The July 4, 2019, ceremony marking the final dissolution of the United States of America was quite amicable compared to the anger and bitterness of the preceding five years. The 2014 election results created a map clearly defining “Red America” and “Blue America,” and it sparked a debate, unlike any in the last 150 years, over whether the United States should remain united. For many in the leftist coastal states – their progressivism constrained by the overwhelming Congressional advantage of the conservative interior states – the answer was, “No.”
As liberal thought leader Michael Tomasky wrote of the South, “Practically the whole region has rejected nearly everything that’s good about this country and has become just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment…. Forget about the whole fetid place. Write it off. Let the GOP have it and run it and turn it into Free-Market Jesus Paradise. The Democrats don’t need it anyway.”
Soon, it became an article of faith within the liberal elite that it was not only their party that did not need the rest of America. Blue America itself, they argued, did not need Red America, economically, intellectually or morally. It was not long until newly-elected Governor De Blasio of New York demanded a national convention to discuss a parting of the ways. The President, her health poor and her heart firmly with the Blue America, half-heartedly tried to stop the movement, but more and more high profile Democrat politicians joined the chorus. The President yielded and called for a “national conversation on the way forward as separate nations.” Red America, furious at her continuation of Barack Obama’s rule by decree and interference in its affairs, agreed to attend.
Two years later, President De Blasio, elected leader of the Democratic States of North America, and President Abbott of the Republic of America, stood together on the platform on the border at St. Louis to sign the Dissolution Pact. The countries split the national debt and apportioned federal assets, while agreeing to temporarily share the currency. They divided the military (along with all nuclear capabilities), but signed a mutual defense agreement. There would be free travel between and through the new nations. “We will remain good neighbors,” President De Blasio remarked, “Even if we are no longer brothers, sisters, or differently-gendered siblings.” President Abbott politely maintained a poker face.
Of course, back home in the Blue America’s capital, New York City, President De Blasio was less charitable. “We are no longer held back by the reactionary, racist policies of the past,” he thundered. “Together, we will build a new dawn of progress that places people before profits and promotes peace instead of perpetual war!” Blue America – New England and the mid-Atlantic seaboard, back through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, the West Coast and Hawaii, immediately set to drafting a new constitution. It featured 216 new affirmative rights, including “the right to a living wage,” “the right to abortion upon demand at government expense,” and “the right to define one’s own life experience in terms of race and gender.” Embarrassingly, the rights to free speech and the free exercise of religion did not make the leaked initial draft; they were hastily added, but there was no right to keep and bear arms. In fact, the first law the new People’s Assembly passed was to confiscate all privately-owned weapons. The second was to legalize all illegal aliens, and the third to triple welfare payments.
Red America reaffirmed the United States Constitution. Then the Congress began a review of all existing laws, statutes and regulations, repealing thousands of them. It also limited social spending dramatically, making known the expectation that able-bodied adults would support themselves and their families. The resulting non-military federal government in Red America was about one quarter the size of Blue America’s.
The world was unsure how to deal with the new reality. The international elite and its lapdog media quickly took to portraying Red America with the same kind of venom as Blue American liberals. President De Blasio was taped at a private confab at the United Nations – which remained in New York – telling the foreigners that Blue America, “feels a greater kinship to our progressive friends in Europe than those redneck, racist, Jesus freaks next door.”
Red America stopped paying its UN dues and sent John Bolton to be its ambassador. After Israel, Red America became the most investigated and censured of any UN member state.
Blue America had little use for the military it inherited. Though the Pact had stipulated that both new nations would maintain a certain level of combat readiness, in Blue America the services were first in line to be cut. Forced to meet America’s defense needs alone, Red America slashed non-military spending and instituted two years of mandatory military service for every citizen as the only way to meet the need for manpower.
Many left Red America, some to avoid the draft and a larger number to collect the enhanced welfare benefits Blue America was giving away. Yet, many more came in from Blue America. By casting off useless regulations and cutting taxes (Blue America’s “Fair Share Act” increased the top income tax rate to 74.5% on earnings over $250,000), Red America unleashed a whirlwind of economic activity. Red America, already prosperous, grew even richer.
Fracking was outlawed in Blue America; Red America became the world’s number one petroleum exporter. Blue America laws banning nuclear and coal power led to the “Kentucky Line” of coal plants running parallel the state’s northern border with Blue Ohio, selling Blue America the power it refused to generate itself. The ban on GMO crops and many pesticides cratered Blue American food production, a void Red American farmers were happy to fill. All the while, Denver, Dallas, Atlanta and other cities grew their own tech and entertainment industries built on refugees from Silicon Valley and Hollywood looking for an environment where success was not penalized. Red America began to supply itself with what Blue America used to provide.
Blue America’s deficit exploded even as Red America balanced its budget, per the one new amendment it had added to the Constitution. But Red America’s budget was strained when the nation had to send its military to support Israel after the Jewish state came under massive attack for destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Blue America not only refused to assist, but refused to let Red forces use its bases or ports. The rumors that Red American pilots in B-2 bombers and F-22 fighters flew many of the original anti-nuke missions over Iran alongside the Israeli Air Force were never confirmed.
With its economy slowing to a standstill, and riots erupting in Chicago and Philadelphia, the liberal ruling elite found itself a convenient scapegoat for Blue America’s woes – its neighbor. “Red plants pollute our skies, Red corporations exploit the land, and Red bankers steal our wealth!” Vice President Warren charged. “We need to fight back against the Red wreckers!”
The middle class and job creators were abandoning Blue America for opportunities in Red America, and they were taking their money with them. Hundreds of billions of dollars flowed out of Blue America into its neighbor. Frustrated by Red America’s refusal to provide banking information on these “tax cheats” – or to allow Red tax officials to collect unpaid taxes deposited in Red banks – Blue America breached the Dissolution Pact by outlawing the free transit of people and currency into Red America.
Red America was hardly blind – it saw the trends long before Blue America would admit to itself that it was headed toward disaster. Red America expected the migration and had already ensured that Blue newcomers would not be allowed to vote into effect the same liberal policies they had abandoned by requiring all aspiring citizens to serve their military obligation before being allowed a ballot. Few did, and the “Heinlein Act” succeeded by ensuring that every voting Red American citizen had “skin in the game.”
When Blue America broke the Pact by securing the internal borders and barring its citizens’ exit, Red America acted – quietly. Within 24 hours, its forces were manning the border too, turning back every truck and train carrying food or fuel into Blue America. At the same time, every power station feeding Blue America went offline. Then Red America waited.
It took 12 days, seven less than President Abbott’s National Security Council had estimated, before President De Blasio used the hotline to call and cave. There had been a lot of talk in the New York Times and other Blue media about surviving on “alternative power” and “utilizing green growing techniques in urban spaces” to meet the country’s energy and food needs. But it was early November, and it was cold. The grocery store shelves went bare with terrifying speed. The limousine liberals would always be warm, well-fed and safe in their gated communities, but no one else would be. The lie that was the liberal promise was there for all to see.
“Sure, Mr. President, we can talk about going back to how it was,” President Abbott said gently. “You’ll be honoring our deal from here on, right? Good. Oh, and I’m going to need you to do one more thing for me. No, it’s nothing too big. Just an apology. By you, on live television, with no hedging, about how sorry you and your friends are for those unkind things you said over the years about us redneck, racist, Jesus freaks who feed you, fuel you and keep your sorry asses safe. Oh, I’m serious as a heart attack. Well, I’ll look forward to watching it. Good-bye now, and God bless y’all.”
Elements of this column would become the basis for the first book in the Kelly Turnbull series.
