Written by Arthur Bell   

What if Abraham Lincoln were wrong? What if keeping the Union together was absolutely the wrong thing to have done? Given our current bi-polar state of affairs in this country – with lines drawn in the red and blue sand -- one might very well make the argument that Lincoln’s war didn’t succeed at all and, in fact, never ended. Perhaps all he did was to extend an uneasy peace out 150 years. If one looks at the political climate these days it is so similar to pre-Civil War Washington. Not only because of the contentiousness, the refusal to budge or compromise, but mainly because the battle lines are drawn over the exact same argument as they were in the 1860s: states’ rights. While we often think of the Civil War as being fought over the emancipation of the slaves this was not the case. What the Confederate States believed to their very core (indeed, to the death) was that the federal government had no right, no jurisdiction to tell them what to do with their slaves or most anything else. So, a bloody civil war, victory, reconstruction, 100 years of de facto slavery in the form of Jim Crow and we find ourselves still at each others' throats about states’ rights – up to and including the recent Supreme Court case regarding “Obamacare.”

Clearly the Tea Party/Conservatives/Republicans are largely about what the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to tell us to do. And the Occupy Wall St./Progressives/Democrats are largely about what the federal government should be allowed to tell us to do. Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Voting Rights, affirmative action, pollution controls (EPA), financial controls (SEC), labor controls (Dept. of Labor), OSHA, FEMA, DOE – these are all instances of the federal government either helping us or hurting us depending on which side of the aisle your chair resides. Conservative guru Grover Norquist makes his intentions perfectly clear – “ a federal government so small we can flush it down the toilet.” MoveOn.org makes its own stance perfectly clear – government provides a social safety net and protects us from the tyranny of big business. So don’t get caught up in the particulars, the big picture is that we’re still fighting the Civil War and it’s over the rights of the states. This is what has Conservatives so howlingly mad about Obama’s health care plan. They see it as one more massive intrusion of the federal government into the states’ realm. No one screamed or shouted or launched a “Tea Party” when Mitt Romney enacted the proto-type “Romney-care” in Massachusetts. The recent arguments in the Supreme Court were in essence federal vs. states’ rights. (Of course, Romney is now being skewered by his own party for his state’s very successful health care system, but that’s just political theater. We all know now “Romney-care” was designed by the Republicans in the first place.) So, let us be clear, the red/blue battle lines are fundamentally over a state’s right to determine how to conduct its affairs. Roe v. Wade is not about abortion being legal or illegal it is about whether the federal or the state government gets to decide the matter.

Clearly we have a deep, deep divide in this country, possibly a fatal divide, as deep a divide as the one that lead to the Civil War. Read the comments posted below the blogs -- red or blue, they are dripping with vitriol. Have we reached a place beyond compromise? What could possibly heal our national division at this point? It seemed Obama’s election might bring about “change.” In fact, the divide got worse instead of better. Would electing Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich suddenly bring the Left and Right together in harmony? What about Congress? How to compromise with a Mitch McConnell when he says the “single most important thing” is to make Obama a one-term president? Democrats will fight to the death over Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Over and again one hears from the Right the words “war,” battle” or Sarah Palin’s morbidly foreshadowing “crosshairs” or “reload.” If we bring Republican majorities to both houses next year will that somehow make the Occupiers go away? If Democrats regain both houses will the Tea Party agree to sit at the table and talk constructively? Is there any solution to our divided house just waiting to be tried out? “If we could just (insert idea here), everything would be forgiven and both sides would meet in the middle.” What would fill in that blank? To be realistic, nothing has filled in that blank since the succession of the Confederates in 1860.

All we need is an explosive event to touch off the powder keg. On the one had we have Tea Partiers bringing guns to town hall meetings on the other we have Occupy Wall Streeters getting pepper sprayed by Bloomberg’s cops. Certainly the first shots have already been fired – at Congresswoman Giffords and abortion doctors, in the rise of domestic terrorism incidents in recent years. We are clearly in danger of some flashpoint issue – the re-election of Obama, the default of the government, a real and sustained economic depression, another terrorist attack, the Wall Street Occupiers setting off violent confrontation on a large scale, an attempt on Obama’s life by a Tea-Partier -- re-igniting a Civil War in the United States.

We should not wait for this to happen. It may sound like heresy but at least give it a listen. Step back from the knee-jerk patriotism of “My Country ‘Tis Of Thee,” from entrenched, unquestioned ideals, and imagine if you can the two United States of America going their separate ways. Scoff if you must, roll your eyes, but at least treat it as a thought exercise. Why couldn’t the Red and the Blue part company? Isn’t it better to go our separate ways rather than kill off our brothers and cousins in a re-play of the deadliest war we’ve ever fought. What did that first war accomplish anyway when we still have states that fly the Confederate flag? Even if the idea of fighting an actual civil war seems far-fetched this country can be (and possible is) being destroyed by the battles in the halls of legislatures across the country as well as in Washington. In Viet Nam we learned you cannot win a war of occupation. We have yet to learn that lesson in the southern United States.

Let’s assume we put a plan of mutually agreed separation into action. What would this divide look like? If peaceful heads could prevail we could think of it as a divorce. It could be done in the form of a state-by-state referendum. These would be straight-out popular referendums – not by gerrymandered legislative districts. The question put before the people: “Should my state join Blue America or Red America?” (Of course we could come up with more impressive sounding names.) The geographic partitioning of Red and Blue America would largely take care of itself. One only need glance at a map of red and blue states to see, unsurprisingly, a pretty clear geographic divide already exists.


(Average margins of victory in the five presidential elections between 1992 and 2008. reprint from Wikipedia -- "Red States Blue States")


At a glance we see a contiguous Blue Nation from the mid-Atlantic up to New England across to Minnesota, excepting Indiana. Further, the West Coast is also Blue, while most of the rest of the country goes Red, except for Florida and Colorado. To maintain geographic continuity Indiana would have to be traded for Florida. But what about the West Coast? Two possibilities: Alaska (Red) and Hawaii (Blue) are not contiguous with the United States so in the same manner the West Coast might not be attached to the East Coast. Or, North Dakota, Montana and a sliver of Idaho are traded for Colorado and possibly Nevada or New Mexico. So, with only a small amount of tweaking, the map works itself out pretty easily.

But more important than geography, what would be the relationship between these two new neighbors? The smartest thing to do would be to stay on speaking terms, keep trade as open as possible, separate currencies, of course, but the two nations should sign a free trade agreement as Canada and the U.S. have already done. The borders should be open, again like Canada, so travel between the countries would be open and easy.

But the most important question would be the political divide. In voting Red or Blue what would a state’s population be signing on to? Finally, it is the political philosophy, the role the government and a way of life that voters would be choosing. For that we have to parse what a nation led by the ideals of the Right would look like and what a nation led by the Left would look like. The analysis needs to be fair and take at face value the claims by either side that they are “correct” in their way of seeing things. While there are many nuances in the politics of Red and Blue, this imagining looks at the dominant trends or aspirations at work in 2011-2012. Any contradictions are inherent in each side’s political dogma.

Coming Next: Civil War 2.0 (The "Civil" Civil War) Part II
"The United States of Red America"