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Red-State Secession Gaining Steam in Oregon

31-5-2024 < Counter Currents 31 1612 words
 

The proposed state of Greater Idaho (in red). Source: Greater Idaho.


1,367 words


Residents of Crook County, Oregon recently voted on joining the latest secessionist effort gaining steam within the rapidly-polarizing United States. The Greater Idaho movement seeks to incorporate up to 14 counties of eastern Oregon into the state of Idaho, which would extend Idaho’s border several hundred miles westward to the Cascade Mountains. Crook County marks the 13th county in eastern Oregon to agree to this plan.


The reasons for the proposal’s popularity are quite obvious. The mostly rural and traditional-minded people of eastern Oregon are tired of being ignored or overridden by the far-Left Democrats in the urban centers of Portland and Salem who basically control the state. While high taxes, lax crime laws, and stringent gun-control measures were what helped prompt Mike McCarter to form the Greater Idaho movement back in 2020, onerous Oregon COVID policies and a recent law decriminalizing drug possession sealed the deal for many eastern Oregonians.


There is some momentum here. Proponents point out that both sides will benefit, with Idaho projected to pick up 1.2 million people and an additional $170 million in tax revenue after the border change. It should come to no surprise that the measure is popular in Idaho. On the Oregon side, the state subsidizes many in the eastern part of the state already, where incomes are much lower than in the more urban western part. Oregon would stand to save tens of millions in tax revenue with that rural millstone no longer hanging around its neck. Further, the Oregon conservative minority is still large enough to make its presence felt in Salem. Without it, a supermajority of Democrats would have more money and more freedom to enact whatever policies they want.


30% of Counties Vote to Secede From Oregon | Facts Matter30% of Counties Vote to Secede From Oregon | Facts Matter

Another thing Greater Idaho has going for it is its timeliness and the fact that it is one of many precursors to Red-State Secession. As McCarter explained in a recent interview, what’s happening in Oregon is happening just about everywhere:


It’s not just here. It’s in every state in the union. Because if you look at who controls the vote in Washington: Seattle Metro. Who controls the vote in Illinois? Chicago. Who controls the vote in New York? New York City. Atlanta controls Georgia. I mean it’s one right after another.


This much is true. In the past few years we have seen red-state secession efforts in many places. For example, in Illinois 27 counties voted in 2020 to become part of Indiana. In 2021, a New Mexico Republican legislator attempted to amend the state’s constitution to allow three southeastern counties to secede and join Texas. Also in 2021, five Maryland lawmakers proposed that three western counties join West Virginia, despite West Virginia being a much poorer state than Maryland. The year before, the Governor of West Virginia himself invited disgruntled Virginia counties to come join the Mountain State. The same story is repeating itself in Colorado, where lawmakers are pushing to incorporate Weld County into Wyoming.


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On a more local level, 2023 saw the unfortunate demise of the Buckhead City initiative, which had hoped to de-annex the uptown district of Atlanta from Atlanta proper, as it is rife with crime and corruption. On the bright side, however, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that sections of Baton Rouge, Louisiana could break off to form the brand new city of St. George. A similar victory was achieved around the same time by Austin, Texas enclave Lost Creek, which voted overwhelmingly to split with Austin over its woke policies and exploding crime rates.


This, of course, says nothing about the most famous red-state secession movement of them all: Texit. In a July 2022 poll conducted by SurveyUSA, it was determined that 66% of Texas voters wished to secede from the United States. This amounted to 73% of Republican voters and 59% of Democrat voters. This year, Texas Republicans refused to put a question about secession on the GOP primary ballot despite pressure from the Texas Nationalist Movement and its campaign that collected 140,000 signatures. Undeterred, Texas nationalists are vowing to get the Texas Independence Referendum Act ready for the first legislative session in 2025.


Of course, we also cannot forget Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene’s recent call for a “national divorce,” which boosted the visibility of all secessionist movements across America.


Source; Daily Mail.


With the notable exception of Calexit, which essentially stalled after the stolen election of 2020, all these secession movements have one thing in common: direction. They all feature old-fashioned red-state folks trying to get away from progressive blue-state people. The former group has remained steadfast to time-honored American values such as independence, self-sufficiency, family, and religion, while the latter is veering further and further to the Left thanks to immigration, changing demographics, and inflamed racial and sexual identity politics. To hear the mainstream media tell it, this is primarily a rural-urban divide. While there is some truth to this, it doesn’t explain the Buckhead-Atlanta, St. George-Baton Rouge, and Lost Creek-Austin disputes very well. These are more suburban vs. urban. Furthermore, how does this paradigm explain Texas?


We all know the undercurrents here, even if the Right is shyer about discussing it than the Left. This is white flight writ large. Any time whites complain about crime and urban corruption, there will be racial undertones. This is because, quite logically, black and brown people commit a disproportionate amount of crime and are disproportionately corrupt when given real power in American cities. When you avoid these people in general, you tend to have more orderly societies, lower taxes, and better representative government. Who wouldn’t want that? Since Democrats are beholden to the tribalist interests of all non-whites and non-heteronormative people, they must govern in such a way as to place the interests of ordinary whites after the interests of these privileged groups. And the more of such people you have in a state, the less a Democratic state legislator will be willing to listen to the grievances of whites. This is basically what the people or eastern Oregon have known for years and are trying to rectify via the Greater Idaho movement.


Do they have a chance? I don’t think so. Aside from the great effort it would take and the Left’s pathological need for control and change, it would be a colossal blunder on the part of Oregon Democrats — to say nothing of every Democrat in the US House of Representatives — to ratify Greater Idaho. Regardless of whatever financial incentives this change promises, it will also make a red state redder and a blue state less blue. In such a future, Democratic presidential candidates would gain fewer electoral votes by winning in Oregon, while their Republican counterparts would gain more electoral votes by winning in Idaho. Why would the Democrats sign up to take such a hit? Why would they set 1.2 million new white Idahoans free, allowing them to impede the Democratic agenda there, when they can effectively continue to hold them hostage in Oregon, where they can’t? Democrats in Oregon and on the federal level will fight this measure tooth and nail — as they should. Without any Democratic support, the Greater Idaho movement will, sadly, be dead on arrival.


I nevertheless support Greater Idaho wholeheartedly — as all white advocates should — and I dearly hope my analysis is wrong. Whether or not it emerges victorious in the end, however, the bigger point here is that we must prepare the nation for red-state secession. For that to happen, whites everywhere need to be talking about and planning for it constantly through separation schemes both big and small. Whites will also need to overcome racial taboos and start seeing what the Left sees plainly enough: that all forms of red-state secession are tribalist at heart.


Whites wish to do what’s best for white people by claiming territories for themselves upon which to form and maintain white societies — and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. This is red-state secession, and the sooner white Americans realize this and act in their collective racial interests, the better. With all the non-white immigration currently being inflicted upon America, one day soon there may be no place left where white secessionism will even be possible.


Spencer J. Quinn








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