Marge wants to leave

Irecently wrote in a tweet that I was starting a GoFundMe page to raise money for fellow University of Georgia alumni to pay Congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene to erase any mention that she graduated from UGA from her resume and bio and never utter it again.

I did this in response to a series of Twitter posts by Marge, as she has become known, calling for a “national divorce” between our nation’s “red” and “blue” states, in which she insisted real Americans in Republican-leaning states hated the “woke” and “Hollywood” values being forced on real Americans by liberals from blue states.

So, she insisted, the nation needed a divorce.

Marge is calling for secession of a great number of states, mostly in the Deep South, the Midwest and the Big Sky Country. I’m assuming she thinks those leaving the union would be the red states. I guess they then would form their own government, which might be called, I don’t know, “The Confederated States of America.”

I’m a retired English professor, not a retired history professor, but if I recall correctly, the last time a bunch of states tried to secede from the union it resulted in the Civil War, a particularly bloody conflict with 620,00 fatalities that pitted friend against friend, cousin against cousin, brother against brother. I know she’s no Rhodes Scholar, and I know she has a nasty mean streak, but I hope that’s not what Marge wants.

There’s another big problem with Marge’s national divorce proposal. Specifically, the issue is the blue states and counties pay most of the federal bills for the red states and counties. Blue counties pay 71% of the federal taxes in this country, yet red counties suck up the majority of federal payments from programs such as disability, food stamps, unemployment, WIC, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and various others.

I remember when I was in my teens and didn’t like my parents making me abide by their rules. My Pop told me if I didn’t like it I could leave, but I’d better be ready to support myself when I did. Marge and her fellow travelers need to think about who is going to pay the bills if they decide to leave.

Also, if the red states leave, is Marge going to move to nearby Alabama or Mississippi? She’ll need to think about relocating, because her state voted for the Democrat in the last presidential election and has two Democratic U.S. senators. She lives in a state that is neither red nor blue. It’s purple moving toward blue.

Here in Tucson, we hear talk of our city being excised from Arizona because of the way we think and vote.

I’ve heard that some hardcore Republicans want to cede Tucson to New Mexico, California or even Mexico so they can establish a right-wing nirvana.

Tucson votes hugely Democratic, and its tremendously one-sided voting helped seal losses for both gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and presidential candidate Donald Trump, among others on the hard right. One major problem with kicking Tucson out of Arizona is Pima County, in which Tucson is the only major city, is not contiguous to New Mexico, California or Mexico. Another huge issue is Arizona would lose a lot if it ceded Tucson to another state or nation, including a major university, a large Air Force base and thriving software and weapons industries.

I was joking when I wrote the tweet stating I was starting a GoFundMe campaign to pay Marjorie Taylor Greene to no longer claim the University of Georgia as her alma mater. Some people, though, took me seriously and told me it was a good idea, because the woman is not only an embarrassment to our fine and beloved university but a real danger to the continued existence of our national union.

Damn. Now looks like I’m going to have to figure out how to set up a GoFundMe page.