Ever eager for new ways to rip the fabric of our country apart, Fox News is now helping to legitimize the secessionist movement. And Fox host Martha MacCallum seems glad to help.
On yesterday’s America Live, MacCallum hosted Maryland secessionist Scott Strzelczyk, favorably profiled earlier in the week on FoxNews.com. MacCallum sounded upbeat as she called the secession movement “interesting” and said it is “now getting national attention” and is “extremely frustrated with their state’s liberal government." She added, "So listen to how their founder describes it.”
That opened the way for a video clip that suggested the citizens are “seeking an amicable divorce” from a government that does not represent the people, as opposed to fringers devoted to a lost cause. “How about that!” MacCallum gushed afterward.
Yes, how about that, indeed. As David Neiwert, over at Crooks and Liars, explains, what’s really going on is that this is a group of (white) conservatives who want things their way or no way and the heck with democracy:
They like the idea of America as a big all-white nation. They don’t like the idea of America as a democracy.
Their antipathy to democracy always creeps out, even in their conspiracy theories (how many times have we heard the far-right refrain, “This is a republic, not a democracy!”), but more importantly in their actions and their political strategies, embodied most recently in the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and the ongoing efforts at voter suppression by conservative Republicans.
And when they realize they are not going to get their way, their solution is not to accept the verdict of democracy. Their solution is to drop out.
Neiwert also cites Joshua Holland, of BillMoyers.com, who writes:
(I)n Maryland, …a 26-point gap in presidential preferences separates the five counties considering secession from the rest of the state. Breakaway Maryland is 85 percent white, while whites make up just 51 percent of the population in the rest of the counties, according to a Washington Post analysis.
It’s certainly true that with less than 20 percent of the population now living in rural America, the policy preferences of conservatives living in the countryside or in small towns are often overshadowed by large majorities who live in cities and their suburbs. But that’s true of a lot of Americans – liberal hipsters in Austin, Texas, don’t have much say in their state’s governance either, to cite just one example among many. But as Jason Bane of the blog ColoradoPols told a local Fox affiliate in Colorado, “in a democracy, there are lots of other people who have viewpoints, and they don’t all throw a tantrum just because a vote doesn’t go their way.”
Leave it to Fox and MacCallum to cheerlead that tantrum. Although she did mildly note the unlikely success of the effort and how the leadership of Maryland was democratically elected, MacCallum also gave credence to the secessionists' platform. She asked, “What are your gripes? What are the things that you really feel are an injustice to the people that live in your part of the state?” Then she listened respectfully as Strzelczyk complained that the system is rigged as a result of gerrymandering, that there is “no equal protection of the laws” and that “the last straw” is gun control.
“Very, very interesting,” MacCallum said, sounding even more buoyant than before. “If you had a state, what would you name it?” Strzelczyk didn’t know but he suggested Antietam as a possibility. In case you don’t know, Antietam was the site of a Civil War battle, the bloodiest one-day battle in American history, whose anniversary just so happened to have occurred yesterday.
Not surprisingly, MacCallum didn’t mention that. She closed by thanking her guest and saying, “Very interesting. I will be watching to see how you make out with it.”
I’m sure she will.
Video below via Crooks and Liars.
The world would be a better place without these hateful frauds.
Even though the United States doesn’t have an official language, conservatives have opposed allowing Puerto Rico to be admitted as a state unless the “new state” drops Spanish as an official language, a condition that even most pro-Statehood Puerto Ricans have adamantly refused to accept.
*There was a non-binding resolution last year in which Puerto Ricans were asked two questions. The first was “Yes/No” on the issue of continuing the current status. The second had three “non-territorial” options: Statehood, Independence or “Sovereign Free Associated State” (the status wasn’t fully defined in the referendum, but was left to be determined at a later date through discussions with the proper US government officials). More than 1.8 million ballots were cast in the first referendum but nearly 80 thousand ballots were blank or invalid for a net of nearly 1.78 million valid votes; the Yes (or Sí) vote received 54% of the valid votes. In the second referendum, though, there were just slightly fewer total votes cast but a far larger number of blank or invalid votes. The leaders of several Puerto Rican political parties opposed the 2nd part and called for people to leave the 2nd part blank. Despite fewer overall votes being cast in the second part, there were still more than 1.8 million ballots in play. Of these, nearly 500,000 ballots were blank or invalid (with over 480,000 being left blank). The pro-statehood vote received 61% of the valid ballots, the independence vote received just 5.5% and the third option got just over 33%. However, as referendum opponents pointed out, if you counted the blank ballots as either being for either independence or third option, that meant the pro-statehood vote only ended up with 45% and this has been part of the hold up with any real progress on Puerto Rico’s future.
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Obama’s America, Love it or Leave it.
Farm subsidies? Funds for Medicaid expansion?
Ahhhhh, just think of the money we’ll save!
