Willie R. Tubbs, FISM News
[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″]
Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene says she was not suggesting the start of a second Civil War when she called for a “national divorce” on Twitter.
The well-known firebrand of the right found herself in the crosswinds of quite the storm Monday evening after tweeting, “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 done.”
Democrats arose in unison to decry Taylor Greene as stoking division, if not violence. A handful of centrist Republicans also joined the fray.
“Let’s review some of the governing principles of America, @mtgreenee,” former Wyoming Congresswoman Liz Cheney tweeted. “Our country is governed by the Constitution. You swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Secession is unconstitutional. No member of Congress should advocate secession, Marjorie.”
Let’s review some of the governing principles of America, @mtgreenee:
Our country is governed by the Constitution. You swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution.
Secession is unconstitutional. No member of Congress should advocate secession, Marjorie. https://t.co/XE3cQXYrnl— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) February 20, 2023
Taylor Greene responded Tuesday with a lengthy, though still incomplete, rationale for her original comments. The general spirit of the follow-up was that the idea was to preserve the union, but give substantially more power to individual states to create laws most agreeable to their citizenry.
This new system would result in states that would operate as affinity groups, with each allowed to generally do whatever it wanted in the areas of law enforcement, LGBT policy, commerce, elections, education, and more.
“Reducing the federal government would be easy because states would completely control things like education, trade and commerce, and communications to a much larger degree and the federal government to a much smaller degree,” Taylor Greene wrote. “We would immediately alleviate the need for departments like the Department of Education. States would have full control of their public education.
“Education would look different all over the country. In red states, there would be varying degrees of more traditional public education, charter schools, homeschooling, technical training, and college and universities. Red states would likely ban all gender lies and confusing theories, Drag Queen story times, and LGBTQ indoctrinating teachers, and China’s money and influence in our education while blue states could have government-controlled gender transition schools.”
We would immediately alleviate the need for departments like the Department of Education.
States would have full control of their public education.
Education would look different all over the country.
In red states, there would be varying degrees of more traditional public…
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) February 21, 2023
Defense, and maybe some form of a federal tax, seems to be the only thing the federal government would have left to do.
“Imagine if America decided to just go ahead and have a national divorce,” Taylor Greene concluded. “Hollywood elites and celebrities and all the brainwashed leftists women who watch the nasty women on the View, men who identify as women, and Democrat voters who suffer from the lifelong debilitating disease Trump Derangement Syndrome they caught from CNN wouldn’t have to see much less tolerate deplorables anymore.
“They could live in their safe space blue states, own nothing, let their government decide and control everything, and most importantly protect their fragile minds from being shocked and insulted by those of us on the right who believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Then Americans could choose which way, left or right, provides them with the best quality of life, and we don’t have to argue with one another anymore.”
Taylor Greene’s explanation was met with even more profound blowback than her initial remarks.
“Congresswoman Greene’s comments are sick, divisive, and alarming to hear from a member of the House Oversight and Homeland Security Committees,” The Daily Beast quoted White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson as saying.
HISTORY OF DIVISION
History and the Constitution are not on Taylor Greene’s side.
Among the issues for Taylor Greene is the fact that the last time the nation allowed as much power to the states as the Georgia congresswoman suggests, the country eventually fell into the Civil War.
The problem with populations who have a profound disagreement on a social issue is that they demand a resolution. History is replete with examples of times when agree-to-disagree policies failed. At best, such attempts delay conflict. Frequently, the division becomes all the more profound once the division becomes enshrined in geography.
Moreover, the congresswoman did not articulate how the Constitution would factor into the new system. She did not explain how the concepts of free movement, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. would be protected in the America she envisions.
She mentioned only that everyone would be free to live where they wanted, which itself is an incomplete thought as it presupposes everyone is equally able to move around the nation irrespective of trade, job opportunity, and financial considerations.
In reality, though, Taylor Greene need not expand or dig too deeply into an idea that is equal parts thought experiment and pipe dream.
One can safely write that none of this is ever going to happen and that Taylor Greene’s remarks are newsworthy for the excitement and angst they caused, not the policy they created or the future they predict.
Through this episode, Taylor Greene proved primarily that she still has the blend of brashness and unpolished talking points to simultaneously overjoy her supporters and upset her detractors. In other words, the firebrand did what a firebrand does.