups that aren’t the followers.
You realize you think like them and they think like you, right? Dehumanizing someone unequivocally and wishing ill upon them is the easy and default human condition you find yourself living in right now.
i do realize that and it weighs on me, and i hate it, but i refuse to tolerate intolerance.
I am fully willing to have rational conversations with maga, but after trying 100s of times and making no progress, i see no reason to continue with the olive branch. i would have better luck teaching my dog mandrin, than making maga see reason or have empathy.
It’s a fascinating social construct: Once enough chronological years are accumulated, expertise is expected. Obviously though, points at everything, that’s a fallacy. They’re literally clinically retarded. It’s uncouthe to fight the retarded.
Ah, the age-old dilemma: is it morally sound and/or necessary to dehumanize dehumanizers?
And if we’re honest, isn’t dehumanizing people a very human trait?
Or put my favorite way: “No one hates like family.”
Secessionists are dangerous and malicious
This is simply what the red states want and it will not improve your lives but leave us with highly dangerous neighbors and a completely destroyed society
Do not fall for this shit
No country can last forever, renewal is just as important for governments as forest fires are to restoring the balance in nature.
Is it painful? Yes.
Is it necessary eventually? Also yes.
Review “soft secession”.
Article author doesn’t actually elaborate on what they mean precisely by “cut them loose” but from context it seems to be cut off all their federal funding.
Not even sure how you’d do that to be honest - even Trump’s admin has struggled to legally withhold federal funds from states he hates, the funding gets pushed through in the end by legal action. So you wanna out-crime Trump? Dumb article.
If the author wants to make bold demands then along with that comes the requirement of suggesting how to achieve them, else it’s just performative whining.
Cut them loose and trail of tears every republican voter out of the blue states to live in their own backwards pedofile supporting cesspool
Would be useful if those fed dollars the author is decrying was much more than military jobs and general entitlements like ag grants, Medicaid, and SNAP. Like yeah, their legislators don’t care about those folks either. But we ain’t exactly pulling a TVA anymore here so playing like neolib Clinton era bare minimum spending on poverty is a grand handout is pretty silly. For the most part nobody in the South or the Rust belt has gotten shit post NAFTA. The new deal has been dead for a long time but we’re sure they owe us for managing poverty.
I fact checked the ratios of federal spending to federal tax receipts, for the three states mentioned in the substack. https://smartasset.com/data-studies/states-most-dependent-on-the-federal-government-2022
Could I have help with more fact checking? The reasoning is sound, but I’ve been burnt before by poorly sourced opinion pieces
I’ve said it before, but we need to start shutting down all these miniscule towns that have no reason for existing. They are nothing but an economic and social drain on the country.
Kick someone out of their home because they aren’t profitable enough wtf?
Hey, if they want to stay when the water, electric, sewage, roads, fire department, police, and all other publicly subsidized services are removed they are welcome to it. We all shouldn’t have to pay because a handful of people can’t adjust to the century they live in.
Uoj going to pay for my housing? How will your state handle the refugee crisis?
It would be more economical to pay for people to relocate and train them for new jobs. There’s plenty of room in cities and suburbs for the displaced. To be clear, I’m not talking about getting rid of towns of 5000; I’m talking about towns of a population of 500 or less.
The West Coast and the North East states need to leave these useless bloodsuckers behind.
