More support secession, especially Southern Republicans

Support for secession from the U.S. to join new, regional unions (Bright Line Watch map; click to enlarge it.)

Six months after the Capitol riot, surveys show Americans more deeply divided than ever, and most Southern Republicans want their state to secede to a new nation of the South. That's according to June polling from Bright Line Watch, an initiative to monitor the strength of democracy. It polled 2,750 Americans and 327 political scientists. Secession support increased from a February survey.

Overall, the report says: "We find deep partisan polarization in perceptions of what is right and wrong with American democracy and the steps that should be taken to fix it. In addition, experts express reservations about current changes to election law at the state level. Still, we find some signs that Americans regard partisan attacks on election administration with skepticism."

Some other key findings:

• The public and experts don't generally approve of tactics like gerrymandering, packing the Supreme Court or blocking nominees, voter suppression, abolishing the filibuster, adding new states to the nation, or refusing to certify election results. But, when elites carry out such actions, voters don't usually punish them at the ballot box.
• Experts believe such tactics will become more common, especially extreme partisan gerrymandering. But they think Democrat-favored tactics such as adding states or abolishing the filibuster are less likely.
• Bills that reduce the political independence of local elections officials or restrict mail-in voting are dangerous to democracy, experts say.

The report is long and dense, with plenty of charts and maps, and it's worth the time to explore it.

Protests weren't limited to Washington, D.C.: many protested state and local governments

The protesting and (in some cases) invasion of government offices wasn't limited to Washington, D.C. last week. Protests were held in state capitals across the nation, along with some protests on the local level. A local government meeting in Shasta County, California, was overrun with protesters the day before the Capitol riots. The Shasta County incident sheds a spotlight on the views of many rural residents who didn't make the road trip to Washington, but agreed in principle with many of the Capitol protesters.

"The Shasta County Board of Supervisors had planned to meet virtually Jan. 5 because of an uptick in coronavirus cases. The supervisors’ chambers in Redding were closed. Seats had been removed. The public speakers’ microphone was disabled," Hailey Branson-Potts reports for the Los Angeles Times. "But, in protest, a newly elected supervisor unlocked the doors. In poured dozens of people, unmasked, to vent their fury. Three supervisors attending virtually watched from afar as threats flew amid the speeches."

In rural, northern California, an increasingly conservative region where many want to secede and form a new state called Jefferson, "the kind of anger and distrust of the government that Trump has fomented is on full display," Branson-Potts reports. "In some ways, the rhetoric in that officially closed county government facility carried a hint of the rage that would boil over 2,800 miles away when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol the next day . . . Among the president’s supporters in Washington last week were men carrying the yellow-and-green State of Jefferson flag with its pair of Xs, called a 'double cross,' that represent a sense of rural abandonment."

Such protests and riots will likely happen again "because some residents believe there is great political utility in making government officials believe that potential violence could become all too real."

"In Shasta County, where Trump beat Biden by 33 percentage points, the supervisors’ meetings have become a prime venue for outrage. Accusations of treason and socialism are commonplace. So, too, is talk of revolution and civil war," Branson-Potts reports. 

"When the ballot box is gone, there is only the cartridge box. You have made bullets expensive. But luckily for you, ropes are reusable," Timothy Fairfield, 44, told the Shasta County supervisors last week. 

Carlos Zapata, who also attended the meeting, told Branson-Potts: "We have to make politicians scared again . . . If politicians do not fear the people they govern, that relationship is broken."

Supervisor Leonard Moty, a former Redding police chief, said local residents have becoming increasingly blatant about threatening government employees since the pandemic began, including announcing the home address of the county health officer: "They politicized the virus. The pandemic. You saw a culmination of it by a president who incited a whole group of people to march to the Capitol and do bad things. I think we have a number of people in this county who follow his voice. Who knows what they will do?"

Quick hits: Rural Oregon threatens to join Idaho . . .

Here's a roundup of stories with rural resonance; if you do or see similar work that should be shared on The Rural Blog, email us at heather.chapman@uky.edu.

QAnon won big in the recent election. Read more here.

The latest rural secession threat comes from rural Oregon counties that want to join Idaho. They have their eyes on some in California, too. Read more here.

