I'm with you two. My first thought is, "Go. Go in peace. But for love of all that is decent, please go."
For 8 years the progressives have mocked, ridiculed, and greatly insulted any of us who expressed any disagreement at having our States, communities, and personal lives micro-managed from DC, NYC, Boston, and Hollywood. Anyone who suggested an amicable separation was compared with the KKK and slave owners of the deep South.
If nothing else, the election of Trump is giving these folks a little emotional exposure to what rural, conservative, and/or religious Americans have lived with the last 8+ years.
Frankly, I've got a gut full of people who hold me in contempt thinking they know better how to manage my life and finances than I do. I'm more than tired at being accused of small-mindedness, bigotry, hatred, and phobia over policy disagreements regarding immigration, welfare, taxes, healthcare, the definition of marriage, the RKBA, or how best to balance non-discrimination with the rights to freely associate or not associate.
There would be some sweet satisfaction in actually returning the favor and forcing the progressive, godless urbanites to live under conservative, religious, rural dictated mandates. But frankly, I have no desire to do so.
That said, for all their failings, I believe we are better off together, if we can learn to live together.
What we need is a return to proper federalism. The Constitution has a fairly short list of explicit rights: Press, religious freedom, speech, RKBA, access to an attorney, just compensation for takings, due process, women and 18 year olds voting, etc. These need to be enforced nationwide. That means no more local gun bans or making me a felon for carrying a gun in NYC or Cali. It means Mormons and Muslims get to freely worship even in evangelical communities. And we'll all have to endure or ignore a few things that we consider offensive.
But beyond that? Get the federal courts and congress out of it and allow the States to become a little more diverse. Local minorities will be protected in their constitutionally enumerated rights, but will either have to endure some cultural/legal/social mores not to their liking, or vote with their feet and move to a location where their views are more in line with local majority views. The definition of marriage, elective abortion, welfare, and the bulk of tax decisions need to be made at the State or local level. This arrangement has worked well for alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and prostitution for a long time. It has worked well for speed limits the last 20 years since we got congress to free us from the double-nickel mandate. Ditto for capital punishment since 1977 or so, though the feds need to meddle less in this area in terms of inventing rights. It seems to be working ok for marijuana and assisted suicide.
If you think about it, there are really a very few hot button issues that really divide us. A tiny number of these are actually constitutionally explicit rights that we all need to respect. The rest are court invented rights that really should have been left to the democratic process while respecting diversity of law and culture among the States.
Five best friends can rarely agree on what pizza to order. 300 million residents, spread out over the better part of a continent cannot and should not have to agree on every issue to live together. Good fences make good neighbors, and State borders (with 50 States) provides a lot of room to find a culture one can live with, knowing that essential, enumerated rights are protected coast to shining coast.
Charles