I had an amusing thought. A while back I came across the movie “Blue State” on Netflix, “a romantic comedy about a disgruntled Democrat who actually follows through on a drunken campaign promise to move to Canada if George ‘Dubya’ Bush gets re-elected” back in 2004. Didn’t want to live in that kind of country anymore. The movie wasn’t great, and I didn’t watch it to the end, but it was an interesting premise. Disgruntled Democrats had lots of countries to flee to at the time. Almost all of Europe, for example.
This is a rare occasion where I would say “fortunately” to the fact we don’t live in a swing state, because we are being spared the deluge of deception and overwrought emotion being pumped in there. Those of us who don’t have cable, at least. But I’d bet there would be plenty of people out in the Red States who would have a similarly nuts reaction to an Obama re-election. The question is, what countries will disgruntled Republicans be able to flee to if Obama is re-elected in 2012? I couldn’t think of any, and of course the idea of calling them “red countries,” for those of us who were around before 1989, is ironic in itself. Switzerland, Monaco and Hong Kong don’t count, except for those in Romney’s tax bracket, who probably have multiple countries to flee to anyway. But lots of people like that from elsewhere are buying condos in New York. Any suggestions?
Maybe we are the “red country,” which would leave disgruntled Republicans with nowhere to go. Which might create some other kinds of insane reactions among the excessively political. Which is to say, those whose political motivations are not driven by what the government does and how it affects them, but by a drive to feel that they are the one’s in change and the people who matter. Whose lives are validated. Obama has had to deal with his backers who are like that, and Romney would have to deal with his.