The beginning of the end
California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii ... who's next?
King George started all this. By trying to micromanage a batch of renegade colonists and sending his red-coated thugs to harass and intimidate them, he started a revolution that ended with … well, you know.
So now, we have King Donald basically taking a page from history, micromanaging education, health care, sexuality and other intimate details of his subjects’ lives. He is, like that other despot, setting himself up for a loss of the sweetest, richest and most productive of what he considers his colonies.
Yes, I’m talking about California, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii — the bluest of the West Coast Blues — who today formed a “health alliance” to replace the globe-girdling Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, now in the hands of savages who have stormed the gates and are rampaging, at least figuratively, through the halls, burning science texts, eradicating scientific research and threatening the scientists who keep disease at bay.
Point of no return
It’s not going to end well. The Outraged Consumer tries to avoid politics and, despite working amongst politicos in D.C. for 40 or so years, does not follow it all that closely. However, it is quite clear to anyone with eyes that Sir Donald is setting his duchy on a course from which it may not be able to recover.
It’s not hard to imagine the four states that now are forming their own health department, making alliances with their neighbors, like — oh, let’s say — Canada and Mexico, both countries with some form of national health care and who pay more than lip service to diversity and individual liberties.
I have long thought the day might come when USA West would throw Washington’s tea in the Potomac and form an alliance of some kind with Canada that would enable it to also lash up with New England, the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, leaving the rest of the country to tend to its corn and chickens.
Leaving all that aside for the moment, let’s just look at the Golden West. Between them, the amalgamated four rebel states would have a GDP of about $5.3 trillion, making it the third-largest economy in the world, behind China and what’s left of the U.S. It would have most of the nation’s digital intellectual property and a huge hunk of the country’s top research and educational institutions, as well as Silicon Valley and the Inland Empire, which is the largest producer of agriculture products in North America.
Southeast Missouri State is no doubt a fine school but if you’re going up against China and India, you might want Stanford and UCLA in the mix somewhere.
More than tea on these ships
Oh, and let’s not forget the ports. Los Angeles and Long Beach import roughy one-third of all imports into the U.S. from what used to called the Pacific Rim. The East Coast and the Gulf states deal more with commodities — iron, grain and the like — while the high-value goods come ashore in California.
There’s been much discussion about how Canadians are mild-mannered and slow to anger but are now mad as hell at Trump and his clown parage. Well, as a longtime parttime resident of California, the Outraged Consumer and all of his neighbors are likewise mad as hell and not going to take it much longer. Mexico is trying to be genial but a vast anger simmers beneath the forced smile.
Masked men rounding people up and shipping them off to God-knows-where, harassing and intimidating visitors seeking entry to the not-so-magic kingdom and treating women and minorities as the chattel they once were has just about reached its limit with everyone who has not fallen under the Dear Leader’s spell.
When the history of the Pacific States of America (PSA) is written, 2025 will be marked as the year the Great Dissolution began. PSA was a pretty nifty little airline that just did fine flying exclusively in California for many years. There’s a lesson there.
Those of us who have been around awhile lived through what was billed as the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius and we’re not ready to sunset that concept just yet. Anybody who wants to go back to digging coal and making cardboard boxes is free to do so. Just stay east of 114 West Longitude and you can regress at your own chosen speed.