Can the Union Endure?
At this point, Red and Blue America are not even speaking the same language. We stand near the point of what divorce lawyers term “irreconcilable differences.” In increasingly strident and self-assured tones, the Left believes it is morally superior, intellectually untouchable, and wholly justified in pursuing whatever extralegal, corrupt, or violent methods available to implement their ideology.
Talk of a breaking point has been circling conservative circles for some time, with three tangible options arising from the chatter:
1) continued focus on barely winning elections, appointing "conservative" judges that uphold Obamacare, keeping Arizona from going blue, etc.;
2) a “divorce” of sorts that peaceably divides the United States into permanent blue and red territories, or;
3) civil war.
The first option clearly is the best. It is the least disruptive and preserves the Union and the Constitution, the goal that Abraham Lincoln fought our bloodiest war to support.
But what if it is sabotaged? Trump is an anomaly from both the Democrat and Republican point of view. His no-holds-barred street fighting style has been a welcome change for many Republican voters. But once his presidency ends, is there likely to be a Trump-like figure? Rest assured, the GOP Establishment is busy re-calibrating its primary process that “allowed” Trump to win the nomination to begin with. Republican voters thinking they won’t attempt to force-feed us a Romney or Jeb! next time around are fooling themselves.
At a minimum, in order to keep them honest, we need to be able to consider the other options.
2016 presidential election by precincts (via Citylab)
The second option, that of an amicable divorce between red and blue states (and allowing for counties to switch states) seems the best option towards the preservation of the American ideal. While true that the United States of America would lose some coastline and a few radical hotbeds to the newfound Socialist Republics of Wokestan, we could permanently consolidate our strongholds, restructure our judiciary, clean the Augean stables we call public schooling, and amend our Constitution with stronger protections.
Such a “divorce” would be messy. Questions of interstate travel, resources, airspace regulation, migration control, and a million unforeseeable disputes would need to be hashed out before we were able to cut away the deadwood. But it’s doable. Europe is in the throes of a polygamous divorce, but it is proceeding bumpily along. Even Sudan pulled it off.
The problem is the Left probably wouldn't agree to a divorce. It will play the part of the jealous, manipulative, control freak husband who never loved his wife, but rather savored the power he exerted over her. The Left will delay, obfuscate, and resist divorce at all costs, even if the Right unilaterally gave up the sports car, the big screen TV, and the dog in an attempt to cut loose as quickly as possible.
The economy would unfortunately be, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, a "known unknown." We would have to prepare for a temporary state of flux. We lose a fair amount of ports, transportation hubs, and financial sectors. The world's two largest stock exchanges (the NYSE and NADSAQ), each of which trade over one trillion dollars a month, are both located in New York City. Silicon Valley alone, were it its own nation, would be one of the world's richest and most productive.
But though we would have to brace ourselves to find our economic footing, we would not be without our own advantages. The Bakken Formation of North Dakota alone is estimated to hold 30 to 40 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Of the 31 states that currently produce oil, 25 (over 82% of total production) went for Trump in 2016. In addition, the United States has seen its best manufacturing boom in three decades, with over 500,000 manufacturing jobs created since Trump took office. In the third quarter of 2019, manufacturers' biggest concern was a shortage of skilled labor to keep up with hiring demands. This is not the concern of an industry in trouble.
Our new economy would be stabilized by stable tax policy, deregulation, America-first trade negotiations, audits of the Federal Reserve (assuming we keep it), and deference to supply-side, free market principles. And assuming Wokestan pursued the socialistic policies they preach, now unencumbered by such antiquated annoyances like constitutions and elections, their economy would free fall.
Silicon Valley is already bleeding residents to more tax-friendly states like Colorado, Texas, and North Carolina. Predictably, problems arise when they refuse to concede that their progressive policies were what caused their home state to go bankrupt. In our new America, gone would be the days when blue state progressives are allowed to migrate to red states, bringing their ignorant voting patterns with them. America could focus on God, freedom, family, and productivity. Wokestan could focus on socialism, homeless encampments, needle programs, and post-birth abortions. A wall would surely be built, either by us to keep them out, or by them to keep them in.
The third option is civil war.
Suffice to say, victory in such a war would be a foregone conclusion. Antifa punks fancy themselves brave while terrorizing progressive cities whose socialist mayors green light their thuggery, but when met with actual force they always skitter away. In a civil war, during which the American side will enjoy the support and firepower of the vast majority of the military, the police, the food and energy sectors, most of the blue-collar class, and over 100 million gun owners, it's doubtful gaggles of black-masked, androgynous incels would offer much “resistance.”
We won the first Civil War, and we would win a second. This time around, the slavers have no Robert Lee, Stonewall Jackson, or James Longstreet, but rather the likes of Messers Manning, Bergdahl, and Vindman. Long gone are the days when Trotsky led the Red Army full of dedicated shock troops into battle. Today's Left lacks the discipline, the courage, and the spirit of self-sacrifice necessary to muster up enough volunteers for a national army. Men who micturate aghast at the torment of doing their own laundry don't win wars.
Still, I would argue against this path, which can and always does lead to unintended consequences. Increasing numbers of conservative thinkers appear open to the idea of civil war. Most do so hesitatingly, but others seem to relish the prospect, and chortle at the idea of plunging the rest of us into the abyss.
Even for the winning side, the cost of both innocent victims and the quality of life endured by the survivors is far greater than those clamoring for war care to admit. Internet tough guys who’ve never seen what a bullet does to human flesh can let me know in the "Comments" section just how big of a pansy I am. That’s fine. But to more mature readers who ponder their own capabilities for wanton bloodshed more judiciously, I implore you to seriously reckon the ramifications upon our civilian population that civil war would entail. Sherman’s March to the Sea will seem, by comparison, a sweet dream.
Civil war in present-day America would not consist of professional armies mowing each other down across empty fields. It would be a house-to-house, street-by-street massacre, more akin to Hotel Rwanda than the battlefields of the American or even the Russian and Spanish civil wars.
The majority of the fighting would be carried out not by professional armies, but by private citizens, vigilantes, partisans, ad hoc neighborhood units, and the like. People on both sides would use the breakdown of order to settle private scores and commit crimes of opportunity. Others would kill indiscriminately based on “offenses” such as voting records, yard signs, etc.
Schools would close. Hospitals would become graveyards for the untreated. Water purification plants, oil refineries, and transportation hubs would be sabotaged. Even in red states, food and energy supplies would be unreliable. Sympathizers would be targeted, mobs would destroy, and homes would burn. Bombings that bedeviled Great Britain during the Troubles or present-day Afghanistan would become the norm here.
I freely admit this is all conjecture. Maybe it will be Grenada 2.0, like the neo-cons told us Iraq and Afghanistan would be. But when contemplating war, especially war in our own streets and neighborhoods, it behooves us to err on the side of caution. Wars usually go worse than predicted, and we have no idea what it would unleash here. Despite the aforementioned advantages we would retain, the last century has proven that the Left possesses an unfathomable capacity for atrocity, cruelty, and mass murder in the furtherance of its ideology. Progressives will burn this nation to the ground before letting anyone enjoy it free from their benevolence. They wouldn't hesitate to murder their own children on their altars, and would hesitate even less about murdering yours.
In between today and this hypothetical civil war is the option of divorce. Knowing the Left, it will only be dragged to the arbitration table kicking and screaming. But we should at least attempt it before delving blindfolded into slaughter.
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