I think it’s basically true that there is somewhat of a disconnect between how progressives think about things and how the Democratic Party in Washington thinks about things, but this disconnect is incredibly minor when you compare it with the disconnect between how conservatives view things and how the Republican Establishment views them. For example, in Wisconsin the GOP is trying to depublicize their internal dispute about whether or not the Badger State should exert its right to secede from the Union.
In April, at a meeting of the Sixth Congressional Republican Caucus, they passed a resolution affirming Wisconsin’s right to secede. It has aroused some controversy, but what’s most interesting is what people have to say about it. For example:
To be clear, the text of the resolution reads, in full, “BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that we strongly insist our state representatives work to uphold Wisconsin’s 10th Amendment rights, and our right to secede, passing legislation affirming this to the US Federal Government.”
“We should remove it. Nobody wants to secede from the union,” said Todd Welch, chairman of the libertarian-leaning Wisconsin Campaign for Liberty and a member of the Republican Party. “Obviously, it is an option, but nobody wants to do that. We should focus on the real issues of stopping Obamacare, stopping Common Core, protecting gun rights.”
The 10th Amendment simply states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” If you couple the 10th Amendment with a right to secede, you’re talking about combating the tyranny of the federal government. This fits right in with “stopping Obamacare, stopping Common Core, protecting gun rights.”
Watch:
Lynette Clark, a leader of the Alaskan Independence Party, said that she was encouraged by the news of out of the Badger State.
“With fascism alive and well in Washington D.C., there are a lot of states that are looking to affirm their rights as republics,” she said. “Look at what is happening with the BLM and our good friend Mr. Bundy. Government agencies are out of control. It reminds me of Europe in the 30’s.”
The following is supposed to pass for sanity:
“I do believe that a state has the right to secede if the voters wish. I just believe it is necessary at this time. We are not at the point. We are talking about nullification,” said Lewis. “We are led to believe that the Civil War ended that debate [on secession], but it didn’t. The Civil War was a war; one side won, one side lost, and because of that they didn’t secede, but we can still have the debate.
“We are not saying we need to colonize the moon or anything crazy like that,” he added. “We are fighting for our constitution.”
Of course, Wisconsin fought bravely on the side of the Union in the Civil War, but some of their more politically-active right-leaning citizens seem to regret that.
So, while more mainstream Republicans are struggling to distance their party from this secession talk, the bottom line is that opposition to ObamaCare, Common Core, and any kind of reasonable gun violence control is considered completely orthodox within the GOP.
This is the party that Jeb Bush wants to run. I don’t think they will let him run it.
The stone around their necks…
The differences between progressives and the DNC Democratic establishment are not about thinking…but doing.
The differences between conservatives and the GOP establishment are not about thinking…but acting out their anger or showboating. Everyone wants to get on the Palin gravy train; if she can do it, there’s and opportunity for every two-bit pol to find a shtick. Wisconsin conservatives take up Texas’s shtick and Palin ups her shtick to “Crucify, baby, crucify.”
The epitaph of the modern conservative movement will be, “Irritate the liberals.” It’s totally devoid of thinking.
and lower-class conservatism is this:
The first group wants to be powerful. The latter group wants to feel powerful.
When the societal hierarchy is in place and churning like it should be, these two visions of America get along just fine. The money men and the neo-aristocrats shear and butcher the sheep and their lackeys get first-in-line rights to the slop buckets of what’s left over — along with a nod and a wink if they beat up a woman/gay/darkie/poor/etc. to steal their tripe.
However, when the system breaks down, that’s when these two desires diverge. See, it’s a lot easier to pursue schemes that make you feel powerful than ones that provide actual. Voting for succession or bringing your guns to protest the courts or voting for a government shutdown or droning on about baptizing terrorists is a quick and easy way to feel powerful. You spend a couple of weeks masturbating to your fantasy about having a god-given, genitals and melanin-driven right to make the world revolve around your inane delusions and when that well dries up you move on to the next manifestation of your id. Yes, in the long run all this does is end up making you and your tribe reviled and marginalized, but in the meantime you feel like kings of the world.
Why do we want to call those people fellow citizens anyway? It is becoming impossible to view the radical GOP and their supports as anything but an enemy… completely unworthy of either my concern or my tax dollars. Maybe that’s the point of all this craziness… is that what they want?
"Obviously, it is an option"
I wonder what the crisis would be that would finally make secession necessary. In 1860 it was the election of Abraham Lincoln, so one possibility would be the Democrats taking control of the House. With Democrats in complete control, Real Americans have no voice in Washington, and so must take up their AR-15s and grenade launchers in order to defend their right to own those AR-15s and grenade launchers. And to be ignorant and lack access to affordable health care.
Aside from going crazy, they’ve gone deeply stupid too. If they decide to secede, do they really think there’s going to be a debate? I’ve been wondering if they really believe the feds backed off because they were intimidated by Cliven Bundy’s little gang, and yes it appears that they do. They’re going to get some people killed if they keep that up. Mainly themselves, of course, but God forbid they should take out anybody else.
