Featured Photo by Kailee Shores
Story by Kailee Shores
“Imagine if America decided to just go ahead and have a national divorce,” tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday, launching a Twitter thread that subsequently listed reasons why states should reach a “legal agreement to separate our ideological and political disagreements by states while maintaining our legal union.”
I am pretty sure most of America went into shock. If you did not, you should have.
Her proposal is along the lines of a southern succession but labeled as a separation of states that vote blue versus red, essentially creating two one-party states.
After a series of argumentative and insulting comments on people who vote differently than her, Rep. Greene wrote, “Then Americans could choose which way, left or right, provides them with the best quality of life, and we don’t have to argue with one another anymore. I am starting to feel like it’s the right thing to do for everyone.”
The glaring issue here has nothing to do with party lines, which side of the political spectrum Rep. Greene falls on or even her list of issues she claims we wouldn’t have to argue over anymore if the country were to divide.
It has everything to do with the fundamental failing of the great American experiment: democracy. The mere suggestion of a divorce is the antithesis of everything America stands for.
Pause for a second and consider the fallout: democracies around the world would collapse because the model has disappeared. The United States would split, becoming two one-party states, akin to China and North Korea.
Not only would there be international consequences, but the internal structure of the government would have to be reorganized from top to bottom, forcing the nullification of the Constitution and leading to monumental political confusion our country has not seen since the time of the founding fathers.
Apart from the blatant misunderstanding of the democracy she helps govern, Rep. Greene further alienated the entire democratic party, members of her own party and the overwhelmingly large percentage of the country that falls under the moderate umbrella.
When asked about Rep. Greene’s tirade, Sen. Mitt Romney from Utah said, “I think Abraham Lincoln dealt with that kind of insanity. We’re not going to divide the country. It’s united we stand, divided we fall.”
I ask you to look at the Reagan presidency. Ignore the actual policy enacted. The Speaker of the House at the time, Tip O’Neill, was a Democrat. Policy-wise, Reagan and O’Neill were adversaries, but built a relationship and were able to compromise to pass legislation such as the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 and Social Security. The nature of their relationship is not one we have seen in American government since.
Posturing partisanship has reached an all-time high in this country, and it is taking us down a road we do not want to travel.
Will a split ever happen? Probably not. But the proposal by an active elected official is surely cause for concern.
Kailee Shores is the News Editor and an opinion columnist for MTSU Sidelines.
To contact News Editor Kailee Shores and Assistant News Editor Alyssa Williams, email newseditor@mtsusidelines.com.
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