The National Divorce Delusion
The Right’s favorite fantasy shows its impotence
Conservatives today feel helpless. They can’t win elections, shape culture, or exert any power over their children’s schools. Many feel completely alienated from the political process. National divorce is a way to cope with that disconcerting reality.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene reiterated her support for the hopeless idea earlier this week.
“We need a national divorce,” she tweeted. “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 done.”
Greene doubled down on her call for national divorce from her official Congressional Twitter account. “Impeach Biden or give us a national divorce,” she declared. In another tweet, she insisted national divorce “is not civil war.”
Liberals and “respectable” conservatives denounced Greene’s tweets. The New Republic accused Greene of “borderline sedition.” The Republican Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, complained the congresswoman’s rhetoric “is destructive and wrong and—honestly—evil.”
National divorce is neither destructive nor evil, it’s just dumb.
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.
National divorce could only occur if America were weak. As alienated as conservatives may feel, the state today is undeniably strong. America is still the undisputed military and economic power of the world. It has the power to make Europe voluntarily wreck its own economy. The government has imprisoned hundreds of Americans for unauthorized tourism at the Capitol. It will not let its own people peacefully separate over gender-neutral Mr. Potato Head.
Secessions require insurgents with political and institutional power. National Divorce advocates, unlike antebellum Southerners, have neither. The movement is led by an assortment of podcasters and talking heads. Meanwhile, the establishment controls our military, our economic system, our political infrastructure, federal law enforcement, the courts, the mainstream media, the schools, the universities, the federal purse, organized labor, and pretty much every state government. The only institutions potentially sympathetic to right-wing separation are parts of the Republican Party apparatus and police unions, both of which many national divorce advocates want to abolish--leaving them with no real organizations to champion their cause beyond a few Rumble channels.
Would-be national divorce filers have no leverage. Rep. Greene’s threat that Biden must be impeached to stop a national divorce is akin to a child threatening to put their mom in timeout unless they get more ice cream. The Georgia lawmaker doesn’t command a majority of the Freedom Caucus, let alone the GOP. Her demand was not made on behalf of a region, a party, or an ethnic bloc. She was speaking as an individual with an impressive but niche audience.
Secessionist threats made by southern politicians in the leadup to the civil war were very different. When John C. Calhoun or Jefferson Davis threatened disunion over a particular policy, people took it seriously. Calhoun and Davis represented the political and commercial elite of the South. Their words mattered. Greene only represents herself and her district. No one takes her threat seriously. If Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy said the same, maybe that would be a different story. But they’re not making that threat–and they never will.
State governments could snub federal power more directly, but that comes at great risk. States are far more dependent on federal funding than they were in the antebellum era. Roads, schools, police, and scores of other essential services depend on federal aid. A state governor would jeopardize all that by even threatening to secede from the federal government. He would also forsake a great deal of business. Most Republican governors focus primarily on attracting more business investment to their state, not ensuring businesses flee the state. It would be a lot to expect a Republican governor to surrender federal aid and business development to secede.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to national divorce is the absence of any concrete justification for separation. Most national divorce advocates say that Red States must exit the union because of wokeness. Wokeness may be infuriating to millions of Americans, but for most, wokeness is an abstract concern. People are not going to give up their homes and 401ks over drag queen story hour.
The civil war began when southerners felt a direct threat to their way of life from the new Republican administration. They sincerely believed Abraham Lincoln would destroy their entire social and economic order by inspiring slave insurrections. Whether Lincoln would’ve done this is besides the point. The perceived threat was very real, and in response, southerners took dramatic action. Most Americans view wokeness as outrageous, but not something that impacts their economic well-being or how they live. Secession, meanwhile, very much would.
The proponents of national divorce imply it could mean secession or radical states’ rights. Both ideas were defeated when states were far more independent of the federal government. The Civil War ended serious discussion of secession. The Civil Rights Regime ended serious discussion of radical states’ rights. As stated previously, the only way national divorce could occur is if the system collapses. If that happens, there’s going to be a lot of things to worry about besides states’ rights–like how people are going to eat or fend off rampaging warbands.
National divorce is less a serious response to America’s problems than an exciting new plotline spun up by the Conservative Entertainment Complex. National divorce is more interesting than the normal political process. There’s no need to trouble yourself with the complexities of American politics–you can create your own nation instead! While conservatives rightly mock “Just build your own Facebook!,” they somehow believe building your own nation is much easier. It is not easy at all.
People don’t want to hear that. They feel they can’t affect the political process at all so they want to leave. But if your movement can’t gain political power within the current system, you can’t secede. The American Revolution wasn’t led by Discord admins. The Confederacy wasn’t led by obscure podcasters. The nationalists in Spain weren't led by self-help grifters. They were all led by people with power and influence in the order they rebelled against. Without any political power or influence, the calls for national divorce are just screams in the void.
This is not a blackpill. It is a call to face reality. We have to work to gain political and cultural power within the current system. That requires boring and grudging work, not just wishing away the current system through fantastical delusions. If things get really bad, then real power gives you the means to separate. Right now, conservatives have neither the will nor the means to separate.
The empire is here to stay and we have to move forward with that fact in mind. National divorce is a mere fantasy.
Great piece. “National divorce” and “get out of cities” rhetoric serves the same function on the Right that doctrinaire libertarianism did 15 years ago. Proponents don’t want to admit (to themselves or others) that they hold (legitimately subversive) opinions—or how hard it would be to turn those opinions into policy. So they avoid doing so with supposedly edgy fantasies. Thanks for doing yeoman’s work on this front and encouraging people to focus on the real concerns of white middle and working class Americans
Well you tell us to vote harder and we do but it never changes anything. Republicans had all three branches of the federal government from 2000 to 2006 and did next to nothing. Tea Party groups were mercilessly harassed by Obama's IRS from 2010 to 2012 which prevented them from fundraising to elect candidates and campaign against Obama's re-election bid. We voted hard for Trump in 2016 and again had all three branches of govt until the 2018 midterms and all we got was tax cuts and the First Step Act. In fact, during the Trump administration the radical left rampaged through the institutions and persecuted right of center voters like never before all while Trump entertained Kim Kardashian in the oval office and tweeted.
Now the radical left is attempting to keep right wing Republicans off the ballot using lawfare tactics. But there's no point to winning elections when Republicans refuse to wield power on behalf of their voters.
Scott says the states won't leave because they need federal assistance but look at E. Palestine, OH and the lack of federal support for that disaster should tell you that we are entering an era where Democrat administrations will not assist red states. Biden admin refuses to lift a finger in helping border states turn back illegal aliens and massive amounts of deadly drugs. The federal government, at least under Democrats, is fast becoming illegitimate.
Of course there are a lot of practical problems with an immediate national divorce but most who desire it know that and don't expect it to happen overnight. But Scott is like the CIA agents in the 1980's who confidently predicted that the Soviet Union would endure for decades before it suddenly collapsed a few short years later.