Connor Towne O'Neill
speaker
230 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 5 Jul
Connor Towne O'Neill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
One, a sense of cultural identity distinct from the place you're seceding from.
And two, clear political stakes, a sense of what can be gained by leaving.
Owens sees both at work in New Illinois.
That's right.
That's right.
So, New Illinois likes to point to West Virginia as precedent, but Kenneth Owen doesn't really think that applies.
West Virginia seceded from Virginia because Virginia had seceded from the United States.
The context of the Civil War is so distinct, it just wouldn't set a precedent.
People also point to Maine leaving Massachusetts.
That's part of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, this agreement to let one slave-holding state, Missouri, into the Union along with one free state, Maine.
to maintain this precarious balance in the lead up to the Civil War.
So again, Owen says, the context is just totally distinct.
So I asked Kenneth Owen about this.
He says there's a best case scenario in which the tension can actually prove productive for the state.
Exactly.
And as a blinking light, it's already working.
Take LaShawn Ford.
He's a Democrat from Chicago in the state legislature who takes the concerns of New Illinois seriously.
And Ford actually spoke at a new Illinois conference back in 2023.
He's described by the group as the only Democrat in the legislature willing to have the conversation about splitting the state.
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