THE DISUNITED STATES
Threats of Secession in Red and Blue America and Why They Won't Work
by Ryan D. Griffiths
An exploration of the possibility that the U.S. could disintegrate along ideological lines.
Picking up where his two previous books on secession left off, Syracuse University political scientist Griffiths opens with this scenario: Donald Trump Jr. declares himself the winner of the 2032 election, while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does the same, and in the civil strife that ensues in the “Year of Two Presidents,” the republic shatters. But how to sort out the division of the country into Redland and Blueland, especially after Texas, once Trump Jr. sites his capital in Florida and not Houston, itself secedes from Redland, prompting Gavin Newsom to carve off the new republic of Grand California? That scenario may be far-fetched—but, Griffiths notes, Marjorie Taylor Greene has been loudly calling for a “national divorce” for a couple of years, and separatist movements are flourishing in Texas, New Hampshire, Alaska, and even, on the left, California. That division would be difficult, possibly even impossible, short of massive bloodshed, for, warns Griffiths, “treating the states as though they are either red or blue disguises the much more intermixed and purple characteristics of America.” Indeed, so divided are many places, even in rural areas, that the sole practicable maneuver might well be partition, which cost India and Pakistan more than a million dead when effected in 1947. If there were a Blueland, Griffiths adds in this evenhanded analysis, it would be small and not contiguous, making it difficult to govern; Redland would be largely depopulated and certainly far poorer than it is today, without the subsidies provided by the wealthier blue states. The Constitution offers no clear authority for secession, but that doesn’t dissuade fans of fragmentation. Yet, even while recognizing present-day discontentment and polarization, Griffiths wisely urges that “rather than divorce, counseling and working together is the better solution.”
A stern warning to separatists that they’re likely doomed to fail.