Two national polls indicate current tensions have again triggered secessionist impulses. The poll results are perhaps less significant than the pollsters’ decisions to address this issue.
According to a Bright Line Watch survey, within the Intermountain West 43% of Republicans, 35% of Independents and 17% of Democrats support their own state’s “secession from the United States to join a [regional] union.” In a University of Virginia Center for Politics poll, Biden voters register 43% support for secession, with 18% expressing strong support; Trump voters respond 52% and 25%.
Respondents to these polls no doubt express their grievances rather than their considered judgments. A moment’s reflection indicates even peaceful secession would prove suicidal.
Consider the impracticality of a land-locked United Intermountain States — a nation-state dependent upon inland ports such as the 16,000 acre facility planned for Salt Lake City. Dr. Brian Moench recently warned such ports would further deplete dwindling water resources; lower water tables; trigger dust storms that pollute the air with neurotoxins; increase air pollution due to heavy railway and truck traffic; and result in skyrocketing water bills for households and businesses.
Further, division into regional nation-states would entail a disastrous dilution of America’s economic power and military might — a dilution that would ensure the ascendancy of America’s arch-rival, the People’s Republic of China. What could be more self-defeating?
