A National Divorce Wouldn’t Be As Easy Or Worthwhile As Advertised
Proper application of the Commerce Clause and the nondelegation doctrine could help enough that a national divorce would be neither necessary nor desired.
By Chuck DeVore
November 12, 2021
When Donald Trump was president and filling the federal court system with conservative jurists, some leftists yearned for a “national divorce.” Richard Kreitner, in “Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union,” argues that a unified America does terrible things such as promoting slavery, instituting Jim Crow, starting wars, and incarcerating minorities. Kreitner asserts, “Secession is the only kind of revolution we Americans have ever known and the only kind we’re ever likely to see.”
But now the left is once again in charge, with a tenuous hold at the federal level fortified with near-monolithic control of elite institutions — corporate media, social media, Hollywood, academia, and big business. In the face of the left’s remorseless quest for totalitarian power, some conservatives are now also calling for a “national divorce.”
According to a September survey by the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, they’re not alone, with 52 percent of Trump voters and 41 percent of Biden voters agreeing to some extent that America should split up. Into this mix comes conservative writer David Reaboi, who has posted thoughtfully on the topic, writing that “National Divorce Is Expensive, But It’s Worth Every Penny.” Reaboi is hardly alone, with Michael Anton, Michael Malice, and others pointing to the utility or inevitableness of a national breakup.
That something should happen or will happen doesn’t mean it would be easy. Even more grimly, Reaboi points out the obvious that “one day, the United States will end. History teaches us that regimes, like all human creations, rise and fall — and world-bestriding empires fall harder, faster, and more surely than that.” To drive the point home, he draws from Allan Bloom to argue that “the differences between Red and Blue America are far deeper than any issues we interact with on the surface; they’re essentially pre-political.”
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https://thefederalist.com/2021/11/12/a-national-divorce-wouldnt-be-as-easy-or-worthwhile-as-advertised/
