Forget Your Red State Republic — Blue Cities Should Secede

As a progressive Southerner, I’ve always seen secession as a cause meant for racist losers.

Because, historically, that’s what it’s been: good ol’ boys riding around with Confederate flag bumper stickers that say things like, “The South Will Rise Again.”

Or, “If I’d known this, I would have picked my own cotton.”

No, seriously, that’s a thing:

Because sure, a guy who can’t even be bothered to wash his own Mustang would have picked his own cotton.

These are the people who have long bought the ruse that their enemies are Black and brown rather than the rich white folks who’ve made sure their jobs and health care suck too.

As much as I’d love to help them see the truth, there are only 24 hours in a day, and I’ve got more important things to do.

Besides, some people can’t be saved. Some don’t even want to be.

But lately, I’ve been having second thoughts.

Not about them — they’re the same people they’ve been since 1860, even if they changed party affiliation — but about secession as a political tool.

And I’ve come to a realization.

The problem isn’t secession, per se, but who the appropriate parties for this national divorce should be.

More precisely, it isn’t red states that need to secede from the Union. It’s we who need to secede from them.

We city folk.

We who live in metropolitan areas and most college towns where the politics are blue even if crimson types surround us.

We’re the ones who need to initiate divorce proceedings, to set up new states within the boundaries of some of the old.

This is especially obvious in light of Tennessee’s proposed Congressional redistricting maps, which split Nashville into thirds so we’ll all be placed in Republican districts and lose a Democratic Congressperson, even though our county is 2 to 1 Dem.

Oh sure, right-wing legislators might be able to do that legally, but only people who detest democracy and think fairness is for chumps would propose such a thing.

We’re the ones who need to get free of them and deserve to do so.

We who believe in multiracial, multicultural communities.

We who believe (at least most of us) that science is real and who know that however much you expect Jesus to protect you from COVID, rural Christians die from awful things too.

We who live in the places responsible for most all the economic vitality of the red states that right-wingers think should separate from the blue.

Without us, those states would all be rural Oklahoma, circa 1937.

Cities are the engines of red-state economic strength — those and the college towns which tend to house their states’ biggest employers, and some of their most educated people.

Even big name conservatives know what parts of red states are desirable — blue parts

Even when right-wingers move to Tennessee, notice where they land. It isn’t Bucksnort or Bugtussle. They don’t build big houses on huge lots out in the country or the exurbs.

They come to the Nashville metropolitan area — usually the city itself.

Tomi Lahren? Candace Owens?

Yeah, they came to Tennessee, but they aren’t living in the Trumpy parts. Far from it.

Toni Lahren? Candace Owens? Yeah, they came to Tennessee…but they didn’t move to Bucksnort or Bugtussle…they moved to liberal parts of Nashville, a mostly liberal city.

Candace Owens’s P.O. Box is across the street from my old high school and around the corner from an election precinct that Joe Biden won with 57 percent of the vote. Unless she decided to make it purposely difficult to grab her mail, I’m guessing she lives around there — in a mostly liberal part of a mostly liberal city.

And as for Lahren, she bought a place in an even hipper and far more progressive part of town than that.

Neither of them wants to be around their fans any more than I do.

All these conservatives — and most self-proclaimed refugees from California or New York who come here or to Texas — move to the bluest dots in a sea of red. Because even they know what makes red states interesting.

Spoiler alert: it’s not the grain silos or the bails of hay.

Joe Rogan’s in Austin, y’all, not in Frognot or Mule Shoe.

When Ben Shapiro moved his media company from California, he moved it to Tennessee.

But again, to Nashville, not Hohenwald.

Hell, not even Franklin, which is a very GOP-friendly area, only 20 minutes or so from Nashville proper.

Why?

Because we have studios, infrastructure for professionals, and nice restaurants to go to after a hard day’s grift, spouting nonsense to those for whom nonsense is their favorite protein next to bacon fat.

I mean, you can’t spend all that money at the Cracker Barrel or Hooter’s. Although God knows, some folks seem determined to prove me wrong.

City folks aren’t the dependent ones

Oh, and I know. The comeback here is as predictable as it is hilarious. It’s the one about how city folk need rural folk more than the other way around.

“What about food, Tim? You can’t grow it all in a corner-lot urban garden or on your rooftop!”

In other words, cities would starve without farmers.

Well, far be it from me to deny either the nobility or importance of farming. I have family who have farmed for generations, and I have great respect for them. And without doubt, the work they do keeps city folk fed.

But let’s be clear: those purchases made by people like us, in cities, are also what keep farmers on the land.

Without markets, farmers don’t exist, except at a subsistence level. Cities and metropolitan areas are the reason farmers can farm. We’re the market. You can’t sell all those soybeans and corn to your “church family,” sweetheart.

And I mean, seriously, who do you think is gonna eat all that Arugula?

That would be us.

Meanwhile, the cities have more than enough people to get by without you.

You have no choice but to sell your agricultural goods to us. But we don’t actually need your money to keep the art galleries open or the corner cafes, entertainment venues, or industrial centers.

We’ve got that covered.

For instance, here in Nashville, the only thing that happens if y’all decide to boycott us is that those stupid pedal taverns go away, along with Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse.

So please, boycott us. By all means, get on that, and a little faster if you don’t mind. Michigan called, and they’d like their greasy, talentless shitkicker back.

Nah, who am I kidding? Detroit was done with him after that illiterate “Bawitdaba” bullshit. But either way, we don’t want him here — or anyone who thinks to themselves, “Hey, ya know where I bet you can get a great steak? At a place owned by Kid Rock with ‘Big Ass Honky Tonk’ right there in the name.”

It just screams quality.

Honestly, though, if y’all are serious about wanting to get away from the liberals, you need to put your money where your mouths are. Go on and move to one of those tiny little towns with one stoplight and a fire department where everyone’s a volunteer because there isn’t enough money in the local coffers to pay anyone, even the ones who fight fires.

But hey, at least there’s no income tax, amirite?

Secession isn’t possible — but the reason why proves my point

Obviously, I know none of this secession talk is realistic. Article IV Section 3 of the Constitution makes that pretty clear.

We can’t just create new states in the shells of the old — but even here, the reason why is instructive.

It wouldn’t be allowed because although doing so is technically feasible, it can only happen with the consent of the existing states’ legislatures and Congress itself.

And guess who would stop any such thing from happening? The very rural and small-town lawmakers who talk shit about the cities and how awful we are, and how we’re cesspools of violence and decay and immorality.

Uh-huh. And also the generators of all y’alls money. Why would you want us as part of your state if we’re really so awful?

Purify thyself, Jebediah. Let us go.

But no, they would never do that because they know in which direction this dependency runs.

And unlike that line folks use when they want to get out of a relationship but let the other party down easy, this time around, let there be no mistake:

It’s not us — it’s you.

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This post was previously published on An Injustice!

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