It's only been two weeks since election day—and just 206 weeks away from our next presidential election (should we even have another)—and, by golly, it appears winter did indeed come early to Utah. They are not completely silent, but it's noticeable that the formerly upbeat folks (including moi) who predicted a Kamala Harris win over Donald Trump are a bit less rosy-cheeked these days.
What rosy Utah cheeks one does see are not due to cheerfulness, nor to the impact upon them from the frosty winds blowing from the Arctic North. For the first time in the history of jet streams and air pressure zones, a different freezing wind is a-blowin', sent forth from what future historians will fairly describe as the transplanted cold heart of America itself: Florida.
But what do we expect from Florida anyway? Name an important or famous Floridian besides Henry Morrison Flagler, who basically created Florida. No one outside the circles of capitalist American history would even know who Flagler is, so that leaves only Carrot Top, Jim Morrison, Wesley Snipes and a pitiful few others who actually admit to being from Florida, despite Flagler lending them every opportunity.
Well, there's possibly Janet Reno, but I thought she was from Nevada. And, yeah, Ernest Hemingway, Winslow Homer and Thomas Edison were Floridians, but they had the good graces to leave or die before Florida became the modern hellhole it is today.
Florida is where people escape from to be free of the people escaping to Florida. Like Donald Trump, who has basically moved the White House there.
Sure, the election showed that decency took a nosedive and honor took a cold-cocked right hook. There's no point in belaboring that ethics and morality have been revealed to have no meaningful relevance in today's political discourse. America's once honorable, stone-cut attributes and core beliefs now take a back seat in the bipolar express that favors the botoxed and power-hungry quislings who seek favor at Mar-a-Lago.
When one discovers that the warmest heart among the entire lot of Mar-a-Lago Trump toys—the current cabinet nominees for positions in his next administration—pumps blood through the body of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, you know you're in for a cold spell. At least three of Trump's appointees face credible sexual abuse allegations. You thus know that such proclivities (once a disqualifier not only on moral grounds, but also because such activities reveal blackmail opportunities) are no longer career barriers, so long as the mission of exacting revenge upon foes and imaginary demons is done. And maybe blackmail is being done, but never mind that.
Over the coming months, we'll all discover which side of the bed we sleep on—the cold or the warm—and we'll all discover, as have all other occupiers of similar historical beds, that no one will be sleeping well. Blankets will tug and new alliances made.
It's already happening. Some residents of red areas within blue states are calling for new borders to be drawn so that they might join a neighboring red state.
Residents of Weld County, Colorado, are clamoring to leave their Coors Beer behind and join their non-beer-producing neighbors in Wyoming. Sections of Illinois want to create a new state that doesn't include folks who eat Chicago Dogs. Parts of California seek to be free of San Francisco liberals and Hollywood elites. The best-known movement thus far is being driven by the supposedly forsaken rural residents of eastern Oregon, who want to be pulled into the gawdawful orbit of Idaho.
I say go for it. Indeed, in a country where our formerly common institutional currencies of human value are now debased, why not? Utah residents should do the same—but the opposite. If the residents of southern Illinois have legitimate claim to disenfranchisement, then so do the residents of Salt Lake County with but one glaring difference: Residents of Salt Lake County have it worse.
This is an ideal time for Salt Lake County—and Summit County, too—to leave red Utah and form its own new state. A decent placeholder name can be the barely original Bluetah. It will do for now.
Harris got more votes (273,000) in just Salt Lake County than did Trump in the entire state of Wyoming (193,000). Democrats Bill Campbell (67% in Salt Lake County) and Nathaniel Woodward (62%) beat hell in the 1st and 2nd Congressional Districts. It was more of a horse race in the 3rd District that favored Republican Mike Kennedy. Why does Wyoming have three members of Congress while Salt Lake County has zero but should have at least two?
No matter. I'm a fair person. Thus, my first executive order as president of Bluetah will be to leave the cities of Draper and Herriman in red Utah. Less than 50% of both Salt Lake County and Summit County residents are Latter-day Saints. Yet our Legislature is more than 85% LDS, with a paltry few members either ethnic or working-class citizens.
Bluetah should happen and it should include Grand County, Ogden and Roy for good measure. Blue zones generate (with the feds, mind you) a disproportionate share of the tax base that allows for the Cox clan and others down in Sanpete County (82% to Trump) to run their farming or turkey operations while their gas-guzzling farm implements convey water-sucking alfalfa off to China on roads afforded by urban taxpayers who they commonly despise.
They say the blues will starve without the reds. Nope, it's the other way around. Americans—Utahns—need to share the blanket. Because the blue zones are what again? Yep, cold.
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