So I am back in Casper, WY, and it really feels like I came home. The differences in parts of the country have become very obvious in the last year. I have moved all around the country while in the Navy, and while there were regional differences, mostly in accents and some opinions about the “War of Southern Independence / Civil War”, it was obvious that we were in one united country.
I don’t have that feeling anymore. From the AntiFa / Black Block insurrectionists in downtown Portland, to the BLM crowds in Minneapolis and other flashpoints across the country, to the tens of thousands of migrants (formerly known as illegal immigrants) pouring across our southern ‘border’, much of the country does not appear to be under the control of state & local governments. Riding the MAX trains from the PDX airport through Portland to Beaverton I saw several signs of the descent into the third world that I had recognized while traveling overseas. There were literally dozens of homeless ‘encampments’ scattered along the freeways, underpasses, and other ‘unclaimed’ areas. There were scattered areas of a major downtown city that were still boarded up from mobs breaking storefronts.
I drove back from Portland, through Washington and into Idaho with every gas station requiring masks on everyone, as if we were still in the depths of a global pandemic. When I stopped for gas in Sheridan WY, I felt as if I had left the endemic fear behind. I felt as if I had driven across post-war Berlin and entered the American Sector.
Casper WY has no homeless camps (that I have seen), no boarded up storefronts, only a few people wear masks (I presume the unvaccinated, the elderly, or fans of Joe Biden). There is now a dramatic cultural difference between the West (Left) Coast states and the interior hinterlands. I weep for what has been lost.