What Americans Should NOT Do in the 'National Divorce' Debate

Americans may once again be sliding toward a period of great uncertainty, but that’s all the more reason to keep cool heads and stick to sound principles.

In 2021 actress and comedian Sarah Silverman gave a heart felt monologue explaining why it was perhaps time for the United States to just “break up.”

If folks “aren’t getting along,” the progressive Silverman observed, maybe people should go their separate ways. You can have a USA-1 and a USA-2 , she said, and was even gracious enough to say “they”—conservatives—could be USA-1.

Sarah Silverman @SarahKSilverman

Maybe we should break up.

More recently, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene waded into the debate.

Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 @mtgreenee

We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government. Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are… https://t.co/Azn8YF1UUy

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 @RepMTG

People saying national divorce is a bad idea because the left will never stop trying to control us literally make the case for national divorce. We don’t want a civil war. We’re not surrendering. We’re tired of complaining with no change and want to protect our way of life.

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s tweet, unsurprisingly, garnered a lot more media attention than Silverman’s—and almost all of it negative. (Including some very bizarre takes.)

The knee-jerk reaction is to attack people like MTG and Silverman for broaching this subject, but I believe that is the wrong approach.

I recently purchased Richard Kreitner’s 2020 book Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America’s Imperfect Union, a meticulously researched book that traces the history of unionism and separatism in America.

Kreitner’s political views are very different than mine—he writes at The Nation—but he makes it clear that arguments over sovereignty, secession, and separatism are as American as apple pie. Indeed, until the 20th century, there was rarely a period in history when Americans were not wrestling with these questions.

This brings me to my point. One can oppose “national divorce” on numerous grounds, but Americans should resist the impulse to scream “TREASON” at people who raise the issue of peaceful separation/independence (much better terms, in my opinion, than secession or “national divorce”).

It’s not treasonous for people to discuss peacefully exercising their natural right to form a new government. Thomas Jefferson, writing in the Declaration of Independence, makes it quite clear this is a right that belongs to the People.

And polls show a surprising percentage of Americans actually support the idea. Are they all traitors. Richard Kreitner certainly doesn’t think so; quite the opposite.

“I think questioning the value of the union is arguably the most patriotic thing we could do,” he said in a Slate interview.

Americans may once again be sliding toward a period of great uncertainty, but that’s all the more reason to keep cool heads and stick to sound principles.