Oregon’s Rural Secession Movement Should be a Wake-Up Call to Blue States

Pulaski County residents, and more broadly, Ozark residents, are largely isolated from the political uproars that dominate the politics of many states. Things are far different in places like Oregon, a state in which the attached article from The Atlantic magazine by Antonia Hitchens documents a serious secession movement. So far, eight of ten counties asked to vote on leaving Oregon and joining Idaho have voted in favor of that switch, and more will be voting soon.

Missouri, which as recently as the 2008 presidential election was a toss-up state, and historically was regarded as a model of the national political climate, has become a deep-red Republican stronghold. We don’t have to deal with legislators in Jefferson City harassing rural residents; on the contrary, liberals living in Missouri’s major cities believe state officials are restricting their ability to require masks or otherwise adopt regulations on the local level that have become standard in many of the urban areas that dominate America’s political landscape.

Here in the Ozarks, we have few Democrats left, and those who speak the loudest usually have the least influence and even less chance of getting elected. Our two remaining local Democrats in elected office, Circuit Court Clerk Rachelle Beasley and Associate Circuit Judge Colin Long, hold offices that are usually viewed as being nonpolitical and both avoid unnecessary political battles. Many Republicans like them, and the vote totals show most…