National Divorce No More

The once-popular idea is now a joke

Charlie Kirk’s murder inspired Marjorie Taylor-Greene to renew her call for national divorce. “There is nothing left to talk about with the left. They hate us,” she proclaimed in an X post. “To be honest, I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it’s no longer safe for any of us.”

The Republican congresswoman made waves in 2023 when she first made the demand. At that time, the idea had wide currency on the Right. Red state governors were fighting with the Biden administration over proper authority. The culture was still mired in peak woke and the country reeled from the memory of zealous COVID mandates. Republicans had suffered a disappointing midterms and the federal government was prosecuting Donald Trump. It seemed that the time for a national divorce had come.

A few, such as your humble author, noted how dumb of an idea this was. As I wrote two years ago:

Conservatives who entertain it are like a battered woman who dreams about leaving her domineering husband, but knows she never will. It’s a fantasy to avoid real-world problems.

Nations are not marriages. The most powerful empire in world history will not break up amicably in family court. Unless there is a massive economic collapse (far worse than the Great Recession) and America is dethroned as a global power, we will remain one country.

Americans are too dependent on the national government to ever seriously entertain separation. Few Americans are willing to endure the chaos and hardship of such a move. Americans are stuck in the union, and that will be the case for the foreseeable future.

MTG’s tweet reads like it was some lost post from 2023. It’s almost as if someone just tweeted out “DeSantis ‘24.” National divorce’s relevance has passed. The Right now wants to wield national power for its own ends rather than devolve power to the states.

The Trump administration is keen on exerting federal power over that of the states and cities. The president is cracking down on sanctuary cities, regardless if local authorities want ICE agents there. He’s happy to federalize the National Guard and send them into blue cities to quell riots and crime, regardless if local Democrats resist. Trump has demanded all schools that receive federal funding purge DEI from its teachings, regardless if state and county officials want to teach DEI. The president even wants to impose federal authority on how states conduct elections, regardless of legal precedent.

There is no sign of national divorce here. It’s all about asserting the tremendous power of the federal government to advance Trumpian ends. It recognizes the reality of the country and acts accordingly to push the country right-ward. It doesn’t retreat to fantasy or pretend we can eliminate liberalism simply by moving away to our own country. It tries to counter and defeat it throughout the nation. It promises to take back America, not split it up along imaginary lines.

While MTG may be alone in continuing to call for national divorce, other conservatives still share the desire for a kind of “localist” solution to America’s political battles. Ben Shapiro argued for this stance in a recent interview with the New York Times. He told interviewer Ezra Klein that Americans can resolve a lot of their differences through reducing the power of the federal government and letting states and cities decide their own policies.

“It would be awesome if I lived in Florida and you lived in New York, and we got to elect these things called governors,” he said. “You could even live in a local area that better reflected your politics, and we could do fewer things at the national level. Just like the Constitution originally intended — then you could do your politics at the local level.”

Shapiro insisted in the interview that the Founders wanted localism and saw “state and locality based identity” being more important for the citizen than national identity.

This sounds nice, but it’s no longer how our country works. Our most contentious issues are rarely kept to the states. It’s impossible to have open borders in one state and severe immigration restriction in the next. States are incapable of being purely autonomous. They all demand federal funding for basic services. They all rely on the federal government for defense, immigration control, and trade policy. States can differ on things like open carry, specific taxes, and other small matters. But the issues that most roil the nation are generally handled on a national level. The states can’t decide which wars we get into, who we place tariffs on, how federal civil rights law is interpreted, or how many immigrants we let in.

Americans no longer have the same identity hierarchy our forefathers did. National identity is just as important as state and local identity for the average citizen, if not more so. Rarely do Americans tear up over their state song, or even know it. Meanwhile, “The Star-Spangled Banner” and our national flag inspire deep reverence in most Americans. People will fight and die for this country. It’s strange to hear someone say they will fight and die for Buffalo or Kansas City.

Americans are a mobile people. We move constantly. This makes it harder for many of us to form deep attachments to a state or a city. But no matter where we are, we’re Americans. That’s the power of our national identity.

National separation is a 19th century solution to 21st century problems. It’s increasingly harder to block out problems in another state or another nation. We would still suffer from libtards if we had a separate Blue America. Their problems would come our way. In a national divorce, we would also likely be poorer, weaker, and witnessing global Chinese supremacy.

Americans don’t in fact want a breakup. They want their country back. They’re too deeply attached to it to imagine living in a new country formed on the thin reeds of Republican affiliation and animosity towards woke. America is too powerful of a state to break apart over cable news disputes. Global hegemons don’t just suddenly abolish themselves over such petty matters. Only a complete breakdown in its authority and a gradual disappearance of its wealth and power creates such possibilities. America isn’t facing these crises.

The MAGA Right recognizes that America isn’t breaking up and that “localism” allows threats like sanctuary cities to infest the country. To meet national threats, national solutions are required. When a leftist kills Charlie Kirk, a national crackdown on left-wing extremism is needed. When illegal migrants pour over the border, a national border security policy is needed. When schools around the country teach anti-white racism, a national ban on DEI is needed. When blue cities refuse to crack down on crime, a national crime response is needed.

Trump and his movement recognize that it’s un-American to give up on our great cities and great states to the Left. It’s better to fight for them and to try to make them great again. That’s the kind of spirit that built our country, and it’s the kind of spirit voters respect.

In contrast, national divorce just offers the fantasy of running away from America’s problems rather than solving them.