The Republicans are getting what they've always wanted. They may end up regretting it.

[Aristus]

The right-wingers, and their endlessly orbiting, peripheral Arkham Asylum of associated organizations, have been clamoring since the end of Reconstruction for a return to a 'states-rights' interpretation of the US Constitution.

With the elevation of Trump to the Presidency, they may end of getting it. But not in the form they envisioned.

The shocked and disenfranchised blue states that propelled Hillary Clinton 3 million popular votes ahead of Donald Trump are already turning inward, rejecting any even semi-coherent policy initiatives that may come spewing out of a now tawdry, soiled White House; a White House that is probably already being measured for stripper poles, and having spy-holes surreptitiously drilled in all of the ladies' restroom walls.

Governor Jerry Brown of California has announced that his state's 'sanctuary cities' - safe havens for undocumented immigrants and their families - will continue as before in defiance of any proposed Federal crackdown ordered by Donald Trump.

More states than ever now boast recreational marijuana laws, and will no doubt resist Federal attempts to undo what is turning out to be a lucrative source of tax income at the state level.

Kentucky and West Virginia spent Election Season 2016 toothlessly cheering Der Gropenfuhrer's promises to bring back the coal -mining jobs that turned those once-beautiful states into steaming slag heaps. Too much time underground and not enough time in the classroom made those erstwhile miners ignorant of the fact that those jobs were lost to mechanization, not to renewable energy sources. Will the light of growing realization shine into those empty skulls? Will they realize as they cough their lungs out, that not only are the jobs not coming back, but that whatever paper-thin medical insurance coverage they now have thanks to the Affordable Care Act will disappear now just as surely as their once-secure careers? What course coal country after that?

Although North Carolina gave its Electoral Votes to the Combovered Orangutan, the state's new Democratic governor seems anxious to roll back the 'bathroom' law, designed to shame LGBTQ people and embolden transphobic bigots eager to physically abuse helpless victims. If he succeeds, a number of businesses that skipped town taking jobs and income with them, may come back.

Texas, which must thank God on its knees every night that it is not Florida, is still a festering sewer of right-wing idiocy and hatred. As a reflection of this, they are eager to have their own version of NC's bathroom bill. But will the Lone Star State, the most business-friendly, anti-worker state in the Union, cave in if important companies, skittish of losing paying customers, pressure the state to back down?

Blue State residents, like me, who have visions of a liberal Balkanization, may not get The Republic of Cascadia, or the Independent Republic of California just yet. But if we play our cards right, we can resist and turn away from the klop-klopping of Federal jackboots, and look to our states until Der Orangefuhrer is taking away in a straitjacket.