Let me put this as succinctly as I can, my very good friends: should Sarah Palin ever become president, the terrorists have won. Game over. They pwn America.
Oh, I'm not talking about those terrorists. As long as Americans keep cowering in fear over them, as the Republicans would have us, we're Osama bin Laden's bitches.
No, I'm talking about a more fiendish, insidious form of terrorism. Terrorism of the home-grown variety.
Join me below the fold for more of this terrifying ripple-of-evil... if you dare!
If "the Barracuda" should somehow ascend to the Presidency, and ensconce herself in the Oval Office, so many domestic terrorist groups would be emboldened, everything we've been through up to now at the hands of al Qaeda would be about as meaningful as an NFL pre-season game.
Let's start with the most obvious: the Alaska Independence Party. You could say the AIP is the Basque separatist movement of North America. (Only even less effective, and without any actual indigenous group involved.) Like ETA, no one really expects the AIP to accomplish anything. But, unlike ETA, the AIP hasn't committed any murderous terrorist attacks - yet. (Though I bet the caribou and polar bears would beg to differ.)
But, with a President Palin, the AIP would have carte blanche to wreak havoc and chaos. The ANG would disavow any federal authority and join the separatists; sabotage attacks on pipelines and fish canneries would ensue. Polar bears would be hunted down and killed from SUVs, much the same way Americans shot and killed bison from their westbound trains in the 1800s.
With no active duty federal troops available to quell the insurrection (all in Iraq, Afghanistan, or at the new front of the war, Iran), and with a sympathetic commander-in-chief unwilling to call up any available National Guard troops, or to send in the Navy or Air Force, Alaska essentially gains her independence unopposed, like an Eastern Europe state undergoing a velvet revolution. (Only, without any Frank Zappa or Velvet Underground on the soundtrack. Mostly, just a lot of Toby Keith.)
All of this, of course, would throw the world petroleum market into a bit of flux, causing the price of gasoline, already at $5 a gallon since shortly after former President McCain's sudden death a week after taking office, to $6 a gallon or more.
But that's nothing. Russia, with puppet-master Putin licking his chops in anticipation, quickly moves troops into Siberia, just across the Bering Strait from newly-independent Alaska. As that buildup progresses, an alarmed Canada reacts in kind, amassing a formidable fighting force along their side of what is now the Alaskan-Canadian border.
Alaska, finding herself the filling in a possible shooting-war sandwich, begins stocking up on mooseburgers and canned salmon, and commandeers the remaining libraries left for heating fuel.
But that's not all, folks. The insurgency in Alaska inspires other potential separatist groups. The state of Utah merges with Wyoming, and declares all non-Mormons to adopt the LDS faith, or leave. Cheney converts, and becomes Utohming's first king. The Utah Jazz are forced to rename themselves the Utohming Missionaries, and split their home games between SLC and Cheyenne. Opposing teams are advised to get passports and vaccinations.
The southeastern part of Idaho joins Utohming, while the remainder is taken over, without a fight, by the newly-created Republic of Cascadia.
Caught in the middle of this is the Aryan Nation which, given the choice of joining a bunch of tree-hugging latte drinkers or a cult even creepier than their own, decide to really become the Aryan Nation. Ted Nugent is appointed Supreme Leader.
Hawaii declares independence, becomes a kingdom, and commandeers all U.S. military installations and weaponry located within the island chain. The U.S. service people based at these installations, realizing that they would now be stationed in Hawaii forever, all take the oath of Hawaiian citizenship simultaneously.
Not to be outdone, the People's Republic of Santa Monica finally really becomes the People's Republic of Santa Monica. Ditto the Second Vermont Republic.
Even among the remaining states, the ensuing chaos will lead to border skirmishes among longtime rivals. Ohio and Michigan take a football rivalry to extremes. New York and New Jersey quarrel over the tunnels - New York wants to close them to Jerseyites, then realizes if the tunnels are closed they won't be able to get to Giants games. (Plus, the Magic Rat wouldn't be able to drive his sleek machine over the Jersey state line.)
Hoosiers, tired of all the jokes about how the bridges across the Ohio River were built so that they could swim to Kentucky in the shade, declare a fireworks embargo. Thousands of Darwin Award nominees in Louisville, now unable to easily obtain bottle rockets and M80s, stage riots, punctuated by yells of "Hey! Watch this!" Unbelievable carnage ensues.
The Conch Republic, realizing that to truly secede probably involves some actual work, decides to "just chill."
Do any of us really want to see all this happen? Okay, it would be delightfully entertaining, but still...