The tiny community of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, traditionally elects a dog as its mayor. Meet the new one.

Rural registered nurses share stories of caring for their communities. Read more here.

Free social-media platform for farmers releases new features aimed at helping members share advice more easily. Read more here.

When one rural Colorado doctor caught the coronavirus, the repercussions extended far beyond his own health. Read more here.

Rural covid-19 infection rate much higher than metro rate; how are widely varied rural areas responding to pandemic?

Though the number of rural covid-19 infections is far less than the number of metropolitan infections, the rural rate is much higher than in metro areas at a comparable stage, according to a Penn State study released April 3. In other words, when the coronavirus hits rural areas, a larger share of people get sick, perhaps because rural people are older and have more underlying health conditions.

The South is particularly vulnerable to the pandemic, on those grounds and others. "Four of the five states with the highest diabetes rates are in the South. And eight didn’t expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving thousands of families without access to routine care, even as financially troubled rural hospitals wither away," Margaret Newkirk and Michelle Fay Cortez Bloomberg note. "Those factors give the South a special vulnerability, as did the haphazard response from some governors as the disease began to course through the country. Without clear direction from the Trump administration, they were loath to mandate stay-at-home orders. Beaches were open in Florida, churches held services in rural Tennessee, and Mardi Gras went on in Louisiana."

In Albany, Georgia, at the same church that unwittingly spread the virus to dozens at a Feb. 29 funeral, a March 7 funeral that attracted around 400 attendees spread the virus even further, Charles Bethea reports for The New Yorker. The two funerals led rural Dougherty County to have one of the highest rates of infection per capita in the nation.

Central Appalachia, with its higher rates of black-lung disease and other health issues, is also highly vulnerable. "Already in the past week, reports have emerged that two coal miners in Pennsylvania have tested positive for the coronavirus," Matt Krupnick reports for HuffPost. "And as the pandemic continues to spread rapidly, many fear it’s only a matter of time until the virus contributes to a triple-whammy in Appalachian mining communities: a population with elevated health risks, an economy in free-fall and limited health-care resources."

Out in the rural West, where the population is much more spread out, a photo essay and story from The New York Times explores how the pandemic is affecting eastern Oregon. Greg Hennes, who runs a small hotel in Joseph, says he's had many cancellations and has had to defer many of his bills. He intends to apply for relief money, and in the mean time spends a lot of time hiking. "Unlike in a lot of places near urban areas, I’m not worried about the trailhead being overrun," Hennes told the Times. "It’s very easy to keep six feet, if not three miles, between me and the next person."

The pandemic is inspiring more aggressive action from some rural residents. Some restless ones in Illinois are again pushing the idea of splitting from the Chicago area to be a separate state. Secession talk has periodically flared up in rural Illinois and in other states because of political issues; this time the pandemic is the impetus, Logan Jaffe and Duaa Eldeib report for ProPublica Illinois.

"Political experts say there is virtually no chance that the state will ever split, especially since it will require an act of Congress and lead to the likely election of two Republican senators to represent that new state," Jaffe and Eldeib report. "Still, the secession conversation is a dramatic expression of the much more widespread — and potentially dangerous — frustration with a sweeping governmental response to the pandemic that many question in areas where some homes sit acres apart and people predominantly travel by car, not public transportation."

And in Idaho, anti-government extremist Ammon Bundy vowed in a Facebook live video to physically protect Idahoans who wished to defy the state government's stay-at-home order, The Associated Press reports. In a phone call with reporters, Bundy said that self-isolation wasn't a bad idea, but he objected to it being made an order.

Jerry Falwell Jr. and Gov. Jim Justice invite conservative Virginia counties to secede and join West Virginia

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. speaks as West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice listens. (Photo via TPM)

The boundary of Virginia and West Virginia is barely visible, in this
map of the 2016 presidential vote by precinct, since the states' rural
areas voted Republican.(New York Times map; click on it to enlarge)

"In what they acknowledged is a long-shot bid, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. urged unhappy Virginia counties Tuesday to secede and join a neighboring state where Democrats aren’t in charge," Anthony Izaguirre and Alan Suderman report for The Associated Press.

