20 States Petition to Secede From U.S. After Obama Victory

Posted on Nov 12, 2012

Screenshot via Real Clear Politics

Citizens ostensibly upset that President Obama won another four-year term in office are petitioning the White House’s “We The People” site to allow 20 states to secede from the union.

From Gawker:

Petitions for secession filed from Louisiana and Texas have already received well over 10,000 signatures. Per the website’s own rules, petitions that garner 25,000 signatures or more within 30 days require a response from the Obama administration.

Similar petitions from Alabama, Tennessee, and, interestingly, Oregon, are also gaining traction, with each receiving thousands of supporters over the weekend alone.

Other states trying to secede: Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky, Colorado, New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Alabama, Michigan and Georgia. A petition was also started for the state of New York by someone in North Dakota (in fact, the petition’s creator, C R from Grand Forks, N.D., appears to be the same person behind the North Dakota one).

However, before you get yourself into a tizzy over whether the U.S. will soon be 20 states short of 50, Gawker points out that the petitions are most likely much ado about nothing.

As unilateral secession was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, it remains to be seen if this movement is more than a toothless temper tantrum thrown by armchair revolutionaries.

—Posted by Tracy Bloom.

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