It's astounding, time is fleeting
Madness takes its toll
But listen closely, not for very much longer
I've got to keep control
—The Time Warp, Rocky Horror Picture Show

Madness is indeed spreading, it seems. Case in point. The other day I read this story:

Should Illinois counties be able to secede and join Indiana? Indiana speaker says yes

Basically the story is that several counties in Illinois have evidently been trying to secede from IL since 2020. This isn't necessarily shocking. Much of IL is never really all that happy with how Chicago dominates the direction of the State, including pushing them to be blue in every election. I'm not sure if it's ever come to actually voting to secede before, but counties have been throwing around such threats for much of American history, going all the way back to the beginning of the country. The only successful case so far was in the case of several counties of Virginia seceding during the American Civil War to form West Virginia to avoid joining the Confederacy. Except for that one case, which was in a very special circumstance that allowed it to succeed, these secession attempts never win because legally they require approval of both the State and the national Congress.

This most recent case of IL counties trying to secede has been made more crazy by Indiana voting that the IL counties should join Indiana. This also has happened before, where one state uses chaos in another to expand its territory, but it hasn't happened since before the Civil War.

Despite the fact that there is historic precedence for both of these things, they are still mad and the fact that politicians from these two states are wasting time with this instead of trying to actually govern themselves is mad.

This is unfortunately a sign of things to come, I think. Things will get more crazy before they get better. Regardless of what you think of him, President Trump inspires chaos. I don't think that is a controversial thing to say: many people voted for him specifically because he inspires chaos.

We have all watched over the past few days as the man himself has said Greenland, Canada, and Panama should be a part of the USA and that the Gulf of Mexico should be renamed to the Gulf of America. He has promised 100 executive orders on the 20th as soon as he is sworn in and according to Republican senators, he's already briefed them on the orders, which include mass deportations, border security, gender policies, and mandatory vaccination.

Then there is this tweet which @meno brought to my attention:

We can see he's been fleshing out his tariffs ideas. The External Revenue Service. Let's not talk about how the US doesn't have the capacity to make half the shit it uses or needs and that high tariffs just mean Americans will have to pay more (which I'm sure he will blame on the Democrats, probably successfully): at least it has a catchy name. That's something, eh?

Whew... this is going to be an interesting four years.

But at least BTC is going up, amirite?

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David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.