Liberty University is in Lynchburg, Va., an independent city surrounded by one of the counties encouraged to secede; Falwell, a staunch supporter of President Trump, has helped vault the college into a conservative political touchstone in a state that has recently turned Democratic. Justice, who recently became a Republican and is running for re-election in a state freshly dominated by the GOP, said West Virginia welcomes those who oppose abortion and gun control.

The so-called "Vexit" movement is a response to last November's Virginia election, in which Democrats won full control of the state legislature. With Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam at the helm, Democrats have "pledged to enact gun-control measures, roll back abortion restrictions, and prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ people," the AP reports. That sparked a huge backlash in rural Virginia: at least 60 of the 95 counties have since declared themselves "Second Amendment sanctuaries," a largely symbolic gesture that asserts local authorities' right to disregard state and federal gun-control laws, AP reports. More recently, thousands of gun-rights activists protested in the state capital of Richmond, many wearing tactical gear and carrying firearms.

The press conference was met with derision on both sides of the aisle in the Virginia General Assembly; Sen. Emmett Hanger, a Republican, likened the press conference to a "comedy routine," Izaguirre and Suderman report. A spokesperson for Northam said, "Sounds like it’s an election year in West Virginia," Matt Shuham reports for Talking Points Memo.

However, some West Virginia state legislators are taking the notion seriously. A few weeks ago, lawmakers "introduced formal resolutions inviting parts of Virginia to join their state. One resolution targets Virginia’s Frederick County, but was met with a shrug from the county’s leader," the AP reports. "The other casts a wider net to all Virginia’s counties, saying the 'government at Richmond now seeks to place intolerable restraints upon the rights guaranteed under the Second Amendment.'"

Justice noted during the press conference that West Virginia and Virginia share a unique history, alluding to the fact that West Virginia is the only state formed by seceding from a Confederate state. Justice reiterated at the press conference that all Virginia counties have a 158-year-old standing invitation to join the state, Elizabeth Tyree reports for WSET-TV in Lynchburg.

It's unclear how secession would proceed, but Falwell said lawyers had advised him that Virginia counties would need to first conduct petition drives, then hold a referendum, and if that succeeded, the proposal would go before the General Assembly, Izaguirre and Suderman report. Rick Boyer, a conservative activist attorney in Virginia, said he's working hard to make Vexit a reality. "This isn’t street theater; we fully intend to do everything we can to see it through," Boyer told the AP.

Growing political divide, a largely rural-urban battle, inspires more secession movements

Supporters of a new state along the California-Oregon
border rally in 2016 (Associated Press photo)

The growing political divide in the U.S. has led to an increased number of states seeking to secede from the U.S. and largely rural areas seeking to secede from their state, Mindy Fetterman reports for Stateline. The movement took a big leap forward among red states in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president, and interest grew among blue states in November when Donald Trump was elected president. There are ongoing campaigns for secession both of and from California, and there have been "smaller pushes in Oklahoma, Maine, Utah, West Virginia and New York’s Long Island, among others," Fetterman writes.

A 2014 online survey by Reuters found that nearly one in four Americans wanted their state to secede, with numbers highest in Texas, at 34 percent, Fetterman reports. "The move for independence, whether it’s from the right of the political spectrum as in Texas, or the left as in California, reflects the political division felt across the country." Edward Meisse, a supporter of the Yes California secession group that just disbanded, told her: “We have two diametrically opposed philosophies in our country, and we’re just not getting anywhere. I think we should allow states to secede so California can be California and Texas can be Texas.”

Seceding is not that easy, Fetterman notes. "Many lawyers and constitutional scholars say it’s legally impossible for a state to secede because the U.S. Constitution doesn’t address the issue, and has no provision to allow it. The U.S. Supreme Court declared in an 1869 case, Texas vs. White, that the U.S. is 'an indestructible union.' And the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in a 2006 letter that 'if there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.'”

Nevertheless, Fetterman writes, "Some lawyers, historians and secession groups argue that Article 10 of the Constitution gives states the right to decide many issues which are not in the power of the federal government. And despite the legal obstacles, the desire for self-rule and separation from others with different political, social or moral views remains strong among some groups."

