GOP begins showing support for secession petitions

>>> remember the twilight zone on television with rod surgicling. according to the public policy poll out today, 25% of republicans, that's a quarter of all republicans you know, say they would support their state seceding from the union because of president obama 's re-election. another 19% said they weren't sure whether their state should secede or not. that means leave america, become something else. it isn't just people tell anonymous pollster. in many states people were signing in open public marketplaces out in the street petitions to leave the country. in seven states the petitions have received enough support to force the white house to respond actually. take a look at this map and where the petitions have received -- well, that's a big shock. tennessee, north carolina , i love north carolina , georgia, florida, alabama, louisiana, and texas . the secession movement has the most signatures in texas , of course, with nearly 120,000 people signing on. according to the norgets, quote, sec setion fever has struck parts of texas . in texas talks of secession has steadily schiffed to the center from the fringe. what is really going on here? let's find out. dana milbank has the right attitude, and ron reagan , a good friend of mine, an msnbc political analyst. i have to let you at this first, ron reagan . every time i see "gone with the wind" the southern guys cheering, they can't wait to tame miss scarlet . we're going to have a war and it's going to be great. and then the horror of 600,000 people dead including the burning of atlanta. then everybody says this wasn't such a great idea. now they're talking like secession is a good idea begin. who are these maniacs?

>> i'm sure all these people who are plumping for secession would call themselves patriots.

>> of what country?

>> real americans.

>> well, good question here. so the way it works apparently is when democracy doesn't go your way, when you have an election and the other side wins, you throw the entire 200-plus years of the american experiment into the dumper. you have a little kind of hissy fit here. we've all about in groups of people where maybe eight, ten people and one of the people, one of the people in this group is character disordered. they're a real sociopath and over time though, if you can't get rid of them right away, that -- they change the entire dynamic, warp the dynamic of the group around their complaints and their sheer craziness. these people are that person in our national conversation . they're the crazy uncle at the table who you have to listen to his paranoid stories or he starts throwing food against the wall.

>> let me go back to dana . how about a check on that, dana ? is it true that the right is driven by these people who are secessionists?

>> right. well, if you lose the election, nothing succeeds like secession.

>> like secession.

>> there's two things going on here. one is it's normal after elections that a lot of the losing side, they always say i'm going to move to canada , but these guys can't move to canada because it's socialized medicine up there.

>> i thought it was australia they always wanted to go to.

>> it's a protest against the election. this is roughly the same number of people who will say obama is born in kenya or he's a muslim. this is --

>> do they vote?

>> but you know what the best revenge would be? if obama could in the white house receive the petition and say, okay, go ahead. you're on your own. because the states, the various that have filed for these petitions, red states , tend to take in a lot more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. it would be very good --

>> you didn't name names in your one-eighth theory. but here are some names. ron paul , very recent congressman, national candidate for the presidency many times. he said secession is a deeply american, a deeply american principle. meanwhile, alan keys , he wrote that while he doesn't think we've reached the point where secession is necessary necessarily, it remains a, quote, god endowed inail yepable right. there you have people with educations, people with brains and a knowledge of american history , who come out and argue that this is something that should be put on the table.

>> yeah. i guess brains and an education but still somehow profoundly ignorant and they're emblematic of if not the ignorant people in the republican people, at least people who will pander to that ignorance. it's a piece of birtherism, the climate change is a hoax, if you cut taxes for rich people , magically the economy revives. it's magical thinking , and we're in the thrall of magical thickers. the republican party has to follow their magical thinkers. because they do the rest of the national conversation gets distorted and pulled way over to the right. that's what's happening.

>> ron , i love the way you 1ug9 that the real patriots are the ones who want to secede from the united states . we once had a priest named father feeney. he didn't like the church's view because the church didn't support no salvation out the church. so he leaves the church. that's just like -- wait a minute, you're one of them now. that doesn't make any sense. it's like we're so patriotic, we're going to leave this country.

>> we're going to leave the country. they'll have to come up with a new name as they go. it's not just the south. parts of the plains, too, but it would seem to me as long as we could get like from the northeast could get air rights over canada to get to the west coast we could keep something of a nation together.

>> what would be their preferred nation to join?

>> you know they're not going to mexico.

>> they ain't going to denmark. they don't like socialism. they're not going to go where all the white people are. what do they want?

>> what's in the neighborhood?

>> ron , give me some candidate countries they'd like to succeed and join.

>> some autocratic regime in central asia maybe. i don't know.

>> here is some more interesting numbers. more interesting numbers from the new ppp poll. what do republicans think was really behind the president's electoral win. when asked why the president won the election legitimately or whether the now defunct a.c.o.r.n. group stole it for him, 49% of republicans say that a.c.o.r.n. stole the election. that's why obama won. half the republicans say democrats are engaged in voter fraud . ron , i'm far more fascinated by the fact that all these republicans believe that a.c.o.r.n. -- how can you put your signature to that? how can somebody say to that openly on the telephone, well, i think a.c.o.r.n. did it?

>> because they hear it on fox news. that's why. fox news beats the drum about this kind of stuff and that's all these people listen to. they live in this bubble.

>> i think they misheard it and they thought a unicorn stole the election.

>> i mean a.c.o.r.n. they don't have a nickel to rub against another nickel and they're running the country. thai dana and ron . i think we caught the spirit of this nonsense. up next, one of the most popular guests we've ever had on "hardball" barney frank joins us as we prepared to leaves the country. barney has been around a long time. i thought efforts the new guy. this is "hardball," the place for politics.