It occurs to me that all of this talk of secession really spits in the face of all those who died during the Civil War. Yes, even those on the Confederate side. For at least by their deaths the question of whether a state can secede from the Union was decided forever, and thus, at least it meant something.
Now we know that the question was only decided until the Republican Party lost an election and didn’t like the policies of the guy who beat them, even though that was precisely the scenario that started the Civil War, except that back in 1861, it was the Republican Party that won, and the Southern states didn’t like that or President Lincoln’s policies.
Yes. That is the definition of irony.
Flash forward 148 years, and either the modern Republican Party forgot everything it stood for when the party started, or they just don’t care, for all that matters to them now is power. Forget the Constitution. Forget the hundreds of thousands of Americans that gave their lives during the Civil War. Indeed, forget every veteran and every American who ever died for America and its freedom. For the essence of asserting a right to secession is saying that you don’t care about America at all. It says you only love your country if your party is in power. And if you are out of power, fuck it, I want out. During the dark days during the Bush Administration, there were some who said they would follow the right wing’s advice about “love it or leave it.” I always told them that I am an American and I am staying, for it was my country too and the right wing was just going to have to deal with it.
And now that the right wing is out of power, this is how they are dealing with the notion that their ideas are not favored, that their vision of America was rejected at the ballot box in a landslide: they want out.
And that reveals another irony, considering that Republicans were the ones always wrapping themselves in the flag.
It is tempting to say fuck it, let them leave.
No. If it takes refighting the Civil War to learn lessons anew, then maybe that is the way it has to be.