The fattest, booziest, most depressed and most down-minded schlubs in America live in the lower Midwest and the South, and they tend to vote Republican and against socially progressive initiatives. I think most of us already knew this, but a Gallup poll, condensed in a 3.14 Daily Mail story, has re-reported the basic facts.

The saddest and most personally screwed-up voters (poor health, obese, boozing, cigarette-smoking, living hand-to-mouth in trailer parks or McMansions, driving gas guzzlers, poorest educational systems, highest divorce rates) live in West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana and Oklahoma…in that order. Yes, there are many thousands of self-destructive dim bulbs who live in the Northeast, the Southwest, the Northwest, California and so on, but their numbers are less concentrated.

The Depression States basically constitute Tea Party country. A brief scan of the U.S. Senators and Congresspersons representing these areas tells you everything you need to know about why this country doesn’t work. Boehner, McConnell — not all of the anti-progressive Congressional naysayers, corporate fellaters, obstinate crazies and stoppers come from these states, but a high percentage of them do.

I say again that the best thing that could happen all around would be to create a separate nation in these Midwestern and Southern areas — just cut the yokels off and let them raise their own revenues and nurture their retro beliefs, values and prejudices. They’re just a drag on the rest of the country and the sooner Red America is cut loose, the better for the rest of us. Seriously.

This isn’t the 1860s. Our borders are secure, we have nuclear weapons, and nobody’s going to invade. We can be two countries and make out just fine. Yugoslavia broke up into two or three chunks and they’re doing okay. Czechoslovakia became two nations and they’re holding it together. We could create our out Czech Republic — a Blue America — and let the “Slovakians” have their own. I’m perfectly serious here. The heehaws are what’s wrong. Get rid of them and a lot of the nation’s big problems will become much more managable.

Would we still have to cope with corporate corruption and self-destructive forces in an All-Blue Nation? Of course. Would life still be hard and harrowing at times? Yes. But at least we’d have a better chance of being able to fix problems with the crazies out of the picture.