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Where Will Conservatives Threaten to Move To When Obama Takes Office?
On Nov. 4, 2008, a proclamation that had echoed through the American lexicon for nearly a decade was crushed beneath the weight of history:
"If he wins, I'm moving to Canada."
Uttered in liberal enclaves from Cambridge to the Castro District since the Florida recounts in 2000, the Canadian Gambit was the political equivalent of biting a cyanide capsule after a failed intelligence mission. Its application ranged from using "Go Canadian" travel kits to avoid hecklers abroad to sizing up apartments in Montreal and buying the Rush and Broken Social Scene back catalogs.
In the wake of Barack Obama's victory, however, busloads of exiles returning over Ambassador Bridge on inauguration day will bring one question with them: Where will their conservative counterparts flee to when Obama takes office?
If Sarah Palin's moose hot dog-laden interviews and red-meat strewn words to the GOP governors meeting last week were any indication, conservatives still have one great white north hope for refuge: Alaska.
Die-hard adherents of the right will say that sticking it out is the patriotic thing to do, even if pale, tear-streaked faces in the audience during John McCain's concession speech and the folks who've marked Obama's victory with hundreds of racist incidents nationwide say otherwise. Moving to Canada is out of the question, what with all of the draft dodging, dope smoking, gay marrying, socialized-medicine using, gun-moderate weirdos up there. Mexico, meanwhile, won't exactly offer a hearty bienvenidos to vigilante minutemen who treated the border like their personal game of Big Buck Hunter and built barricades that made the Berlin Wall look like a Christo installation.
If the Clinton Administration taught us anything, though, it's that the far right prefers arming up and cordoning off to fleeing. With the same people who chided Obama for saying they "cling to guns and religion" hitting gun shops with the intensity of a Filene's wedding sale, sacrificing Alaska for the greater good serves the same purpose as shooting wolves from helicopters: Protecting the other animals from a snarling minority of predators.
Why should arch-conservatives stick around and watch the U.S. get socialized and sissified when there's a paradise to the north just waiting for a few good right-wingers to help it secede? Sure, Alaska's colder than the other side of Ann Coulter's bed and similarly barren, but it with filled with more Real American goodies than a Carrie Underwood/Jessica Simpson Frito-Pie Bake-Off.
Like oil, but tired of your president berating you for being "addicted" to it? Alaska is not only teeming with oil, but splits the surplus revenue with its residents to the tune of between $1,000 and $3,000 a year. Let the poor saps to the south be the junkies, you're a dealer, baby.
Are you a persecuted meat lover who just wants to cap a caribou without some vegetarian whine connoisseur bitching about it? Alaska's subsistence culture allows you to blast and broil all of the wildlife your heart desires. Tired of artsy-fartsy hippy types bad-mouthing your country? Alaska has mandated that anyone considering a career in music and poetry must live in a van for several years and forsake dental hygiene before receiving their certification. Jewel can vouch for this.
Her fellow Alaskans may actually welcome secession and a few more like-minded friends with whom to celebrate it. Though only four percent of Alaskans supported the Alaskan Independence Party's candidate for Senate, Todd Palin's involvement in said party shows that some folks in the 49th state are just as disenchanted with state of things as their far right fellow travelers in the lower 48. When you add to their ranks the nearly 47 percent of Alaskans who defiantly voted for breadwinning Republican senior senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens (his name's already on the airport, after all), you get a state in desperate need of a compassionate conservative hug.
There would be no conservative misery in an independent Alaska, where every executive decision by an unchecked President Palin would be akin to choosing between Ronald Reagan and Jesus on prom night. Should she first kick off a new Cold War by ordering Alaskans to moon Russia from their front porches, or should she approve drillin' in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge with an augur made of polar bear ribs? Should she rename the capital Juno to celebrate the unexpected blessings of teen pregnancy, or just encourage Alaskans to multiply as God intended until they can retake the United States of Greenwich Village by force?
That the Alaskan leader has left her home state on fewer occasions than even her most provincial potential citizen would help ease the transition for even the most comfortable of American conservatives. It may be a hard sell at first, but making a new home out of the only state that is relatively safe from recession won't be as hard as it sounds. It will just take a few million Joe Six Packs who aren't afraid to take their values to a state with one of the highest alcoholism rates in the country.
The only other alternative is staying in the U.S. and griping about the current political climate in an unarmed, nonviolent fashion more suited to the port-wine pouring surrender squad that the far right so loathes. That would require getting to know your opponents, engaging in open dialogue, actually listening to each other when talking about your differences and trying to reach the compromises Obama has suggested.
If they wanted to live in a world like that, they'd move to Canada.
Follow Jason Notte on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Notteham
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Pluto? Oh, they pulled this planet! Too bad!
This is a terribly funny and terribly good article. Thanks!
We said if Bush got elected in 2004 we were leaving the US. We've been in New Zealand for 4 years now and have joined many expat Americans who felt the same way and made the same move. We could go home again, we're pretty happy here. We will continue to be Americans from afar, and try to find a turkey to cook for Thanksgiving.
No, no. Lets give all the haters their own remote and waaaaay too isolated island, give them weapons and set up a camera to watch the tomfoolery!
Talk about a ratings blitz!
