Guest post by Noel Holston
“Like they say, it takes all types to make the world. But sometimes you wish it didn’t.” — Gloria Naylor, Bailey’s Café
Our country hasn’t been so divided since the run-up in the 1850s to the Civil War, but this time, though there are similar moral and social issues at the heart of the conflict, the geographic aspect is not so defined than you can draw a Mason-Dixon line between North and South.
Animosity is festering among citizens who live side by side, albeit dispersed in different proportions from state to state. If shooting were to break out — as some worry it will and a few appear to hope — it would be like a massive barroom free-for-all, an ugly, bloody mess that would wreck our economy and make us easy pickings for a hostile foreign power.
If one side firmly believes four additional years of Dirty Donald Trump would turn the United States of America into a fascist state and the other side is dead certain that a Sleepy Joe Biden victory would make us communist, is there anything we can do preemptively?
Secession isn’t an option, for reasons alluded already. Our hostile factions live cheek to jowl.
If we are indeed dealing with many of the classic complaints — irreconcilable differences, mental cruelty, unreasonable behavior — what about separation instead, a monumental divorce?
What if we divided up the property, the land mass of the continental United States into two roughly equal acreages, East and West, not North and South, so both factions get some Sun Belt,some coastline and some places to ski and snowmobile? We can flip a coin to determine who gets which slice.
Obviously, this restructuring will require a monumental migration/resettlement, the most complicated game of musical chairs ever attempted. First, however, we have to figure out who belongs where.
To facilitate any necessary reassignments, we’ll all fill need to fill out the following 13-question — in honor of the 13 original colonies — questionnaire:
1. Do you believe that being asked to wear a COVID mask in public infringes on your Constitutional liberty?
2. Do you believe that every American citizen should have the right to own and carry an assault rifle or pistol?
3. Do you believe climate change is a plot hatched by Chinese communists and/or anarchist scientists?
4. Do you drive an extra-large pickup truck as a leisure vehicle?
5. Do you believe George Soros is a closet Nazi determined to spend his vast fortune to turn the world socialist?
6. Do you believe Hillary Clinton operated a child-sex ring out of a Washington pizza parlor?
7. Do you still believe Barack Obama is Kenyan by birth?
8. Do you believe Black Lives Matter is terrorist organization?
9. Do you believe we need a tall, spike-topped wall along our southern border to keep Mexican and other Latino asylum seekers out?
10. Do you believe Redskins is a fine name for a sports team?
11. Do you believe windmills cause cancer?
12. Do you support fracking and oil drilling in national parks?
13. Do you believe Donald Trump’s face should be added to Mt. Rushmore?
If you answer yes to more than two of these questions, you could soon be a citizen of the new right-wing nation of Murica.
If you answer no to all but one or two of these questions, citizenship will be granted to you in leftist Portlandia.
Flag designs to come.
Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune (1986-2000). He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.
Yes. There is nothing more foolish than the calls for bi-partisanship and unity. We need a divorce, and then the republican party needs to end. It’s way past curfew for those liars.
This is an attempt at gallows humor, but there’s no reason to laugh. I recall George Mosse telling us undergraduates in 1969 how the Nazis subverted the Weimar Republic, and the same means are now being deployed to the same ends. It’s worth noting that Hitler’s party got into power and retained it in 1933 without a majority of popular votes. Too bad the Democrats are fatally inept and the Republicans so thoroughly complicit. Very simply, we’re about the learn that Mao Zedong was right when he said that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. We know who has the guns. And they wouldn’t give up an inch of territory, even if that kind of agreement were seriously proposed. Why would they? While the rational fraction of the populace is willing to concede that the whacks have the right to exist and even the right to believe and promote their vile and deluded ideas, that tolerance is NOT reciprocated. The fascists do NOT think those they demonize and despise should have rights.
Well, dang, you’re making me feel like I’m Joel Grey’s emcee in “Cabaret.”
This is great, Joe! I am going to forward it on to several friends.
Thanks, Mary. You may know this, but I just wanted to clarify: This post was written by frequent contributor Noel Holston, not me.
I could only hope to be a fraction as talented as Noel. I love his contributions here, because it lightly and indirectly associates me with his brilliance.