Blue America’s Messaging Problem: Fighting the impulse for national divorce with spousal abuse

There has been, lately—and mostly but not entirely from the Right—a great deal of talk about some form of separation, ranging from the late Angelo Codevilla’s call for “radical federalism” to David Reaboi’s bolder proposal for “national divorce.” The latter, obviously, would split the Union but the former is designed to keep it together, by reducing domestic tensions that presently threaten to tear it apart.

The responses from Blues to both proposals were instantaneous, furious, and uniform: Hell, no! and How dare you! Under no circumstances may Reds have any degree of independence, self-determination, or control of their collective destinies. We know what would happen then: “the accelerated subjugation of women and people of color in a new, adjacent Red America,” the rejection of climate orthodoxy, and endless attacks from our religious zealot neighbors. Ed Kilgore, the author of this admirably frank screed, concludes even more bluntly:

I won’t let you go. I have no illusions of compromises yet untried or “third ways” left unexplored. So let’s have it out right here in America as peacefully as we can manage. Perhaps if we continue to battle for control of our common country, one side or the other might win a popular mandate to exercise real power and change the facts on the ground, breaking the perpetual stalemate. If not, then let’s consider the wisdom of those who crushed the Confederacy in the belief that the misery of political conflict is better than the literal civic death of national disunion. [Emphasis in the original.]

Won’t let you go … have it out right here … battle for control … exercise real power and change the facts on the ground … misery of political conflict … and, the coup de grace, crushed. You will stay in this marriage forever whether you like it or not and do what you’re told.

Rebecca Solnit likens Red reluctance to accept the Blue agenda to a dam that will inevitably be breached, with everything on the other side overwhelmed and washed away. She charitably admits that, therefore, Red fears are warranted in the sense that their direst predictions are fated to come true—but also illegitimate, because they deserve what’s coming to them. “Birth can be violent and dangerous,” she concludes, “and sometimes one or the other of the two involved die,” leaving little doubt as to who will be sacrificed in the emergence of coast-to-coast Blutopia.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.