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It seems as though I post about “the s-word”—secession—about once a year (2019, 2020, 2021), and always on Saturdays (two of those posts are behind paywalls for a reason; it’s amazing how charging a buck for something on the Internet is the best way to ensure no one ever sees it).

The recent, abysmal midterm elections got me thinking about the topic again, but what really got the juices flowing was this map my brother forwarded to me:

The map comes from this post at Bright Line Watch, an organization that—so far as I can tell—gauges how the health of “our democracy,” to use the parlance the Left loves so well (it’s pedantic to point out, but we’re a constitutionally-limited federal representative republic with democratic mechanisms—at least, we used to be—not a democracy).  Like most such outfits, I suspect they are institutionally Leftist, but in this case, I don’t think ideology infects their numbers.

Note that 66% of Republicans in the South support secession into a new regional union, spanning from Texas to Virginia (I’d say let’s stop at the border between South and North Carolina, but that’s just me), as do 50% of Independents.  Only 20% of Democrats do, but that makes sense—they’d probably not much like being in a Southern Union dominated by conservatives.

I do think it’s a tad far-fetched to think that 66% of Southern Republicans pine for secession.  Most Republicans I know are still flag-waving Boomer types who worship Abraham Lincoln (what I was until just a few years ago).

Still, (allegedly) 44% of Southerners supporting the idea of breaking out into a thirteen-State union (the old Confederate States of America, plus Oklahoma and Kentucky) is ridiculously high.  It only takes a dedicated minority of 20% to shape policy and push change at a societal level (thus the concepts of the “Silent Majority” versus the “Noisy Minority”), so 44% is more than double that threshold.

Does it mean anything?  Is America headed for The Civil War II?

Disclaimer: I do not want or advocate for a violent revolution; I am merely exploring an issue of growing interest in our fractured political times.  The restoration of true federalism is the preferable answer, but barring that, a peaceful separation of the States could—not necessarily is—another possible outcome that prevents widespread violence and continued tyranny at the national level.

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