• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, January 21, 2021

Some in Mississippi, Texas and Wyoming are advocating to secede from the United States. Had we not been through four tortuous years of Trump in the White House and a global pandemic that has killed 400,000 Americans, this kind of talk might be alarming. Now, frankly, we should tell each state to “not let the door hit you on the way out.”

Naturally, these are overwhelmingly red states full of conspiracy theorists, Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists and people who think Fox News is fair, accurate and balanced.  

To be fair, there are some urban areas in Texas (like Austin) that rise above the usual lowbrow conservatism that makes states red in the first place, but by and large these are states we could pretty much kiss goodbye and be better off without.

Take Mississippi, for example. It has more obesity than any other state in the union, and in fact is 50th in overall healthcare, (Texas is 9th) and has the highest poverty rate of all 50 states (Texas is 14th). The delta state has the 6th worst high school dropout rate in the country (Texas is 10th), is ranked 46th in overall education, is the nation’s poorest state economically and its residents have the shortest life span from sea to shining sea; said by Inc. to be “worse than Bangladesh.”

Mississippi is still hurting over having to remove Confederate symbolism from its state flag, and will be forever known as the state that fought hardest to maintain segregation. Fun fact: The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, was ratified after three-fourths of the states passed it in 1865. While four others eventually passed the amendment, Mississippi did not symbolically and officially adopt it until 1995.

But not all is bad in the Magnolia State: It is number #1 in catfish and upholstered furniture production, and the nation’s largest Bible restoration company is located in Greenwood.

For bordering states Alabama and Louisiana, it is kind of like having a family move into your pristine neighborhood and leave rusting cars and appliances on the lawn, while Merle Haggard and the Carter Family blare from the radio on the front porch. Is that catfish I smell frying in the backyard? Oddly, neighboring Arkansas doesn’t seem to mind Mississippi in the least.

With Texas producing just about half of all the oil in the United States, it could easily support itself as a kind of oversized Kuwait. Once it secedes, we don’t have to bother with finishing the ridiculous “border wall.” Since Texas has a ton of unproductive land, it could easily give every migrant family 40 acres and a Dell computer and never even notice they were there until they build a modern nation-state that makes Texas look all the more third-world-like. 

I mean, who paves over a city that floods all the time and thinks 70 mph is a perfectly safe speed limit? And any right-thinking American knows barbecue means pork, not beef. Even Deshaun Watson is getting the hell outta there.

That leaves Wyoming, which as far as I know is simply a pastel-colored (almost square) spot on the map. Some people I knew in New York used to go to Jackson Hole to ski, but otherwise I can’t think of any reason for the state to exist.

Bottom line, if you don’t care enough to integrate your political minds and personal integrity back into the land of the free and the home of the brave and want to continue worshiping at the altar of the worst president in all of modern history, well then, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.