The Politics of Anarchy
For the last seven years, I’ve attempted to gain some understanding of a bifurcated America. Partisanship has taken over, the parties are irreconcilable, and the capacity of government to make policy is diminishing. America’s divisions now define America.
Whether North/South, Black/White, Educated/Uneducated, Christian/Other, Liberal/Conservative, Rich/Poor, Blue America/Red America. The hyperpartisan behavior has led to ethnic and tribal enclaves, and every faction now has a siege mentality.
The Big Sort
In 2004, the journalist Bill Bishop coined the term, “the big sort” to describe how Americans of different political beliefs are self-selecting away from each other. Partisan politics leads people to seek representation and the affinity of others of like mind. To this end, Democrats seem to move bi-coastal, either to the Pacific, to the Northeast, or North-Central U.S. Republicans move to the South or the Mid-West. Americans of different political stripes are moving farther away from each other. Polarization is both geographical and ideological. Marche contends that ”America is being shaken like a sieve, separating Democrat from Republican into political, social, intellectual and geographical fortresses. The sorting makes life easier for everyone. The only thing that suffers is American Democracy.” (p. 187).
Tonight, as I sit here pondering the fate of America, the South Carolina Republican primary is occurring. Being a southern Republican primary, I do not doubt that Trump will have prevailed. The strident rhetoric, filled with hate for democrats, the hate for the federal government, and the laws of America filled the voices of the electorate in the South. The echo chambers from both the media and interest groups solidify the disillusionment, anger, calls for retribution, and a hate of the ‘others’.
So, where does this lead? If America is at an impasse, there are really only two options, both unthinkable as the costs for either are almost unimaginable.
War or Secession. The United States survived one civil war. A second civil war in the future would not necessarily mean the destruction of America, but, the question would be, what will be left, and will it be recognizable?
Secession would lead to the end of the Republic and the American experiment. Marche states, “The first hard truth that needs facing is the most basic: the United States no longer functions as a nation. The ideas that motivated its system were no longer convincing. The country no longer makes sense.” (p. 178).
If secession were to occur, and it’s a big if, it wouldn’t be simplistic and it likely wouldn’t result in just two nations. Partisanship has become even deeper than race or religion. The geographic division of the United States is not hard to imagine or define, based on America’s political and cultural divisions.
Marche suggests four clear distinctions exist that would result in four geographical separations, illustrated on the map below.
This is all conjecture. I have read at least five iterations of a possible breakup, one even extending into Western Canada, where North America, ultimately looks more like Europe, divided into seven or eight new countries. None would be considered superpowers, none would have the influence that exists today.
Marche suggests, “Even if breaking up is the sensible option, even it it’s better for ordinary Americans, let’s be clear about the stakes here. If the American experiment fails, and it is failing, the world will be poorer, more brutal, lesser…The American empire was built on the story it told itself. It was an empire built, in perhaps its ultimate contradiction, on the belief in self-determination. And now that its story is crumbling under the weight of its contradictions, the world will miss it.”
Again, none of this is cast in stone. America may yet find some mechanism to step back from the abyss, to listen and understand why each side feels disenfranchised and angry. But time is short, and the politics that America is on the verge of ratifying will lead to ever-greater animosity. It will ultimately lead to either civil war or dissolution in the years to come.
Whether that occurs in four or forty years, it would seem that the recipe has been prepared, all the ingredients are there now. We are at a point where someone or some event turns on the oven.
Of that, I truly have no doubt. The only thing in this world that is continuous is change. Changes imply winners and losers. In America, zero-sum games mean that winners will intentionally disadvantage losers, who will in turn find ways to harm those in power, or next door, if secession actually occurs.
“The Next Civil War”, Stephen Marche, Avid Reader Press, 2023.
“Why We’re Polarized”, Ezra Klein, Avid Reader Press, 2020.
“How Democracies Die”, Lavitsky and Ziblatt, Harvard University Press, 2018.
“Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion”, Jia Tolentino, Random House, 2019.
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