Movements in several states dominated by leftist politics are exploring ways to rid themselves from the bondage of high taxes, burdensome regulations, and other government intrusion. All over the country, there are whispers of secession — forming new states within existing ones so that conservative voices can be heard over the cacophony left-wing extremist noise.
When the talking heads on the various news channels talk about today’s toxic political climate being civil war-like, they have no idea how right they are.
On the West Coast of America where liberal politics are as much a part of the region as the Pacific Ocean’s salty air, conservatives seek relief from the noxious policies of Oregon and California.
“Oregon is controlled by the northwest portion of the state, Portland to Eugene. That’s urban land, and their decisions are not really representing rural Oregon,” said Mike McCarter, the president of Move Oregon’s border for a Greater Idaho. “They have their agenda and they’re moving forward with it, and they’re not listening to us.”
The “Greater Idaho” movement seeks to break off a large portion of Oregon, stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and join the state of Idaho, which they believe has values closer to their own.
So, in the Oregon case, the movement isn’t really talking secession, but rather a border realignment, at least according to their petition.
“This proposal is different from secession because it is simply a shift in borders that does not affect the balance of power in the Unites States Senate,” states the petition. “It does not create a new state or increase the number of states.”
Idaho’s governor, Republican Brad Little, looks kindly on the idea of having some kindred souls join the Idaho nest. “They’re looking at Idaho fondly because of our regulatory atmosphere, our values. That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”
On Fox News, Little said, “What they’re interested [in] is they would like to have a little more autonomy, a little more control, a little more freedom and I can understand that.”
South of Oregon, a more traditional secessionist idea — the creation of a new state — is alive and well in California where rural residents, unhappy with the state’s obvious leftward tilt in the past generation, long to isolate themselves from the coastal population centers and the capital of Sacramento.
The New California campaign, the brainchild of Robert Paul Preston and Tom Reed looks to create a new state, separate from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other metropolitan centers where leftist politics rule the day.
“The current state of California has become governed by a tyranny,” the group’s website explains. Therefore, the group believes that it is the “duty of the people who are suffering the long train of abuses and usurpations at the hands of a tyrannical government to abolish and make a new government by the people and for the people under God.”
The rural and urban divide and the political divide that it encompasses lies at the root of the New California campaign’s disillusionment with the current California government.
“There’s something wrong when you have a rural county such as this one, and you go down to Orange County which is mostly urban, and it has the same set of problems, and it happens because of how the state is being governed and taxed,” Preston said.
It’s not just the west coast either. In the Midwest, rural Illinoisans are looking to escape Chicago’s debt problem and its enormous political influence on the rest of the state by having Cook County and Chicago declared its own state.
In New York, a proposal exists to split the Empire State into three autonomous and self-governing regions — each with their own governor and legislature.& For federal purposes, the state would remain one entity, but the three regions would be able to govern themselves on the state level.
And then there’s Virginia. In the Old Dominion, where Democrats now have majority control of both chambers of the legisature and the governor, Ralph Northam, is also a Democrat, both the governor and Democrats are pushing for strict new gun-control laws and radical abortion measures that have angered many in the state. That anger has led to the new Vexit or Virginia exit — a play on the UK’s departure from the EU, Brexit — movement.
Rick Boyer from Campbell County, Virginia, has created a petition to allow counties to vacate Virginia for West Virginia, a more conservative friendly state.
The petition has some very high-level support including the Reverend Jerry Falwell and West Virginia governor Jim Justice.
Justice, a Republican, offered some welcoming words for anyone who wants to join his state. “If you’re not truly happy where you are, we stand with open arms to take you from Virginia or anywhere you may be,” Justice said at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. “We stand strongly behind the Second Amendment, and we stand strongly for the unborn.”
Are any of these secession type movements likely to actually succeed? Probably not. And the resulting chaos that might occur from these actions might be worse than the solutions. But in 2016 many were saying the same thing about a Donald Trump presidency. And look how that turned out.
Photo: MCCAIG/iStock/Getty Images Plus
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects, with a primary focus on the ongoing anthropogenic climate-change hoax and cultural issues. He can be reached at [email protected]
