In the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) once again called for a “national divorce,” claiming that the American right and left have “nothing left to talk about.”
Her September 15 post on X was similar to one she wrote in February 2023. It called for dividing America into red and blue states while downsizing the federal government.
The most recent post spoke about a “peaceful” divorce, but re-emphasized the country’s radical polarization. “There is nothing left to talk about with the left. They hate us,” Rep. Greene wrote.
A Strong Metaphor
Divorce is a strong metaphor to describe the separation of a state or states from the American Union.
Proposing a national divorce is like demanding a figurative abortion for some unwanted social problem. Divorce and abortion are never solutions, literally or metaphorically. They will always end badly. The children (real and figurative) will always suffer.
This attitude reflects a spirit of desperation at the present state of affairs. Seeing how entrenched leftists in Blue State institutions impose their woke agenda on the rest of the nation, these misguided conservatives lash out in despair rather than with purpose.
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Whether it be socialist legislation, procured abortion, ecological regulations or classroom indoctrination, people desperately want out of these bad situations. Nothing could be more legitimate. Like divorce, though, secession is never a solution.
The Call to Separation
Only liberals benefit from such a separation. A national divorce would help the left in the deadlock of the country’s stalled cultural war by taking conservatives out of the national debate. It would let conservatives shatter the national institutions that liberals have been unable to control fully. Vast sections of the nation would be handed over to liberals without a fight in the process of division.
Thus, as liberals provoke, and do so ever more cruelly, some desperate conservatives are taking the bait.
Solutions that Always End Badly
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says that a national divorce need not be a nasty affair but can be an amiable, no-fault divorce settlement in which parties agree to part ways and divide assets.
Let the other states do what they will and even destroy themselves. The red states (and later counties or cities) will stay red and determine their separate destinies.
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The calls for separation and secession are growing as Americans find it ever more difficult to live together in peace. Indeed, countless Americans have migrated from one state to another in one of the largest population displacements in American history.
Walking Away from the Problem
The call for an amicable divorce appeals to a mindset that refuses to delve deeply into problems. It reflects today’s throwaway society, where anything can be discarded at will. When a relationship goes wrong, one can simply walk away from it and try again with someone else.
The divorce solution springs from a liberal society where the goals of life are to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering. The minute suffering or sacrifice enters the picture, the tendency is to flee and seek pleasure elsewhere; duty is abandoned and forgotten.
The national divorce promoters believe the same can be done with states or nations. When the national scene becomes afflictive and works against the individual’s interest, it is time to separate rather than confront the problems.
Such a selfish decision refuses to make a moral judgment about whether something is right or wrong and, instead, simply effects an escape. Such individuals do not care how others live or its impact upon society as long as they can continue their lives unimpeded.
A Commercial Relationship
To many Americans who hold this secession position, the notion of a national union is almost a commercial one. Heavily influenced by the Enlightenment’s individualistic thought, this misguided sector of the public has long seen the bond of citizenship like that of a shareholder or co-op member.
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Under such an arrangement, everyone is full of patriotic enthusiasm when things prosper. However, resentment, entitlement and rancor enter in times of crisis. Then, people look for handouts rather than solutions. No one is willing to sacrifice for others.
A Pervasive Mentality
This selfish, co-op mentality affects both the left and right. Both share the liberal conviction that everything, including government, exists only for the individual’s pleasure and self-interest.
It is a regime where all pleasures are judged equal. The freedom (or license) to pursue one’s pleasure is more important than the actual goal. For conservatives, pleasure often means the practice of virtues that favor material benefits. For others, pleasure consists of gratifying their darkest passions.
What is happening in America today is a spectacular clash where each one’s pursuit of happiness now comes at the expense of others. The only way each can seek ever more consuming pleasures is by shattering America, freeing her from the restraints of past orthodoxies.
Reframing the Debate
This disconnect is what is wrong with the national divorce solution. It consists of letting all parties, left and right, pursue their different sets of pleasures separately.
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It fights liberalism with more liberalism. Everyone enlists under the same liberal banner of gratifications—some judged good and others wrong.
There is no concern for the common good. There is no objective notion of good or evil. Thus, society disintegrates since no unifying principles and morals exist to hold things together.
As long as the debate is framed this way, there will be no restoration of a moral order but only an ever-growing descent into chaos.
The Fiction of Liberal Liberty
The liberal paradigm of each seeking pleasure lies at the foundation of modernity. However, it has always been a fiction. The liberal regime has never been about allowing individuals to do what they want. It is always about destroying the obstacles that prevent people from doing what their unbridled passions desire.
The Real Target Is Christian Civilization
The target of the liberal left is what little remains of Christian civilization and its moral structures, whether it be the Catholic Church, morals, metaphysics, identity, sex, pronouns, borders, language or linear logic. These daily reminders of a Christian order must be eradicated.
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What better way for liberals to achieve their utopia than to have secession-confused conservatives do it for them? How the left must twist with glee, hearing some conservatives talk so casually about shattering the political unity of the nation. How it must rejoice seeing them suggest that those fighting the left’s culture war on a national scale abandon half the country and self-corral into states, which the left will tar as separatist ghettos.
The cultural clash between left and right should not be downsized but expanded. Don’t reduce the cultural fight from a national to a state level. The true solution lies in reversing direction. Yes, expand the fight! Don’t downsize it. Take the fight from the national to the continental and global levels. Yes, help the conservative resistance prevail against the left in other countries. Extend a helping hand to struggling conservatives in Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Poland, South Africa, the United Kingdom, South Korea and everywhere. After all, isn’t that what the left did, worldwide, for over a century? It’s high time to return the courtesy.
Turning to the Permanent Things
Indeed, it is time to end this wrongheaded secession prattle. The debate must reflect the real fight. It must consist of defending those perennial values that Russell Kirk called the “permanent things,” those norms of courage, duty, honor, justice and charity that owe their existence and authority to something higher than pleasure or self-interest—indeed to a transcendent God.
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Americans must challenge the false paradigm that life’s purpose is to maximize pleasure and minimize suffering within a shareholder, co-op model of society.
Just as spouses usually forget the best interests of children in their pursuit of no-fault divorce, so also secessionist conservatives ignore those of America’s future generations.
America must return to a family-centered, community-based society anchored in God and a morality based on His law. Now is the time to gather the nation around unifying principles, not shatter it into millions of individualistic shards.
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