We’re Not in a Civil War, but We Are Drifting Toward Divorce

last week there were two telling incidents — one small, the other more consequential — that spoke volumes about the state of our national life. Let’s start small. Over in Seattle, in the midst of a debate over juvenile justice, a city-council member invoked his “Republican friends” as a symbol of the broad-based agreement that incarceration policies need to change. One of his colleagues, Kshama Sawant, snapped back with the proud declaration that she didn’t have any Republican friends. The crowd cheered. Sure, it’s but one small incident, but consider something bigger. The state of California is in the process of taking a series of political steps that are not only cementing its status as a progressive enclave, it’s stumbling toward its own foreign policy. After Donald Trump withdrew America from the Paris climate agreement, California governor Jerry Brown rushed to fill the void. California is touting its collaborations with China to combat global warming. Here’s Brown, in reporting by the Sacramento Bee: “It is a little bold to talk about the China–California partnership as though we were a separate nation, but we are a separate nation,” Brown said of the state, with nearly 40 million residents and the world’s sixth-largest economy. “We’re a state of mind. I include Silicon Valley, I include the environmental activism, the biotech industry, agriculture. This is a place of great investment in innovation.” Indeed, California has such a different view of the relationship between citizen and state, it’s virtually seceding from the Constitution, overriding the First Amendment time and again for the sake of “social justice.” And now its legislature is even taking the first steps to implement a $400 billion single-payer health plan — a plan so expensive and radical that even Governor Brown is skeptical. The trends are clear. In the age of Trump, California is determined to go its own way. None of this is surprising. Our national political polarization is by now so well established that the only real debate is over the nature of our cultural, political, and religious conflict. Are we in the midst of a more or less conventional culture war? Are we, as Dennis Prager and others argue, fighting a kind of “cold” civil war? Or are we facing something else entirely? I’d argue that we face “something else,” and that something else is more akin to the beginning stages of a national divorce than it is to a civil war. This contention rests fundamentally in two trends, one political and the other far beyond politics. Unless trends are reversed, red and blue may ultimately bid each other adieu. First, let’s deal with negative polarization. I’ve written about this before, but it’s worth repeating. Americans tend to belong to their political “tribe” not so much because they love its ideas but rather because they despise their opponents. What is really fascinating to me is the fact that just by watching certain cable T.V. and internet shows, we are no longer divided socially or politically. I mean it. One of my favorite shows is Game Of Thrones and it is LOADED with liberal innuendo and social themes. It is very popular with the deep-blue coastal cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and L.A. Yet I am a mere redneck residing in the mid-west with a political resume that would make today's average lib want to burn me at the stake, and I love the show! Cant wait for the next season! I have a hard time finding anyone who watches the show, much less someone who cares enough to do a deep dive into Westerosi lore. If you watch Game of Thrones, you’re also generally watching The Daily Show and Modern Family. Do you reject George R. R. Martin’s epic series? Then Duck Dynasty is the most likely show for you. Or at least that is the stereotypical consensus. Bullshit I say! Watching something with liberal ideas and themes is about as brainwashing to a conservative as a lib watching Duck Dynasty or Last Man Standing. It's entertainment folks and nothing more so lets just all stop trying to read into that too much OK? That being said, isn't it funny how conservative leaning shows get polorized even cancelled because of the pure hatred one has for another ones point of view. This just proves my prior posts on the mental disorder that is Liberalism. When you live, work, and speak with people of like mind, it’s virtually inevitable that common expressions of shared views will leak into sports, corporate policy, and even debates about superhero movies. Americans have choices, and millions have chosen ideologically closed enclaves. Why wouldn’t they continue to extend that choice beyond the realms of politics and religion? A civil war results when the desire for unification and domination overrides the desire for separation and self-determination. The American civil war is a classic example. There were grounds for separation — North and South were culturally different on a scale that dwarfs modern divides between red and blue — but the North did not consent. It sought to first unify and then transform the southern states. By contrast, had Scotland voted to leave the United Kingdom, would England have mobilized in response? No, the U.K. came close to its own national divorce, the dissolution of a union generations older than the American republic. Here is the core American question. As we continue our own “big sort,” will the desire to separate trump the desire to dominate? Or can we instead choose to tolerate? We need to honestly ask ourselves this question, “Is there a single significant cultural, political, social, or religious trend that is pulling Americans together more than it is pushing us apart?” I don’t believe a civil-war mentality will save America. There are simply too many differences and too many profound disagreements for one side or the other to exercise true political dominance. Red won’t beat blue in the same way that blue beat gray. Adopt the civil-war mentality and you’ll only hasten a potential divorce. The idea that will save America is one of the oldest ideas of the Republic: federalism. So long as we protect the “privileges and immunities” of American citizenship, including all of the liberties enumerated in the Bill of Rights, let California be California and Texas be Texas. De-escalate national politics. Ideas that work in Massachusetts shouldn’t be crammed down the throats of culturally different Tennesseans. Indeed, as our sorting continues, our ability to persuade diminishes. (After all, how can we understand communities we don’t encounter?) If we seek to preserve our union, we’re left with a choice — try to dominate or learn to tolerate? The effort to dominate is futile, and it will leave us with a permanently embittered population that grows increasingly punitive with each transition of presidential power. There is hope, however, in the quest to tolerate. Our Constitution is built to allow our citizens to govern themselves while protecting individual liberty and providing for the common defense. It’s built to withstand profound differences without asking citizens or states to surrender their strongest convictions. We can either rediscover this federalism, or we may ultimately take a third path — we may choose to separate.