A version of this note was published last week as “Deep-Fried America Dispatch #19” by Flat Branch Press.

We think of violence and dystopia when we think about nations splitting up. But this is America in the 21st century. Much as there is a minority who think in terms of aggression and antagonism, most of us just want to live our daily lives and do the best  we can getting along with neighbors and co-workers.

Still, a few decades ago, I read an extended article in The New York Times about the slow demise of the population that makes up the Midwestern United States – especially the non-urban Midwest. Young people were beginning to migrate to the coasts and the southwest in large numbers. America was losing its rural, breadbasket population. 

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