When a recent mass shooting took place on the campus of Michigan State University, leaving three dead, there were only two directions for the public discourse to go. Either we’d find out the shooter was white, therefore sparking a discussion on white supremacy (regardless of the person’s motive), or we’d find out the person wasn’t white, therefore sparking a discussion on guns.
Sure enough, police released surveillance footage of the shooter within hours, and it became obvious how things were going to go. The shooter’s background and motive were no longer relevant. All that mattered was the gun, a narrative push quickly adopted by everyone from MSNBC hosts to The President of the United States, the latter of which confusingly brought up “assault weapons” that hold “50, 70 bullets” in response to a shooting done with a handgun.
Facts don’t matter, though. All that matters is setting off another moral panic, and now liberals are calling for a new civil war over guns and judges.
For some reason, I just don’t think they’ve thought this through. I realize Olbermann is couching his statement by making it an “economic” civil war, but how exactly does he plan to carry his crusade out? Remember, we are talking about a guy who has mental breakdowns if his internet goes out for more than five minutes. But he’s going to help lead a civil war to “financially starve” red states? Color me skeptical.
Besides, in this fantastical scenario he’s proposing, most of the food, including almost all the meat, comes from red states (Texas’ cattle industry is four times the size of California’s, for example). On the energy front, guess which states produce the vast majority of oil and gas? That would also be red states, with another Texas vs. California comparison yielding an energy sector 13 times as large in the former vs. the latter.
Are there things produced in blue states that red states aren’t large producers of? Sure, but when it comes to necessities, I’m thinking an “economic civil war” isn’t the smartest move for the left. Oh, and guess what counties in blue states tend to produce stuff? That would be the red ones. The broader point is that the United States is interconnected in a way where you can’t just “starve” one political segment of it without profoundly negative consequences for all.
So where does this idea even come from? It comes from a silly talking point that’s been around for about a decade which supposes that red states are “leechers” that have to be supported by blue states. That’s usually “proven” by providing federal expenditures vs. federal receipts from each state. Why is that incredibly stupid? Because the largest federal expenditure to each state is social security. Guess where old people like to live? In warmer, cheaper Southern enclaves that also happen to be red states.
Do you see the problem? The left’s plan to wage economic civil war on red states to even the federal spending score would require them to…cut social security payments, the very thing they obsessively defend.
So yeah, I don’t think they’ve thought this through.