We Don't Need a 'National Divorce'; We Need More Federalism

[GURPS]

During the past 42 years, the federal government has been divided for 30 of them. Over the past three presidencies, the president's party lost at least one house after only two years. The instinct of the American public is to split power. The organic state of a divided nation is glorious gridlock -- which is why the 10th Amendment exists. Now, it's also true that leftists struggle with the notion of letting people in red states think, speak and live in ways they dislike. There is a national political and cultural effort to homogenize us. And when Republicans appropriate the existing local power Democrats have used for decades to implement their own choices -- as Gov. Ron DeSantis has done in Florida -- leftists act as if we're on the precipice of a dictatorship. But they have no power to stop him. Only Florida voters do. This is why federalism exists. It is why some states thrive and others don't. And federalism is not only a more desirable solution than breaking the country into two, but also far more feasible.


None of this is to argue there aren't serious problems facing the nation, but Big Tech's relentless highlighting of every decisive moment, every rabid voice and every radical position clouds our view of reality. The nastier and crazier you pretend to be, the more misleading your tweets and the more partisan you act, the more followers you can expect. The incentive of social media success is corrosive. Most of it just exacerbates political divisions.

In the real world, you probably live in proximity to plenty of people with different religious, cultural and ideological values, yet, despite what you've heard, we're a nation with negligible political violence. In many ways, despite the mess politicians have made, our lives are better than ever. Let's keep it that way.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books -- the most recent, "Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent." His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.

We Don't Need a 'National Divorce'; We Need More Federalism

townhall.com

 

[BOP]

"There is a national political and cultural effort to homogenize us."

The irony between that and AOC's recent discovery of the homogeneity of the Japanese people should smack people in the face.

 

[GURPS]

Dear God, not this national divorce thing again​

For those of you leading normal and productive lives, this latest brain-plague began on Twitter when Congresswoman Greene declared, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government,” adding, “Everyone I talk to says this.” Apparently not everyone because the comment was furiously denounced by Greene’s colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Republican governor Spencer Cox called the idea “evil,” while Republican senator Mitt Romney called it “insanity.” And that was just the Utah delegation.

A national divorce is one of those ideas that flits around Twitter and occasionally creeps into the real world on nights when we accidentally leave the door to the alternate dimension open. Supported mostly by far-right (and a few far-left) commentators, it goes something like this. The differences between America’s red states and blue states have become irreconcilable. The culture war is determinative and has split us into what are effectively two countries, one favoring traditional values and the other sloshing about in woke fanaticism. There is no hope for rapprochement. The only way out is separation.

Your first sign that a national divorce is a Twitter idea is that it takes place in a historical vacuum. The notion that “red” rural areas and “blue” urban ones are different — cherishing different values, even pursuing different ends — dates back to the advent of the republic, when it was manifested most clearly in the disagreements between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Yet it stretches even further than that: ancient Greek writers like Aristophanes explored the rural/urban divide in their own time, with Attican farmers depicted as growing frustrated with Athens amid the disruptions of the Peloponnesian War.