For the record, Canada would not take them. It has standards. As a Canadian living in the US, I can tell you their ilk are not appreciated there. Also Canada is awesome. Why dump our garbage on them. It's not fair. Alaska is the best choice.
To the gun-totting conservatives:
Let's be honest. With a financial bailout supported by both parties, this IS a socialist country. America has lost the flavor it once had. Hell we are, as you say, "baby killers". So move to Alaska. All of you. Pleaseeeeeeeee.
I'll pay for as many plane tickets as I can. Please move to Alaska. Think about it. If you all move there, Repub heaven. You'll always get "your guy" representing you. Sure the rest of the country will be "pinko commies". But at least you'll have a state all your won. And then you can secede. Alaskan oil will be a minimal issue for the rest of us tree-huggers because with all you gone to Alaska, we can actually start the green revolution - basically with alternative fuel we won't need your oil, so you can horde it to your heart's content. It's a win win for everyone. If that doesn't convince you: eventually "the gays" will marry here and most of us are OK with it. You don't want to stay here. Alaska's environment is similar to the rapture or Armageddon - if that rationalization helps.
So please move to Alaska - for us and yourself.
OMG--LOVE IT!!!!!!
They could all move to Irag where there are billions of American dollars being spent to improve health care, education and the like - it is the "democracy" that King George and his followers built, so why not make it home. On the other hand, Alaska sounds like a fine alternative.
Actually the perfect place for disgruntled conservatives to move is (drum roll): ZIMBABWE!
1) I'm sure they'd all worship at the feet of Ian Smith, founder of Rhodesia
2) they could learn a thing or 2 about election thievery from Robert Mugabe
3) I'm sure he'd treat those white folk real good . . .
They can all move up to Alaska if they want.
And they can let the border hit 'em in the a$$ on the way out.
If they don't want to stay and help clean up the mess THEIR president and THEIR party left behind, then they can just leave.
Let 'em move to Alaska. Then let Alaska secede. We can invade their country and take their oil.
Alaska is the only state that has to bribe people to live there. It has all the metrics of a third world country with phenomenally low educational achievement, high rape and incest, high rate of alcoholism and a high rate of teen pregnancy. The government is run by crooks and thieves. Competence and educated leadership are frowned upon and it is below freezing and without sunlight 100 days of the year. Life is lousy in Alaska but conservatives will love it because they will not have to pay sales tax or income tax. Conservatives know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
The without sunlight is debatable...
In Anchorage, at Winter Solistace, there are 19 hours of sundown and 5 of sunup. However, this is misleading, as there are a lot of clouds in the winter, so seeing the sun is rare when it is up. On the flip side, the sun's path is less direct when it sets, so dusk and sunrise/sunset last longer.
My personal recollection was of going to work, eating lunch at my desk, and not seeing the sun until the weekend, but that was my own fault.
I also have a theory on the high rate of rape reporting. The native americans in Alaska are (I think) more likely to report rapes than white women. I don't know how that affects the statistics, but the white population is suspected of having a below 50% reporting rate on rapes...
I can't blame those women, but I wish they would realize that even a failed attempt to convict will either make the rapist think twice, or make it easier to convict the next time they commit that crime.
You have so rawked my socks right now with this post--bless you!
Alaska has plenty of room to house escaping repugs, and then, to provide employment for the gun-toting uprightious immigrants, turn the central wilderness into a penal colony for all the convicts from the lower 48. Alaska could be the new Australia.
Whoa, Whoa - Australia is a great place. I know what your saying but both words start with A and that's where the similarity ends! See the movie and swoon.
See Jason Notte's Profile
I just discovered that Slate addressed the same topic in October, but included a few more options. They mentioned Alaska, but lamented that it was part of the United States. Their readers agreed with my assertion that the minor obstacle of statehood shouldn't stand in the way of the great conservative dream.
Definitely worth checking out for yourself: http://www.slate.com/id/2202070/
Since the Governor's Husband wanted to partition the country and have their own independent country I guess they will fight harder to make this dream a reality. I know, too, that we will fight and defeat them like Lincoln did. Let them try.
How about Venezuela? Chavez has a nice little dictatorship going down there. They'll fit right in.
Chavez has a new challenger down there, his ex wife. LOL
Not Venezuela, my friends. We can give them iceberg to live on since they do not believe in Global warming.
they will all move to the few remaining red states but if we are lucky they will leave the country
OK - true story. The day after the election my son heard this conversation between two medical technology students on the bus to the local community college:
Guy 1: "I can't believe Obama won. I'm thinking of moving to Canada/England/Australia... someplace where they speak English."
Guy 2: "Why leave the country?"
Guy 1: "Because Obama wants to take away our private healthcare and nationalize medicine!"
Guy 2: "So... you're going to flee to Canada or England or Australia to get away from national healthcare?"
Guy 1: "Damn right."
Guy 2: "OK. Good luck with that."
LOL!
Hee hee. That made me smile.
Very funny!
I've lived in all three countries and can't imagine living without healthcare. So far Canada was the best. Australia and England are tied at this point until the Australian govt can convince me otherwise.
sadly I completely believe that is true...
Seriously they could crown Sarah and Todd King and Queen -- they already have the wardrobe and jewelry for it in the belly of the plane.
If the wardrobe hadn't been taken away, all the pieces would by now have mud and oil stains.
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