“There is no red America or blue America, there is only the United States of America.”
This line, or a variation of it, is part of the standard stump speech usually rolled out by the Presidential candidates in the closing months of the general election. And it is, by all measurements, a complete fantasy.
The United States is now a red nation and a blue nation, with no political will to re-unite. Our only path forward, for now, is to consider splitting up into smaller nations. I can’t even believe I’m writing this - but the great experiment of the United States has been broken for some time, and it’s only getting worse.
While I acknowledge that we still have moderates, independents, and people on both sides of the aisle fighting for bipartisanship (including George H.W. Bush, who has used his old age to fight back to the middle - and good for him for doing so), we have reached a point where Liberals and Conservatives are closer to tribes than political parties.
Two developments brought me to this unthinkable conclusion. First, the recent resurgence of the study demonstrating that United States wasn’t as United as we thought:
Second, and more disturbing, is the confirmation that the modern conservative movement has turned into an insurgency, where the only facts that matter are the ones they want to believe, evidence be damned. They identify as “patriots” but aim guns at Federal agents on behalf of Cliven Bundy. Despite widespread evidence to the contrary, they argue that the economy is in ruins, Obamacare is a failure, climate change is a joke, the government is too large. If they don’t like a Supreme Court decision, they simply choose to invalidate it. More and more, their language has shifted to violence. Message boards are filled with dreams of killing liberals, hanging the survivors. Think about that.
Something big has to be done. It’s hard to see this path not ending in a civil war. From Fox News to the current crop of GOP Presidential hopefuls, the refrain is consistent and clear: we’re not marginalized due to the weakness of our policies and governance, we’re under attack because the liberals have brainwashed the country against us and brought in outside armies to take it all away: our guns, our freedom, our Christmas.
Maybe it’s time to acknowledge that, due to three decades of turning us against each other so we didn’t see what was happening at the top, we can’t go back to the way things were. The GOP is horrified that their constant campaigns of fear gave birth to the Frankenstein candidacy of Trump, but what they should really lament is that, although it gave them short-term gains, it basically turned America on itself in an ugly, generational way.
I don’t believe that separating the country would be a permanent move. At some point, it would come back together. But by giving conservatives what they want - their own bubble nations - they would be free from “the liberal agenda.” They also would finally, painfully discover that a tiny-government, corporation-run country is not the paradise they were sold; Like the Kansas experiment, only bigger.
And when they look across the wall (and you know there will be plenty of those - they love a good wall) - and see that dens of sin California, Washington, and New York are all doing just fine - maybe then can we can unite as a more perfect union. Because, to end on another quote, “You don’t know what you got until it’s gone.”