How Much Is Too Much? When Is It Time to Say "Enough"?

 

The aftermath of the November elections has raised questions about whether America is too broken to heal. 

Congressional Republicans have served notice that they're out to make America ungovernable again just as they did during the Obama administration. It'll be block everything, obstruct everything, the wellbeing of the nation and the American people be damned.

Senator Lindsey Graham vowed that his colleagues will block any nominee for attorney-general unless they get a pledge that the DoJ won't investigate or prosecute Donald Trump, his kin or his posse for crimes committed during his presidency.

This morning NPR reported on a survey that found about 60% of Americans, mainly Democrats and independents, believe Joe Biden won  the election. That leaves 40%, heavily Republican voters, who believe the election was stolen and that Trump actually won. Is this Trump's "poison pill"? Is he out to subvert Biden's administration even if it means making the US ungovernable?  Is he intent on sowing chaos?

As of yesterday, 106 House Republicans signed on to Trump's amicus brief asking the US Supreme Court to overturn the election and anoint Trump president. That means that half of all House Republicans endorse Trump's bid to overthrow the election and seize power.

Also yesterday, open-mouth radio host, Rush Limbaugh, floated the idea that perhaps it's time that Red State America seceded.

Limbaugh’s ambiguous flirtation with the idea may be his special contribution to conservative media’s rock-solid support of Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. 

“I actually think that we’re trending toward secession,” he said on Wednesday’s show. “I see more and more people asking what in the world do we have in common with the people who live in, say, New York? What is there that makes us believe that there is enough of us there to even have a chance at winning New York? Especially if you’re talking about votes.”

Limbaugh walked back the secession talk pretty quickly but, hey, maybe he's got a point. The idea was considered in Chuck Thompson's 2012 book, Better Off Without 'Em, a Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession. It's a fine, terrifically fun book and definitely worth a read. Washington Monthly described it "As if Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy were being narrated by Rolling Stones' Matt Taibbi. Chuck Thompson's "viciously funny and thoroughly tasteless" examination of Southern secession."

Thompson spent a year or two traveling the South talking to folks, black and white, ordinary Southerners and politicians, historians and economists. He explored the dichotomy that is today's USA. Two belief structures. Two economic visions. He chronicles how, in many ways, the divisions between Blue America and Red America that emerged in the aftermath of the Civil War really haven't healed.

Thompson argues that secession might be a win-win solution for a country that is really two nations that never quite fit. He explains how, by ending this forced marriage, both sides might be far happier, even more prosperous.

The author paints a rich picture of America as he found it in 2010. Nobody in 2010 could imagine the America of 2020 pried even further apart, perhaps to the breaking point, to suit the devilish purposes of that country's worst president ever. Yet here we are. Trump, and the Republican caucuses, in Washington and so many state capitols, have made their country almost ungovernable.

Maybe it's time.