S-E-C-E-S-S-I-O-N… Secession!

Come on, some of you must have been thinking it, looking at that electoral map. Isn’t it interesting that our country still seems to be divided roughly along similar lines as during the civil war?

We – meaning us left-to-center Democratic Northeasterners – are the evil cultural élite to them, and they – the right-to-center Republican Southerners and Midwesterners - are the backwards Podunk County Players to us. A generalization? Yes. But just look at the divide: the right, and by this I mean cultural, economic and religious, tends to look at the left as pathetically ungodly. The left tends to look at our Southern and Western fundamentalist brethren as pathetically ignorant. In all seriousness, are ever the twain to meet?

I don’t know. And maybe that’s part of “what makes this country great”: the allowed variance of opinion and expression. But more and more it seems like another civil war is going on, this time ideological, and the struggle is less to understand and compromise with one another than to wrest the power from the other side and wield it over them as effectively as possible. What’s more, this civil war has spread to the world, allowing a government endorsed by perhaps half the people (or voters, anyhow) to invade countries and kill in the name of “our values,” which seem neither particularly shared nor ethical at this juncture. The Bush administration took a loss by popular vote and turned it into an unquestionable mandate last time. What will they do now? Imperialism at home and abroad?

Anyway, it’s a beautiful day outside today in NYC – the world (if not my heart) does go on. Even though I’m feeling mighty low right now due to the election results, I recognize that I am still fortunate and I can still, as this excellent missive points out, fight another day. Still, as I noticed the stunned silence that pervaded the subway crowds this morning, and then tried in vain to comprehend what an extremely animated Russian cabbie was trying to explain to me about how it was a good thing that Shrub won (something about nuclear arms in Iran? and cowboys in the old West? or maybe it was that the results of further escapades by the right wing administration will finally turn the country hard to the left? but only God can save us? I honestly don’t know), can you blame me for wondering if the majority of people will ever truly understand each other? And honestly, are these states really united?

I’d move to Canada, but then I’d have to take a position on a free Québec.