Any observer or participant in the American political scene will see a country fracturing along political lines. The political cohesion of the country is rapidly deteriorating, as the center of the political landscape shrinks and common ground evaporates, Americans find themselves aligning with two different incompatible versions of the country. 

On one side is the idea that America should be radically transformed and altered to create a society striving for economic equality through government action and the mandating of absolute social freedom. A society where high taxes are imposed to fund a large federal bureaucracy, where abortion is protected to the absolute, where millions pour over our border unimpeded to access American opportunity, where the importance of traditional morality is abandoned and ostracized for the sake of complete social freedom. While there are many exceptions among the masses, this is the prevailing view of modern American liberalism and the Democratic party. These ideals have consolidated power in the urban and coastal Democratic blue states, standing as a unified progressive political force. 

Standing across the aisle in direct opposition to this way of thinking is Conservatism and, at least theoretically, the Republican party. The idea of the true conservative is that wisdom and vision of the founding fathers and the society they built are to be preserved and guarded closely. Their society entails one of economic liberty, reverence of God, and the prevailing western culture. People adhering to this worldview have consolidated the rural and inland Republican red states.

I feel the need to describe these differences because many Americans fail to grasp how wholly incompatible these visions for America are, lighting the discussion for a “national divorce” and division of America down party lines. Republican Representative from the state of Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Green, wrote in a tweet supporting the idea of division of the country between Republicans and Democrats. She says “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government”.

In 1858, on the eve of the Civil War, then-candidate for the United States Senate Abraham Lincoln gave a speech before the Illinois Republican National Convention. This was the House Divided speech, a 165-year-old piece of American history whose message rings relevant to the discussion of today. In this speech, Lincoln stresses the unmendable differences between the southern slave states and the northern free states. He states “this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free”. I believe the modern American dilemma is similar to the slavery debate. Two fundamentally different ideologies and worldviews split our union in two, leading to the greatest crisis and darkest hours in American history. 

As I described in my opening, Liberalism, and Conservatism are two fundamentally different and incompatible ideologies. They represent the clash between change and tradition that has persisted throughout the history of mankind. Of course, I do recognize that there is much greater nuance in the Liberal vs Conservative argument than in freedom vs slavery, however, I still stand behind my point. I believe that our country has been placed in a difficult spot and the survival of the union may be in jeopardy. The political insanity espoused by Marjorie Taylor Greene may become a grim reality if we do not reconcile our differences and come to recognize each other as fellow Americans. 

If our country is to continue through its great and prized history, we must understand each other and converse with the other side. While I strongly disagree with my Liberal friends and family, they are my fellow Americans and members of the greater American family. Yes, our country will have to fall to the dominance of either Conservatism or Liberalism. However,  the unification of the country can come through compassion and understanding of the other side. Conservatism taking this strategy of reconciliation may be difficult but it is preferable to the disbanding of our union. When politics comes up anywhere in life, encourage debate and discussion, listen to the other side, and try to fully gain an understanding of the argument before trying to refute it. I do not advocate for concession but we must show empathy for the preservation of the eternal union of this great nation. 

Mitt Romney says Marjorie Taylor Greene’s call for a ‘national divorce’ is ‘insanity’ and attention-seeking

Mondschein, Ken. “‘A House Divided.’” The U.S. Constitution and Other Writings, Canterbury Classics, San Diego, CA, 2017, pp. 201–201. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene