With the federal authorities not simply abdicating its public well being obligations however actively working to hurt Individuals, blue states are stepping in to safeguard their very own.
California, Oregon, and Washington have banded collectively to protect entry to life-saving vaccines.
And over on the opposite coast, blue states are doing the identical factor. All of New England—excluding New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania—met in Rhode Island to debate coordinating vaccine suggestions.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is joined by Sens. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren throughout a press convention concerning the impacts of the Trump administration.
The one two strong blue states lacking, for the second, are Colorado and Illinois.
I’ve all the time thought it made sense for a blue state compact to come up as a counterweight to the boundaries erected in Washington, the place even the unelected and unaccountable Supreme Courtroom stands able to stymie any trace of progress.
By itself, California is the world’s fourth largest economic system, trailing solely the US, China, and Germany. So why couldn’t it—together with the remainder of a blue state compact—have its personal common well being care system, coordinated local weather motion, clear vitality grids, stronger gun security requirements, joint infrastructure initiatives, employee protections, science-based training requirements, and assured abortion entry?
The rationale a lot of this might not be simply carried out, after all, is that the cash wanted is paid to the federal authorities. And purple America doesn’t survive with out that income from blue states subsidizing their low-tax, low-effort, ignorance-embracing way of life.
Who do you assume will choose up the tab for Florida’s inevitable well being care disaster because it ditches all vaccine mandates in faculties? For all their braying about “heartland values,” they certain aren’t giving up that candy, candy blue-state money.
However the work round vaccines and public well being advocacy is a good first step. And if this seems like groundwork towards a possible future secession, that’s not the worst factor. There’s an excessive amount of ingrained ignorance across the function of blue states in conserving this nation operating.
There’s a fiction that cities and immigrants are leeches on federal coffers, when in reality they’re the very financial engines that energy this nation’s greatness.
Liberals by no means had an issue subsidizing rural America and fewer productive states, however that free experience wants to come back to an finish. Within the phrases of Vice President JD Vance, “Have you said ‘thank you’ once?”
Fairly the other.
This must be repeated again and again till it lastly seeps into the thoughts of the physique politic. A blue state compact—coordinating science- and reality-based coverage round important public well being and different points—could be a begin to countering the nation’s slide into idiocracy.
