The Republikkkans are the American Taliban. I think many people would feel safer in Afghanistan than the 3rd world Wild West shithole Abbott has made out of Texas. I don’t see them raking in tourism dollars anymore. But they have adjusted for the loss of blue state tourists. Red state vacationers now only seem to vacation in other red states. That is if they travel at all. Florida barely survived the pandemic by being open for business to other red states. The boom times are ending for Florida and Texas can only attract a limited number of companies that rely on unskilled/uneducated labor. Modern businesses can’t operate in unsafe environments with poor infrastructure, unreliable power grids, and lack of basic government services.
This Republikkkan regression to “simpler” times is going to create a two nations. One with modern businesses, technology, infrastructure, reliable power, social services, healthcare, food crops, and stable banking. The other will be a relic of days gone by with uneducated and unskilled labor relying on cash crops and dwindling tourism while begging for handouts.
Republikkkans/southerners will always say the Civil War was fought over states rights. Dems/liberals/progressives/northerners/West Coasters will more accurately say it was fought over slavery. Historians will tell you it was primarily the piss poor economy of the South and the North/West being sick of southern minority rule while also being appalled by the unchristian act of human bondage.
Nearly all the banks and financiers were in the north. The north and the west fed the nation. The north had infrastructure; modern roads, canals, railways, seaports, and telegraph lines. Industry was almost exclusive to the north. Free public education was widespread in the north. Nearly all trade both domestic and international passed through the north, Midwest, and west coast. The north and west were free, prosperous, and attracted large numbers of European immigrants to bolster its already large population.
The south was dirt poor and deeply in debt to the north. Everything the south needed; food, clothing, footwear, machines, tools, books, furniture, and money came from the north. The south relied on unreliable cash crops like tobacco and cotton. They had to borrow seed money from northern banks, rely on northern transport to bring their products to factories in the north and Europe, and then pay the northern banks and shippers back. Then they had to buy the goods made from their raw materials from northern factories. If they had a bad crop they went into debt or bankruptcy. The slave owning planter elite were dead broke and deeply resented the north for being the source of all capital. Even with slave labor, their economic model and way of life was not sustainable. It was an illusion that lasted a few decades in the early 1800’s and ended with the Civil War. Had Eli Whitney not developed the cotton gin the south would have suffered a catastrophic economic collapse a few decades earlier. Ironically it was the assembly lines developed and perfected by Eli Whitney that made the very guns the Union used to smash the Confederacy.
The point of this history lesson is that the south hasn’t learned from its mistakes. Money, technology, factories, infrastructure, and trade is still mostly concentrated in the north. Slavery in the south has been replaced with cheap non-union labor. In the 70’s and 80’s many modern day robber barons moved textile mills to the south but only stayed for a few years begore outsourcing to even cheaper labor in Mexico and Asia. The south has kept its head above water through tourism, limited oil production, modest agriculture, and some remnants of industry that can get by with uneducated/unskilled labor. If a second Civil War were to come to fruition the south would only be modestly better off than the first time.
Technology, international trade, heavy industry, banking, education, infrastructure, reliable power, edible agriculture, and safe communities are still predominantly in the northeast and west coast. Some of the lower Midwest has been lost to MAGAts who have migrated there in search of a better life only to bring their Republikkkan and evangelical oppressors with them to again ruin chances of prosperity.
Sadly much of the old Confederacy is still in debt, underdeveloped, poorly educated, riddled with an inferiority complex, and ruled by corporate fascist robber barons and their Republikkkan/evangelical puppets. Republikkkan corporate billionaires control 1/3 of our population and 2/3 of our landmass. The south, and rural mid-America, are experiencing late stage capitalism while struggling with catastrophic climate change. They are the third world and their refugees are spreading into our bastions of civility. The 1% have robbed the masses blind and are now plundering the government as a last ditch effort to extract every penny for themselves before it all collapses.
This is our last stand against the corporate fascists and their legions of angry racist militias. Trump is a symptom of the corporate billionaires strip mining our economy and our land. The MAGAts are the angry disillusioned foot soldiers raised on a diet of steady hatred of education, the coastal elites, the urban dwellers, immigrants, people of color, and the lgbt. While Fox News and conservative talk radio pour gasoline on the fire of lies 24/7/365 the purchased Republikkkan politicians preach hatred, intolerance, and stagnation. The purchased evangelical ministers preach spiritual hatred of all things foreign, northern, progressive, or different in appearance. The billionaires and the Republikkkans purchased the evangelical ministers because their parishes are not connected or bound by any ethical hierarchy with a tradition of rules and regulations like the mainstream Protestants and “papist” Catholics so despised by the nativists for being the religions of the immigrants. A decentralized religious movement is easy to corrupt and steer an any direction you choose when you have money and resources.
This isn’t rabble rousing or exaggeration. The MAGA movement made a bold attempt to seize control of the country by force on January 6th. The perpetrators received only a slap on the wrist and the organizers have gone unpunished. Both groups are unrepentant and plotting yet another takeover. Their Congressional leaders are waging war on America while their state legislatures and governors have already become dictators punishing all of us who oppose them. They have created a country within a country and it is a dark repressive, regressive, and oppressive place of fear, hatred, and poverty. Trump may have been personally rebuffed by Republikkkan voters in 2020, largely for not being cruel enough, but his Trumpism, aka MAGA is on the rise. If we don’t stop the Republikkkans in this year’s midterms and again in the 2024 elections we will be persecuted without recourse and killed in the streets.
Please step up your resisting now, before it is too late.
