Marjorie Taylor Greene is the Right’s version of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, so it’s easy to write this comment off as, “The crazy lady is saying crazy things again.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 @mtgreenee

We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are… https://t.co/Azn8YF1UUy

1:43 PM ∙ Feb 20, 2023

---

73,952Likes10,077Retweets

In fact, the general response to Greene’s tweet was something akin to either, “What do you expect? She’s wacky,” or “How dare she say such a thing!”

This is a huge mistake because a sitting member of Congress calling for the country to split up is not some fringe sentiment, it’s a member of Congress echoing what a large minority of people on both sides of the aisle actually believe. There are no shortage of poll results showing this is the case either:

• "A stunning poll from the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia showed that 52% of Trump voters and 41% of Biden voters favored red/blue states seceding from the union."

• “As January 6 Capitol Attack hearings were broadcast across the nation Thursday night, a new report by UC Davis shows the divide in America may be even greater than thought. The study found that just over 50% of Americans believe ‘that in the next several years, there will be a civil war in the United States.’"

• “A recent poll suggests one in three California residents would support a possible secession from the U.S. because of their opposition to President Donald Trump. ...A Reuters survey revealed that 32 percent support the so-called “Calexit,” an increase of 12 percent since the last poll was conducted in 2014.”

• “A recent Georgetown University poll invited participants to rank the state of our nation on a scale from 0 to 100, with “0" signifying political unity and “100" signifying an America on the brink of civil war. The mean score: 70. A Zogby poll indicates 16% of respondents strongly believe the cold civil war between America’s right and left might soon heat up; an additional 30% consider that eventuality likely.”

In other words, we’re almost certainly talking about somewhere between 100 and 150 million Americans who think it’s entirely possible the country may need to be split into red/blue sections or alternately, who expect a civil war to crank up. In other words, we’re not talking about a few cranks here. This is a mainstream belief, and it seems entirely possible that we could reach a MAJORITY of Americans that would like to see the country split up in the next few years.

The reaction of America’s elites, intelligentsia, media, and government to this has largely been to laugh it off. There has been no effort to dig into why people feel this way, turn down the temperature, or alleviate anyone’s concerns. Nor has there been any acknowledgment that wanting to split America up is PERFECTLY REASONABLE at this point.

We live in a country that cannot control its spending, that refuses to control its borders and that has liberal and conservative wings that have very little culturally, philosophically, or politically in common anymore. Of course, some people deny that, but they’re living in a fantasyland. If you don’t believe that, ask some basic questions:

* Beyond spending money on pork and wars, what issues can Republicans and Democrats work together to pass legislation in Congress?

* How often do you hear Republicans genuinely agree with Joe Biden’s policies? How often do you think Democrats genuinely agreed with Trump’s policies? 

* Do you believe Democrats and Republicans would be capable of getting together and writing a new Constitution from scratch?

* If Ted Cruz and AOC were asked about specific important domestic issues like guns, abortion, global warming, immigration, etc., how many of them do you think they’d generally agree on? Do you think they’d agree on 10% of them? DOUBTFUL.

* How often does say Breitbart and the New York Times agree? How about Tucker Carlson and Dom Lemon? Ann Coulter and Keith Olbermann? It does happen, but it’s a very occasional thing.

The Left and Right have essentially gotten to the point where we share so little in common that we’re playing a zero-sum game on every issue. Worse yet, because the Left views nearly everything through a political lens, it means nearly everything turns into political trench warfare these days. Securing the border? Giving gay porn to kids? Football games? Shoplifting? Hollywood award ceremonies? Statues of the Founding Fathers? The existence of white people? Is America a good country? Censorship? It’s an endless culture war and the only way to achieve peace is for one side to be utterly defeated, which is unlikely, or to find a way to get away from the other side… like a national divorce.

If there was a way to ensure that the country splitting apart wasn’t going to end in an orgy of violence, that people in different regions would have the opportunity to move their assets across the border to new countries and there would be at least a modicum of cooperation between the new nations, it wouldn’t be a shock to see a majority of Americans signing onboard for something vaguely like this in the next few years:

The reality is that if the country did split apart, violence would be extremely likely, people could have trouble moving from one region to the other and it is entirely possible things could get so hostile between different regions that it would eventually lead to wars. Splitting the country up may be an interesting theoretical exercise, but the reality is likely to be ugly. Very, very ugly. Of course, if that’s true, it begs the question, “What are we willing to do collectively to hold the country together and avert this disaster?” The answer to that seems to be, “Precisely nothing.” 

Unfortunately, that may not be enough. Our culture is toxic, our politics are broken, and our nation is not on track to succeed long-term. People can get angry that Marjorie Taylor Greene is the one pointing that out, but what people should really be asking is why there aren’t lots of politicians pointing it out and trying to do something about it before it’s too late. America is not pre-destined to survive in its current form. In fact, unless things change, it probably won’t. If that matters to people, then maybe it’s time more people in our country started acting like it.

Share

Leave a comment

101 Things All Young Adults Should Know