I read a column recently that suggested Democrats should forget the South.  

Democrats, the columnist said, should go about building an enlightened society that meets the needs of our people.  He ended by saying that, if we’re lucky, the South will try again to secede.

With that last part, my mind went, hmmmm. 

I indulged in a fantasy. Just suppose…oh, just suppose they did it! What if the South really did want out?

Our columnist didn’t define “the South.” I did:  South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.  It would be painful to lose Austin and New Orleans, but maybe they’d serve as sweet yeast in the dough.  (Texas isn’t really South. They don’t eat grits.  But my secession fantasy was a good opportunity to get rid of them.)     

These states rail constantly against “Washington, D.C.,” don’t they? Didn’t the Texas governor’s threat to secede find local support? 

So, my fantasy continued, what if Hillary’s landslide in 2016 were to trigger the same emotions that Lincoln’s election did in 1860?  What if some Southern attorneys general sued for secession?  What if our Supreme Court decided to revisit Ableman v. Booth and Cooper v. Aaron, the cases that killed states’ rights?  What if they brought back Thomas Jefferson and James Madison theory on the subject and decided Lincoln was wrong in putting down the “rebellion”?

What if?  Pop the corks!

We love our kids and want to remove bad influences from their lives.  We should do the same for the state we love. 

For decades, North Carolinians elected strong, wise people as lawmakers and governors, Democrat and Republican.  We were the Shining Star of the South, the smart Carolina.  Our leaders were visionary, future-looking people.  We protected our glorious natural resources.  We built a world-renowned university system.  We maximized voter participation.

Then came 2010.  What could possibly have made our citizens elect people who would drag us into Mississippi muck?  We can see the bottom of the barrel from where we are now.  What indeed?

I hear it!  The sloshing, swooshing sound of bad ideas seeping across our southern border!

Go back to early 1861.  Our governor and General Assembly were against secession.  North Carolinians voted down a proposal just to convene a convention on secession.  Then came Fort Sumter, and momentum shifted. 

At the Democratic National Convention in 1948, Mississippi and Alabama delegates walked out when Hubert Humphrey said, “The time is now arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”  Our delegates did not walk out, and we voted for Harry Truman in November.

We’re not like South Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama.  The rest of the country isn’t either, not even other red states.

Let them have their country.  Throw in the military bases as incentive.

Let them have for-profit schools.  They’ll be a banana republic with super-rich elites and dirt-poor workers.   

Let them ban unions altogether.  Mississippi’s already last in wages. Another outsource for the United States!

”Let them….  Pop!  My fantasy bubble burst, and I was back in the real world.

But the real world is now called McCroryland.

Here we meet Alice and the White Rabbit and watch billions of federal dollars for Medicaid returned to sender because the sender was President Obama.

Here we hear the great man explain that cutting unemployment benefits from $535 to $350 will “ensure our citizens’ unemployment safety net is secure.”

In McCroryland the sea level won’t rise because developers don’t want it to.

Maybe if I concentrate real hard, this fantasy bubble will pop, too.

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Lee Ballard lives in Mars Hill.