Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) (R-GA) recently stated that there should be a “national divorce” between red and blue states, essentially arguing for secession. In my opinion, if Americans, especially our elected representatives, don’t love and support The United States (notice the name of the country?), they should work to make it better or should leave and find a country more suitable to their ideological leanings.

I’m relieved that other, more reasonable Republicans such as Utah Governor Spencer Cox, are speaking out and calling Representative Greene’s rhetoric “destructive” and “evil”. Cox also said “we need elected leaders that don't profit by tearing us apart”, so Americans should remember that there are still powerful Republicans who remain sane and rational.

Regarding secession, Representative Greene might want to have someone read and explain the 1869 Supreme Court decision in Texas v White (74 U.S. 700) which declared states seceding from the union unconstitutional. In that case the Court ruled that the Southern states had not actually seceded prior to the Civil War because doing so was illegal.

MTG might also consider what her words actually mean. The last time a “national divorce” took place, the Southern states tried to secede at the cost of at least 600,000 American lives. Approximately 2.5% of the American population died during that war. We killed more Americans OURSELVES than have been killed by other countries in any other war. Is that really what MTG has in mind? Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) placed MTG on the Homeland Security Committee, but it appears she is actually contemplating destroying the homeland whose security she is responsible for protecting.

Oh, and by the way, MTG should probably know that Red States benefit more from being a part of the United States than do Blue States. States that voted for Donald Trump are poorer and, consequently, receive more handouts from Washington than do states that voted for Biden. In other words, Blue States support Red States. AND GET THIS…counties that voted for Joe Biden are responsible for 70% of the GDP, the nation’s economy. Does MTG really want to start a new country with the poorest counties in the United States?

But rather than reconsidering the impact “divorce” might have on the country, MTG is now doubling down and arguing that any Democrat who moves to a Red State should be banned from voting in that state for five years. I wonder how these individuals would be identified? Would MTG take a page from the Auschwitz playbook and have “Democrat” tattooed on people’s arms?

It is sadly obvious that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has no clue what the American experiment is really all about. Has she never read about the Founding Fathers and the ideas they promoted? Is she unfamiliar, for example, with struggles for equality? Does she realize that prior to 1919 with the passage of the 19th Amendment she would not have been allowed to vote, prior to 1971 (Reed v Reed: 404 U.S. 71) her male siblings would have automatically been the beneficiaries of her parents’ estate, that prior to 1964 and the Civil Rights Act employment discrimination based on gender was legal, or that prior to 1974 women could not get a credit card in their own names?

Most folks are aware of many of MTG’s past wild and sometimes irresponsible statements, but most of the previous statements were just kind of funny and/or mildly concerning. Most of us laughed when she tweeted that monkeypox is an STD, we were likely taken aback when she tweeted that climate change is “healthy for us all”, we assumed she was just hustling for votes when she spoke at a white nationalist conference (she also reportedly took a photo with Chester Doles, a skinhead and member of the KKK), we thought it was quite funny when she recently tweeted a couple of photos with the caption “Tonight, I stopped at the Wilder Monument in Chickamauga, GA, which honors the Confederate soldiers of the Wilder Brigade” although the Wilder Monument is a memorial to Union soldiers, and almost everyone laughed when she said California wildfires were caused by “a laser beam” from space.

But I’ll bet we were more concerned when MTG offered the idea that the Las Vegas country music festival shootings killing 58 people might have been staged to garner support for anti-gun legislation. She said: “Maybe you accomplish that [anti-gun laws] by performing a mass shooting into a crowd that is very likely to be conservative, very likely to vote Republican, very likely to be Trump supporters, very likely to be pro-Second Amendment and very likely to own guns.” Do you think she really believes that?

I know I was very concerned to learn that she suggested the attacks on 9/11 never happened, that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim (he is not, but there would certainly be nothing wrong if he was), and that the Clintons were responsible for several murders.

Of course, nobody was surprised when she tweeted that there was “MASS voter fraud on a scale that should terrify every American regardless of political party” although countless Republican officials have debunked that myth. As MTG admitted about a year ago, she was previously duped into accepting the QAnon nonsense regarding what she then called “Satan-worshipping pedophiles”, so it is no surprise she has been duped again by the “stolen election” farce.

I’m sure she has been unaffected by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnel’s assertion that MTG is a “cancer” on the Republican Party because of these wacky ideas.

But her latest suggestion, a “national divorce”, is much more dangerous.

A few years ago conservatives started calling liberals “snowflakes” because they were perceived as tree-huggers with no real substance when they argued for such things as trigger warnings or were easily offended by conservative ideas or values. Many conservatives took it a step further and argued that if liberals don’t like the direction in which the U.S. was moving, they should leave the country. There was even a billboard in Texas telling liberals to keep driving until they had exited the state.

My how times have changed. Who are the snowflakes now?

Thankfully there are countless rational conservatives and Republicans who actually understand the goals of Madison’s republic and who fight to help accomplish those goals. Unfortunately, those conservatives don’t have the loudest voices these days and the media tend to ignore them because they would not boost ratings as do MTG and her ilk.

If people, especially our elected representatives, do not love the United States, they should work to make it better rather than tearing it apart. Alternately, they should leave and find like-minded people elsewhere. I’m tempted to suggest new locations for these America haters, but I don’t want to stoop that low.

David

Fiercely Independent

A NATIONAL DIVORCE