The Improbability Of A National Divorce

While I grew up and started my career in Canada, I spent most of my 30s and 40s working and raising a family in the United States.  For the most part, living in the States was like visiting a cousin; most of the time you feel like they’re just like you but once in a while something happens, and you think “what the hell was that?” There are differences that become apparent pretty quickly; Americans are more religious and more divided by race than Canadians.  And of course, there are the guns.  

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Civil War

There are minor differences as well.  One of these is the American obsession with the Civil War.  This is partially explained by the historical impact of the war, which is to this day still vigorously debated.  There is a romantic aspect to the fascination as well.  The Civil War lasted four years and yet it is the focus of over 100 films and tv shows.  Gone with the Wind, arguably the most famous of these, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937, the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1940, held the record for the highest grossing movie for 25 years, and is still the highest grossing movie of all time when ticket prices are adjusted for inflation.  

The US is also home to at least 92 Civil War Reenactment groups consisting of thousands of members.  It should come as no surprise then that when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted that the US needed a national divorce to separate red and blue states, it resonated with many people.  While it is a complicated issue there are likely two basic outcomes, a civil war and a peaceful secession.

We like to think that we are more civilized and less prone to violence than people were in the 19^th century, however, if recent global history is any indication peaceful secession is not a foregone conclusion.  The dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s is generally considered to have been peaceful however in the years following the dissolution there have seen numerous wars, ethnic conflicts, and periods of “unrest” in and between the various successor states.  

This includes The First and Second Chechen Wars, The Georgian Civil War, and the current war between Russia and Ukraine.  Likewise, the break-up of Yugoslavia following the end of the Cold War resulted in 4 wars and 3 insurgencies.  The one exception seems to have been the split of Czechoslovakia which to date has not resulted in any significant violence.  

Violence, therefore, seems to be the norm rather than the exception.  Green’s suggestion that the US be divided into red and blue states ignores both the likelihood of violence as well as the complexity of the political divisions within the US today.  America prior to the Civil War was much more rural and isolated and thus more easily divided by states.  That is not the case today.  Supporters of a national divorce likely think secession would look something like this:

There are several issues with this assumption including the fact that not all states are consistently red/blue. However, the biggest issue only becomes apparent when voting is examined at a county rather than state level.

The divisions within American society today are largely rural vs urban rather than regional.  This fact combined with technological advances since the Civil War mean that a second civil war would not be a “clean” battle between states like this:

But instead, a chaotic affair with few if any clear battle lines like this:

Yes, the nightmare that is the 12-year (and counting) Syrian Civil War would likely be what a second US Civil War would look like.  To make matters worse, a second American Civil War would also be the first time in history that a civil war occurred in a country with nuclear weapons.  As bad as politics are today, this scenario is infinitely worse.

Amicable Divorce

An amicable divorce is preferable.  Determining what a post-secession America would look like is difficult as there are multiple factors at play beyond allegiance to the Democrat and Republican parties including culture, economics, and patriotic attachment to the nation as it currently exists.  These are complicated analyses and book-length efforts have been undertaken to describe the “nations” of North America including The Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau.  

By A Max J - Own work, CC BY 3.0,

For our purposes it is easier to ignore the cultural aspect, assume states would secede with their current borders intact, and that the first states to leave would be the ones with a solid political majority (Biden/Trump had +60% of the vote in 2020) and with the economic means to go it alone.

A New America

While America is a rich country, its wealth is not spread evenly.  Some states would be economic powerhouses on their own while others would be better off economically by remaining within the United States.  Most US states could stand alone and provide their citizens with a respectable standard of living.  However, it is unlikely that all would and as a line must be drawn somewhere, an assumption will be made that States would only secede if they would remain in the list of top 20 countries by GDP.  

This would limit secession to California, Florida, New York, and Texas.  However, while California and New York fall squarely in the blue camp, Florida and Texas are more evenly divided.  The Secession of California and New York would reduce the United States from the world’s largest economy to the second largest and result in California and New York being added to the top countries by GDP in the 5^th and 11^th spot respectively.

A political analysis of the impact of secession would be more difficult as it would necessitate a redistribution of Congressional Districts before an analysis of the Electoral College could be done accurately.  However, the loss of two solidly blue states would likely push the new United States firmly in the direction of the Republican Party. 

Compromise/Conclusion

Secession by individual states is not an impossibility.  However, even if such a split could be achieved without violence, it is not clear that it would improve the lives of either those who left or those who remained.  Many concerns have been left out of this analysis including the status of borders, the impact on national defense, international relations, immigration, and trade.  

It would be far simpler, and likely far better for all if solutions could be found to the political problems which have led to the divisive politics that we’re currently experiencing.  As I have written before, it is not the desire to live as we wish so much as the desire to make others live as we wish that leads to much of the political strife we see today.  Reducing the power of the government to interfere in people’s lives would go a long way toward de-escalating the current situation.  It is unlikely, but something to strive for.  As Henry David Thoreau pointed out, “[t]hat government is best which governs least.”