Tom Manche

    As we all know, there’s a disturbing rift in the country. We live in an America where the very definition of facts or reality cannot, will not, be agreed upon. When there is a disconnect between viewpoints at such a basic level, finding solutions to very real problems is a fool’s game.  

   Due to the proliferation and balkanization of news sources, of both legitimate and fake varieties, the average US citizen can indoctrinate himself into believing any number of narratives of “how the world works”. There’s no apparent reason that this bifurcated zeitgeist will resolve itself any time soon. War, economic meltdown, natural disasters, a first black president, the current occupant…all significant landmarks in our shared history, yet none assuaged the enmity between factions. If anything they’ve made the situation worse.

    So here, in a nutshell, is the idea. Let’s stop butting heads. If, in Congress, in the various state legislatures, in the streets, ‘compromise’ has become a dirty word, let’s be perceptive and adult enough to recognize that fact and move on. The ‘move on’ part is where it gets tricky.

   I’m thinking big—a Grand Re-Structuring. We think like two separate peoples, so let’s have two different countries. We already have two names anyway. One can be the United States and the other can be America.

   Think of it. You could live in the United States, a country that protects its natural resources and joins the community of nations fighting the inexorable rise of global warming. A country that guarantees healthcare to its citizens, that looks out for its poorest families, that addresses runaway income inequality, that honors the control people have over their own bodies, that takes sane measures to address the mounting death toll from guns, that safeguards the rights of all its people regardless of sex, race, or creed.

    It could be a country largely free of neo-nazis and klansmen, Wall Street greed-mongers, judgemental bible-thumpers, and adamant climate change deniers.  Sounds very pleasant if you’re of a certain lefty bent, I’m sure.

    But, if your worldview has a redder cast to it, you could opt for living in America. No need to share your air with snowflakes, cucks, libtards or feminazis any longer. Your patriotism would swell knowing that you live in a country that has finally outlawed killing innocent babies, that won’t put up with rampant political correctness, that won’t waste money on supporting handouts to lazy ‘takers’, that will keep out foreign troublemakers who steal our jobs and make America less of a white Christian nation.

   It’s a win-win. Everybody gets to live in a country that governs itself in a manner befitting their principles and mindset. But how would that work?  It would very complex, to say the least, but the broad strokes might look like this:

   The first obstacle to effecting the Grand Re-Structuring is securing concensus that even considering such a vast overhaul of the current system is a good idea.

   Amending the Constitution requires a two-thirds majority vote in the House and Senate. Let’s assume that green-lighting a vote that would divide the country into two parts would require at least that. If and when a nationwide referendum is sanctioned at the federal level, two separate new constitutions would be created, one reflecting the values of red states and the other reflecting the values of the blue. Once the task of creating these two documents is complete, the process would shift to the individual states to hold elections determining if they would become members of right-wing America or the left-wing United States. The voting would be strictly one person/one vote, thereby nullifying any tainting by ridiculous gerrymandering or electoral college shenanigans. These individual state elections would bind the winners to their corresponding constitutions.

   Since, at this stage, a gross re-drawing of the map is already in progress, it might be advantageous to also dispense with existing state lines, opting instead for new territorial boundaries reflecting the county-by-county voting results. Thus, liberal western Washington might end up in the blue United States, while conservative eastern Washington might end up as part of red America. Mississipi, Alabama, and Loiusiana—traditionally dependably red—could be combined into a new American territory called Dixie, and so forth.

    Now, this national mitosis should not signal any bad blood between the two nations. On the contrary, the separation is precisely designed for peaceful coexistence, and a commitment to a productive friendly relationship between the two new countries will be reflected in their respective constitutions.

   A century and a half ago, Abraham Lincoln said that a house divided cannot stand. Now, we find ourselves more divided than at any time since then. While we once fought a terrible, bloody war to maintain the Union, perhaps a more amicable split is an idea worth considering.