We are in the midst of the first 100 days of a new presidency, and as usual that means sophistic journalists and politicians are sure to have one refrain always on their lips: unity!
Yes, it was a contentious election cycle, but what we really need is “unity.” We need to “come together,” and realize there is “more that binds us than separates us.” This and other such claptrap has been spilled ad infinitum from Washington and the New York press scene, but this time it seems different.
When the Obama Administration urged unity, for example, the opposition party bowed and scraped and offered the customary bipartisan civility, even while pugnaciously stymieing the President at every turn. When Trump ascended the Presidency, he didn’t even pretend to ask for unity. When Biden made the same siren-call on Jan. 20, put simply, nobody believed him. The words came out of his mouth, but like many old political formulas these days, they more and more resemble the empty prayers of schoolboys muttering the Pater Noster despite not knowing a word of Latin.
A recent article from USA Today on the subject of political unity was revealing in this respect. Joey Garrison writes:
Republicans want concessions from the president. The White House and the president’s allies have countered, saying unity isn’t measured by finding complete agreement in Congress but instead in civility and working for all Americans, not just speaking to a political base.
In other words, “unity” means passing my agenda, Jack. We’re all united, you see, in doing what I want.
In his first few days in office, President Biden made sweeping changes to government policy on issues as broadly divergent as climate change, immigration, energy, and LGBT issues. On none of these issues is there broad-based, bipartisan consensus, so we are led to believe that whatever unity is, it certainly seems to be something millions of Americans shouldn’t be in favor of, because it cuts precisely counter to their stated interests and goals.
Even if unity means something vague like “feeling a sense of national belonging,” that, increasingly doesn’t exist. Red and blue Americans, whatever else they believe, belong to two mental Americas. One is a pioneer nation built on a fusion of traditional Christian and Enlightenment ideals, the other is a nation of oppressed masses slowly following the “moral arc of the universe” towards ultimate triumph. One is the nation of Valley Forge and the Oregon Trail and the other is the nation of Selma and Stonewall, to put it a different way.
I like to think that I’m more honest. Rather than making vain prayers to democracy, or whatever god it is we worship in our “sacred” Capitol these days, I merely ask that we reach some kind of acceptable arrangement of separation before we kill one another. That doesn’t necessarily mean breaking up the country, it could also take the form of a new, muscular federalism. I think that’s the kind of unity Americans can get behind—have your core values, beliefs, and political views, but let me have mine and let me have them as far away from you as possible. There is nothing magic about living within the arbitrary lines on maps that suddenly makes being “united” with someone my sacred duty.
A lot of people these days have the appetite for secession, but that’s probably going nowhere quick—the last time someone tried it, it didn’t go well for them or anyone else involved. Even though threats of secession are usually associated with conservatives and ethnonationalist types, increasingly even progressives are getting behind the idea of breaking up the Union. That was the idea behind Richard Kreitner’s recent book on the subject: Break it Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union. (Side-note, just reading that title in my head puts me out of breath). In an interview with The Nation, a progressive outlet, Kreitner explained that many progressive social causes could be furthered by breaking up the Union. In his interview, Kreitner had this to say after witnessing a protest against police brutality:
It did strike me at that moment that maybe the union is our enemy. We have this idea—this fantasy, it seems sometimes—that federal power is always going to be on our side. And I think that’s kind of an inheritance from Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that the federal government is on the side of civil rights. But I’m not so sure.
He continues, talking about secession for progressive reasons:
The idea is kind of predicated on the hypothesis that maybe collectivism and working together is more possible and more feasible at a smaller scale than a national one. My first choice would be to have an effective national government, a strong united country. I would abolish the Senate, and I would have a constitutional convention. That not being likely, or should it turn out in 10 to 20 years to not be possible, then I think we need to radically reconsider whether a different federal arrangement, a different framework for our politics than arguing over everything in Washington, D.C., might revive democracy and make collective action more possible, at least in some places.
So, seeing that the People’s Republic of America isn’t going to materialize anytime soon, Kreitner, just like many conservatives, is climbing aboard the secession train, with more serious proposals than at any time since 1861.
Despite the enthusiasm, there are serious reasons why secession is hard to pull off. For one, infrastructure networks, not just of roads but also electricity and water, routinely cross state lines. Part of America’s economic power, likewise, is having a coast-to-coast free-trade zone from the Atlantic to the Pacific and a strong federal government that can print mountains of stimulus cash which is, by the way, an international reserve currency. Economically vibrant blue states that increasingly control the purse of the nation due to the hollowing out and consolidation of American manufacturing and agricultural industries depend on red states to furnish recruits for the Army to go traipsing around in the desert for human rights or whatever makes the Washington establishment feel good. Meanwhile, those red states rely on blue tax dollars to have functioning economies and not look like the developing world. Oh yeah, and there’s that bit about the nuclear missiles. Does Missouri get to keep those intercontinental weapons of mass destruction?
So, as with everything else in America, the calls for unity are going to keep coming in increasingly half-hearted, hollow, and obviously self-serving fashion. Different factions of the country are going to become increasingly upset that the federal government is using their cartoon-sized hammer to beat them up instead of their opponents. And, we’ll all just continue to want nothing to do with one another despite not being able to come to an amicable separation. I don’t believe in no-fault divorce, but I think in the case of the two warring Americas, the judge should make an exception.
Image Credit / TheElectionof1860.com