I’m in my mid-50’s, and I have watched this whole craziness bubble up over the last decade or so. And I am beginning to come to the conclusion that I will likely not live to see a time where this kind of insanity is relegated to the history books and becomes just a period in our American culture that is studied by psychologists and sociologists as simply some kind of periodic aberrational upheaval in our national mental health.
It seems that this kind of thing is now baked into the American cultural cake, and has enough financial, media and institutional support to live, ad infinitum, until either we somehow finally succeed in destroying human civilization, or we are done in by some cosmic catastrophe that finally puts this zombie into the ground.
When you have such a significant minority of people who cannot help but see these kinds of things as the ultimate and only suitable solution, and who are so deeply embedded in a fantastical world of illusion and propaganda, then there is simply no way, in the short term of history, to cull this kind of mentality from the national psyche. Excising this cancer is going to require those people who have found themselves politically aligned with this craziness to stand up and say, “No more! This has gone too far!” If these people, who have a default common cause with this wing of their party, do not draw a line in the sand and engage this movement, then the only ones left to oppose it are those of us on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. And if that battle is ultimately required, then I am afraid that we are looking a serious, and possibly violent, confrontation down the road. Back after the 2012 election, when there were people talking about the “fever finally breaking”, I was on the complete opposite side of that opinion. I could not say often enough that the reality would be, You haven’t seen nothing, yet!” Just watching and listening out here in my part of the country, it was simply obvious and beyond any doubt that we were headed for a doubling down of resolve and lunacy on the part of these people. Compromise and surrender were never in the cards. What you see in the Cliven Bundy crowd is exactly what we are dealing with here. Yes, they all sound crazy when you see them on the TV. But make no mistake, those people’s attitudes are not simply outliers. This viewpoint is mainstream for them. Sure, there are a lot of specific kookiness in some or their individual paranoiac rants, but the root from which all this springs runs through the thinking processes of everyone, regardless of the issue.
I just cannot help but be pessimistic that we will get through this without a significant, and possibly protracted, period of internal civil upheaval.
When you have such a significant minority of people who cannot help but see these kinds of things as the ultimate and only suitable solution, and who are so deeply embedded in a fantastical world of illusion and propaganda, then there is simply no way, in the short term of history, to cull this kind of mentality from the national psyche. Excising this cancer is going to require those people who have found themselves politically aligned with this craziness to stand up and say, “No more! This has gone too far!”
I think the greater danger comes from all the relatively uninformed people in the center who passively take in the spectacle and assume that if the far right is so genuinely worked up, then there must be some legitimate complaint. I can’t tell you how many times since the arrival of social media that I’ve read some iteration or other of the formula, “the truth probably lies somewhere in between.”
If the apolitical center weren’t so overburdened with making a basic living, they might have time and energy to inform themselves that “both sides” don’t actually have a point. If it were just the radical right screaming at each other in their bubble, they’d stay comfortably on the margin.
Yes, I agree. Your points are spot on. I do think things are aligning in such a way, with the radical right so energized, our media so dysfunctional and a plurality of people severely under-informed; that we are on a disastrous course. I just don’t see this getting resolved through a peaceful political process. I am simply not encouraged with the direction of things. I will continue to work to do what I can to use the process in a constructive way, but I’m just not certain how much things can be mitigated.
I’m somewhat more optimistic. I do think this particular strain of the radical right has a limited future, mainly because of the increasingly open racism. I agree that there might be some violence, but no one who isn’t a white supremacist with a death wish is going to go join Bundy’s bandits.
And in fact there is one thing that is not completely impossible that would make a huge difference: if the Democrats take control of the House and get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. And as far as that goes, if present trends continue, it’s not really a question of if but when.
My main concern is really whether we can get ourselves a functioning government in time to do anything that will make any difference about climate change. That’s going to kill a lot more people than these fucking Oath Keepers.
Fine. Let them secede. Allow Scott Walker to become President of Wisconsin, install his fascist regime, and then let them wonder why the US and Canada will not conduct any trade or business with the Country of Wisconsin.
Of course we’ll need to increase our border security to prevent the mass exodus of immigrants into Minnesota and Illinois.
Can we use family clauses to bring my lefty brother in law and his wife over? Maybe citizen exchange for the Bachmannistas?
Want to point out opposition to Common Core is a good thing. The rightist opposition is off in conspiracy land, but there are plenty of actual reasons CC as it stands is a downgrade.
Surely the 6th CD Republicans, faced with an email-reading, phone-tapping, drone-striking central government, are just being prudent.
Sounds like it’s time for the brave soldiers of the Iron Brigade to rise up out of their graves and teach the Copperheads back home the true meaning of Loyalty and Patriotism.
A lot of good men died putting down the Great Rebellion and it’s disgraceful to hear this kind of seditious talk being mouthed again.
I don’t care if they secede. If they do, they won’t get to be in the Rose Bowl any more. Ha ha.