Four More Years? Really?

My first instinct this morning when I woke up was, "Well, we're all f*cked." If this election was a referendum on the president's performance over the last four years, I don't know what the people who voted for him were smoking. Especially you, Ohio. Talk about a state that has gone to the shitter since 2000. And yet you're happy enought to keep Bushie running things? Well, you got what you wanted, I guess.

Then I looked at the map. And I realized, maybe I'm just out of touch. Maybe I'm the one that's way off. When you look at the red states and blue states, Kerry basically carried the two coasts, New England and some midwest Canadian border states. Bush took every other single state. He took the deep south, the southwest, the heartland, the plains and the redneck states. So how can you argue with that? Maybe these particular states had information that I was never presented with regarding the merits of the Prez. Did they get certain advertisements on their television sets that I was never privy to in New York State? Maybe they are far more educated than me about the issues, these voters.

But then I looked at the electoral map in 2000. It's exactly the same, with the exception of New Hampshire voting for Bush in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. (New Mexico, Iowa and Ohio have not been officially tabulated as I write this.) Is there an information gap that is causing people from West Virginia and Idaho to have information as to the president's virtues that I haven't gotten? I'm all ears, people. I was willing to hear the pro-Bush movement's case. I don't think it's a matter of most people knowin the issues or looking objectively at facts (myself included). It's a major cultural divide.

When they talk about this country being more divided than ever, and I don't think it's just lip service. I really believe we have a major cultural chasm that can't be easily ignored. How do you explain the nearly identical voting in the last 4 years. Now, I know that who you vote for in the presidental election doesn't mean you are mortal enemies with someone who voted for the opposing side, and that you can't get along with them. One of my dearest friends, Mr. Javen Bohall, sees many issues in diametric opposition to my own point of view. Yet we remain the closest of friends. So these are ideological, not personal differences I'm speaking of. But with a country so deeply divided, how can we fix it? I think it's a very simple solution: as long as the country is already split in two, why not just split it in two!

Now, most of you will say, "Bill, this has been tried before back in the mid-1800s. It caused a civil war. In fact, it caused THE Civil War. Surely you can't be serious." Oh I am serious. We have the hindsight of history to show us the DO's and DONT's of seceding from the union, so we can avoid that silly Civil War mess. Instead, we just create two countries that are sort of interconnected, but also sort of sovereign from each other. It'll be kind of like the American and National leagues in baseball. Here's how it works: we make one country out of the following states: Washington, Oregon, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and all of New England. Oh, and Washington D.C. Kerry can be the president of these states. The majority of the state is okay with it. We'll call this country the United-Divided States of America (the good old U.D.S. of A.), but divided geographically, not idealogically.

This leaves all the other states, all which touch each other, as the United-United States of America (UUSA). Seriously, this is a great idea. The heartland can have their boy, the liberal elite can have theirs. We can make certain main roads like I-90 and Route 66 into "No Man's Lands" where citizens of both countries can travel, that way, people like myself who don't like to fly can drive from New York to Washington State and then down to Oregon to see a Portland Trailblazers game. Everybody wins! In order to unite the country, isn't it best just to divide it?