WA On Its Own
I so wish secession from the US were feasible. But it's not.
Reading today’s news, one of my recurrent thoughts came back more powerfully than ever: Washington State would be so much better off OUTSIDE the U.S. than inside this decaying and increasingly authoritarian union. The New York Times carried one story after another about the abuses of the Trump Regime, from the effects of extortionist and backfiring tariff madness to abusive “immigration enforcement” and the construction of concentration camps. The NYT covered the ongoing destruction of our systems to predict, prepare for and then respond to mounting natural disasters. And then there was this article on the last topic in The Guardian, about the “Texas Way”:
I so, so wish it were possible and relatively easy for Washington State to secede from a union that includes Texas and Florida. States that embrace brutal use of force, ignore real threats to their communities, and create concentration camps like Alligator Alcatraz. They're big, they're backward, and they are going to end up costing all of us a lot of money as climate change takes them down. Once again, the more prudent and forward thinking parts of the United States - the blue parts - will be called upon to bail out the more backward and ignorant red parts - because of the latter’s stubborn backwardness and ignorance. It’s already happening. And this leaves aside how TX and FL are pushing our powerful country toward so many destructive, short-sighted practices and policies that endanger people across the globe.
Ideally Washington would join with Oregon and California, but even on our own we would be better off than we are now, shackled to states that cling to unbridled profiteering, ignorance, bizarre religious obsessions, and destructive notions of individualism and down-home dumbness. States that embrace a sort of evangelical death cult. States that have undue influence on U.S. national policy.
There are a lot of successful models for a technologically sophisticated, export-oriented, environmentally conscious land of 8 million people. We would be so much better off on our own. Our future would be brighter and more secure outside the U.S. - though we would have to worry about defending ourselves against backward places like Texas and even Idaho. A United States without Washington, Oregon and California would, however, be substantially weaker - and therefore less of a threat to its neighbors and the world.
I realize this is not going to happen. It is just a dream, at least for now. Under the U.S. constitution, secession is practically impossible, and of course it would not be easy. In my mind, though, Texas, Florida and many other states (Alabama, Mississippi, the list goes on) are already foreign to me. Not my country.
By the way, I realize Washington State would need to change its flag if it becomes independent. Believe me, popular resistance would not be strong! We have been talking about ditching our odd ensign for many years. Most of the proposals include mountains and forest, with the latest adding a band of gold for the eastern half of the state:
Certainly an independent Washington would strike the date 1889 from its flag, and we might even need to change our name. Things to consider in the unlikely case that we get the chance to chart our own path to a brighter future.