The USA, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) On February 20th, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) Tweeted a call for a national divorce. While it is tempting to dismiss that idea as the ravings of an attention-starved MAGA clown, unburdened by any understanding of history or politics and almost as desperate for attention as her cult leader Donald Trump, that would be a mistake. Greene’s Tweet about a national divorce comes at a time when the idea of another American civil war is earnestly discussed among ordinary Americans, on opinion pages, and in academia. Moreover, the notion of a national divorce has received enough attention in the weeks since Greene’s initial Tweet, that we ignore it at our own risk.
One important thing to keep in mind as we think about this idea is that national divorce is a solution that is equal parts unworkable and simply terrible.
Greene is right that the US is deeply divided country-although it may be more accurate to describe it a country with normal divisions among about seventy percent of the population and where thirty percent or so of the population has embraced far-right, cultish, and conspiratorial beliefs about politics and society. In any case, the result is a country that is not exactly harmonious.
It is also true that many on both sides of the divisions do not want to remain in the same country with each other. I have many friends who are some combination of left-wing, LGBT, non-white, and non-Christian and, while they may be too smart to admit it out loud, would be happy to have no contact with MAGA America. I am also reasonably confident that many hard-line MAGA people take little joy in sharing a country with my social group.
The national divorce may sound intriguing at first cut for some, but that appeal quickly falls apart at the first question along the lines of “how would this work?”
The most obvious problem is that the divisions in the US are in some respects between states-Oklahoma and Wyoming, for example, is much more right-wing than say Vermont or California, but divisions are at least as strong within states. Texas has millions of progressives and people of color who would have no interest in being part of the new country called MAGA America. Similarly, there are millions of Trump voters in New York and California who would not be happy living in Blue America.
Any kind of national divorce would leave tens of millions of Americans disgruntled about the politics of the country in which they are placed. Or to stay with the divorce metaphor, tens of millions of Americans would be stuck living with the parent they dislike and blame for the divorce.
There is also the issue of purple states. There are many states that would not fit neatly into either MAGA or Blue America. For example, on which side would a state that Joe Biden carried and that has two Democratic senators, but where all the other statewide elected officials are Republican, land? One state that fits that precise description is Greene’s home state of Georgia.
Even if these obstacles could be overcome, the national divorce would create many more problems than it would ever solve.
The US has been a unified country for so long that many aspects of the country’s economic, cultural, social, and military life cross state and regional borders. Breaking the country into two separate policies would at the absolute very least raise vexing questions about citizenship, movement between the two countries, tax policy, and civil rights. For example, would a same-sex couple married in Blue America, have their marriage recognized if they moved to MAGA America? Would people need visas to move between the two new countries, establish residency or work in the other country? Would degrees for schools with radically different curricula be recognized in both countries? What will happen to MAGA America if it can no longer rely on tax revenue from Blue America? It does not take much imagination to think of many other problems of this kind the national divorce would raise.
One area that requires specific attention in this regard is the military. The military is a truly national institution that draws personnel from everywhere in the country and that has bases and other facilities, in virtually every part of the country. The question of how to divide up these military resources would be very difficult to resolve as both new countries would want to control as much of the military as possible. In some cases, military officers might want to join one side or the other. This is how real civil wars start.
Countries that break up or are divided into their component parts generally see violence, a weaker economy, and more oppression of minorities. There is very little reason to think the US will be an exception.
A national divorce, like most divorces, will be acrimonious. After it happens, neither side will be willing to make life easier for the other, so it is likely that borders will be real, laws will be different, and moving seamlessly between the two Americas will be difficult for people, businesses, militaries, and everything else.
The best thing about the national divorce is that despite Marjorie Taylor Greene’s exhortations, it is extremely unlikely to happen. A neat clean breakup of the country into two large new countries based on ideological and geographical differences is much less likely than increased divisions, instability, civil unrest, and violence throughout the country that would look a lot like a low-level civil war.
The less dramatic national divorce would be to push more decision-making to the states. This is already occurring as red and blue states have dramatically different policies on issues such as reproductive rights-which has accelerated since the Dobbs decision-voting rights, minimum wage, trans rights, environmental policy, and myriad other important areas.
Accelerating this trend will alleviate some of the anger and tension that is behind the national divorce idea, but it will take rights away from millions of Americans and have a significant effect on national politics. Electing a congress that legislates for the whole country and that includes members who win due to voter suppression weakens democracy for all Americans even those in California or New York. Similarly, taking rights away from women, trans people, and African Americans simply because of the state in which they live also moves the US one step further away from being a democracy.
National divorce sounds like a compromise-a peaceful dissolution of a country that is deeply, and perhaps irrevocably, divided, but it is much worse than that. National divorce would start with stripping rights from millions of Americans and creating enormous for the economies of both new countries and get worse from there. If the conditions that could make a national divorce occur without rancor on both sides existed, we wouldn’t need one in the first place.
