The United States of America was born after a group of reckless colonial traitors added their signatures and “sacred honor” to a declaration of political separation and backed it up with force. That document, whose most famous lines have been transubstantiated into American scripture and learned by rote by all and sundry, is now the revered cornerstone of the republic. But, in becoming so, it has in some ways been ossified. We grasp readily the abstract truth that sometimes in the course of human events it is necessary for political bands to be dissolved. But we balk at the notion of that time being now. Separationists wear wigs and tricorner hats, we think. They do not drive trucks and have smartphones.
One man, however, hasn’t gotten this memo. Jeffrey T. Hare, a tall, balding, middle-aged, and mild-mannered accountant from Weld County, Colo., is heading up the 51st State Initiative, an umbrella group for a collection of disgruntled rural Coloradans who are seeking to create a new state, “North Colorado.” This is Hare’s second foray into statewide politics, after a failed attempt at securing the Republican nomination for a seat in the state’s house of representatives in 2012, and he is doing rather well. Thus far, eleven of Colorado’s 64 counties have put separatist initiatives on their November ballots — and Hare hopes that many more will be on board by the time of the “Declaration Convention” in January. Seven other counties “look likely to join the working group,” Hare reports, and citizens in another 28 have “shown some interest.” Unsurprisingly, neither Boulder nor Denver — the state’s two most densely populated urban areas — has been enticed to join the fray.
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