Barack Obama securely earned another four years in the Oval Office on Election Day Nov. 6. He did so in the middle of an era in the United States of America that is becoming more and more divided ideologically, seemingly by the day. However, it seems as though it is more than just ideological now.
In a time when the leaders of the United States need to unite, as the name of the country suggests, and cannot let partisan politics get in the way, the partisan divide has seeped into the American public to the point that citizens of states want to secede from the union.
In the aftermath of election night, there have been online petitions for 23 states to secede from the Union, most notably Texas and Louisiana. Texas had 86,766 signatures as of Tuesday night. On the petition it says “the citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc.” They needed only 25,000 by Dec. 9 to eventually be heard by the Obama administration. However, it remains to be seen if the petitions will hold water, but it should still raise eyebrows. Also, even Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is a Republican, has come out and said he is against a potential secession by Texas.
Well, I am almost at a loss for words. I wish I had answers here. The phrase we have heard more and more over the past year “the nation is becoming more divided” is coming to a head.
Whatever happened to ‘united we stand, divided we fall?’ Remember those words? That phrase became popular following the biggest terrorist attack ever on this nation on Sept. 11, 2001. What happened to that phrase? Well, it is falling to the wayside in favor of partisan politics and an inability to compromise. Instead of working together with our brothers and sisters, we are tucking our tail and trying to run in a time when we could face another recession in mere months because of the pending “fiscal cliff” that will raise taxes for many Americans if an agreement is not met.
Unfortunately, Obama hasn’t been given much of a chance to succeed. In the past few years, we have seen Obama criticized for saying that our nation’s children all should have an education and Republicans have repeatedly said for four years that they’ll do anything in their power to make Obama a one-term president. Our problem with partisan politics in the country these days seem to surround the disagreement of Republicans with actions and words of Obama, justified or not.
I’m not going to say Obama is the best president we’ve ever had, but he deserves some room to work out the problems for America. I mean, he did inherit two wars and the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent when he took office in Jan. 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We cannot get over that overnight, or in four years. And it is going to take compromise.
Everyone has the right to voice their opinion, which should be done as long as it is in a civil way. That’s why there are town hall meetings and we have the freedom of speech to voice any concerns we have. However, seceding from the Union does not solve anything. It merely perpetuates a problem and throws gasoline on fire that quite frankly was rapidly spreading anyway.