Joining a secession movement is “about being a part of the group as it circles around its sacred values and marks out what is good and what is evil,” Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist and professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business, told Fetterman. “Joining a secession movement is an act of both self-expression and group expression.”

Southwest Va. is the latest rural region to hear talk of secession from its state; 'a thought experiment'

The collapse of Central Appalachia's coal industry, and the state of Virginia's response to resulting problems with school funding, sparked an editorial in The Roanoke Times that began: "Here’s an idea: Should Southwest Virginia secede and form its own state? We don’t mean that seriously, of course. However, let’s explore it as a thought experiment."

The newspaper noted that groups of people in remote and/or rural regions of several other states have suggested secession, and that the school-funding crisis didn't push the state legislature to swing into action. "The only legislator from Southwest Virginia who serves on the House Appropriations Committee . . . came up with a new funding formula. Even then, the handful of legislators who worked out the final version of the budget changed things around so that two of the counties in far Southwest Virginia wound up with exactly zero dollars. Could that be because not a single legislator from Southwest Virginia was in the room when that happened? (Cue the 'Hamilton' musical and song in which Aaron Burr longs to be in 'The Room Where It Happened.') What if we just said 'Sorry, we’re tired of being your afterthought; we’re outta here'?"

The editorial acknowledged that secession would be a bad idea for Southwest Virginia, since the region "is subsidized by the rest of the state. Yes, yes, we think we’re ignored by Richmond and in a lot of ways we are. Still, the fiscal reality is that Northern Virginia really subsidizes the rest of Virginia. If there’s any part of the state that should secede for bottom-line reasons, it’s Northern Virginia. Let’s not encourage that."

Oregon group files, then withdraws, petition to secede from the U.S. in wake of election

A group in Oregon filed, then withdrew, a petition to secede from the U.S., Lizzy Acker reports for The Oregonian. On Thursday, two days after Donald Trump was elected president, a petition was filed for a 2018 ballot initiative called the Oregon Secession Act. Results of the election brought renewed interest in Cascadia (Oregonian map), a proposed country that includes southern Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, parts of Idaho, Montana and Oregon as well as small parcels of northern California, Nevada and Utah.

On Friday organizers filed paperwork to withdraw the petition, Acker writes. They said it didn't get the type of response they had expected, citing death threats they had received and violence in the streets as a result of the election. Christian Trejbal, one of the petitioners, told Acker, "That's not the kind of conversation we were trying to have so we're pulling it." Democrat Hillary Clinton beat president-elect Donald Trump in Oregon, 52 percent to 41 percent.

Rural residents want to secede from Caribou, Maine; committee says city taxes are too high

Rural residents in a Maine town want to secede and return to the way things were in the 19th century before several small communities were annexed into one larger one, Julia Bayly reports for the Bangor Daily News. The group says the move would lower taxes for rural residents, who they say are being overcharged for city costs. (City-Data map)

The group of Caribou residents presented their idea at Monday's city council meeting, saying they want to take about 80 percent of the . . . outlying rural areas and form the new community of Lyndon, reviving an old name. "In 1869, several communities were annexed to Lyndon, which was officially renamed Caribou in 1877," Bayly writes.

Paul Camping, spokesman for the 20-member Caribou Secession Committee, told Bayly, “What we are trying to do is take our land in rural Caribou back away from the city of Caribou. The size and cost of [Caribou] city government is too big and too expensive.”

Lyndon would include all of Caribou except the downtown area, according to a map proposed by the committee, Bayly writes: "Camping said people who live on large lots of land away from the downtown pay a disproportionate amount of property taxes to help fund services that benefit only those who live near or in town." The city's population is about 8,000.

Mayor Gary Aiken said he thinks secession would actually raise rural taxes while lowering city ones, Bayly writes. He told her, “They would take 80 percent of the land and 30 percent of the population to cover all those roads and public works. There is no question the Caribou side would reduce expenses. It would cut our public works budget in half right away.”

"Maine law . . . spells out the process for residents of a territory to secede from a municipality," Bayly notes. In 2007 and 2011 the Maine Legislature refused to let residents in Peaks Island, who also said secession would lead to lower taxes, secede from Portland, she writes.