The rise of Trump has already spawned a lot of disgusting behavior, from swastika graffiti to an increased incidence of violent, explosive rage from the allegedly aggrieved morons who made this nightmare a reality. So in a way, renewed chatter about secession was inevitable, and as dimwitted as it always is. Nevertheless, the recent headlines about Eastern Wahington "threatening to split from the rest of the state" (confidential to KIRO: the word "threatening" in that headline is beneath you)—and similar rumblings in Oregon and California may touch a nerve among anxious people who remember the tragic events of 11/9, when the meaning of the word "impossible" changed forever.
Pig-fucking dipshit Republican State Reps Matt Shea and Bob McCaslin (Spokane Valley), and David Taylor (Moxee) have joined together to capitalize on the freshly-emboldened ignorance of their constituency by sponsoring House Joint Memorial 4000—which would split Washington at the Cascades into two states, one called Washington and the other called (what else?) Liberty.
Is this pandering to and manipulating the emotions of people who would rather set their entire neighborhood on fire than let someone with brown skin rent a house in their zip code? Is it flattering the treasonous-rhetoric-wrapped-in-the-sheep's-clothing-of-patriotic-dissent that has replaced meaningful political discourse in this country with a pie fight? Is it, at long last, the best these inbred dickhole politicos can come up with? Well, frankly, duh—on all counts.
The long con is obviously to score increased representation in the federal government, which, as Charles points out, already gives disproportionate weight to the priorities of rural Americans. But in the meantime, because that will almost certainly never happen (it hasn't happened yet, despite 100 years of attempts), Shea, McCaslin, and Taylor can enjoy the coveted political prize of being associated with a reprehensible proposal that no one but its supporters will be likely to remember in a month. They get themselves on the secessionist record without ever coming anywhere near any kind of meaningfully revolutionary action. It's like they got swastika tattoos, but made sure to conceal them in their armpits. Liberty. What a bunch of fucking chickenshit charlatans.
And yet.
Though the effort (funny that the initiative is called a joint "memorial"—or maybe it's the opposite of funny?) is political theater of the most abject kind, easy to laugh at and laugh off, it's hard not to be struck by the way stories like this tend to linger in the groaning collective joke book of liberal America.
I dread the coming sarcastic deployment of "Liberty" to describe Eastern Washington in much the same way that I cringe every time someone STILL says "the internets," which a shocking number of people still do, even if they've forgotten that they do it because of George W. Bush's doltish coinage of the term in a 2004 debate against John Kerry—back when we still took pleasure in feeling good about what a buffoon W proudly was, before he seemed like Winston Fucking Churchill by comparison to the Nero who's about to be placed in charge.
Maybe it's the sniveling little cuck who captains the ship of my soul, but I've always privately wondered whether the sound of all those "internets," and the snorting chortles of self-regarding mirth that accompanied them, wasn't the proverbial 12th man for W—the little invisible something that made it possible for all those good country people to ignore the the obvious, empirical truth that he was a shallow, craven, cocky, work-shy dauphin who had never had a single altruistic impulse in his pampered life. (Which, again, might as well be a Richard Wright novel compared to Trump's upbringing.)
I don't believe for one minute that irony is dead or that jokes are meaningless after Trump, or any of that shit. If I'm certain of anything it's that irony's the only thing that will get us through the next four years. But as I recently had occasion to observe to my favorite millennial just the other day: Irony isn't enough. There are always plenty of cheap, shitty ironies around.
I wonder sometimes why those are the ones we so often settle for. Why do liberals think it's funny to call Trump a Cheeto Hitler, a clumsy shotgun wedding of two epithets that don't go at all well together? How are we still satisfied with "bigly?" When will "Drumpf" finally splutter and die? If "Grab them by the pussy" couldn't make god fearing Iowans not vote for him, what the fuck do you think it will accomplish on your news feed?
Trump's America is full of shit about nearly everything, but they're not wrong about the cloying quality of liberal America's sense of humor, and the way it tends to turn on the unexamined self-satisfaction of cultural superiority. And though I believe the culture of the so-called coastal elites is, indeed, superior, I don't think there's anything funny about the way people in Trump's America have been reared on a diet of untrue facts and conned into believing that complex thought is too fancy or too hard to be worth trying. The veneration of ignorance—as a mark of authenticity, humility, and honor—is one of America's oldest, weirdest traditions.
And it's about to be handed the keys to the White House.
About which nothing is funny.
Which means we have to try a little harder when we try to make each other laugh.
Which we absolutely have to do. And when meretricious spermatozoa like Matt Shea, Bob McCaslin, and David Taylor talk about wanting to secede from Washington because “the lifestyles, culture, and economies of eastern and western Washington have been very distinct and dramatically different, while the urbanization and rapid growth in the western portions of the state has progressively heightened this divergence of cultural and economic values between the western and eastern portions of the state.” They should be met, mocked, and remembered.
As tempting as it is to say something petty, like "Fine. Fuck off, then. I never LIKED YOU ANYWAY! GOD," Washington should obviously not be divided into two states north and south two two states. And no state anywhere should ever have to endure being called "Liberty."
It's an idea well worth making fun of. For a moment. And no one ever made fun of it better than this sketch from the second season of Mr. Show. If watching this doesn't chasten you into being judicious about turning "Liberty" into the new "Internets," then, you know, the terrorists Trumps have already won or whatever.
