Ed Kilgore is at least partly right-on with this, though the subject of partitioning is one that I have changed my mind on just a bit in the past few years. I don’t support it at this time, but neither do I think the concept should be simply ruled out forever. Kicking out the South wouldn’t work, as states can’t leave the Union (the Civil War kind of took care of this question) and there’s no mechanism to remove them under the Constitution. Partitioning the United States into four or five smaller republics would be a different story, since it would effectively mean the end of the current Madisonian system. I think it’s extreme and not really called for by the present circumstances, though my thinking on the matter has changed significantly over the past few years.

Essentially, here’s where I am: partitioning is, ultimately, the natural result of the sort of polarization that has gripped America for decades, but metastasized since the early ’00s. You can’t convince large groups of Americans that they can’t live with each other, drill this idea into their heads for years, and then expect them not to entertain actually deciding not to live with one another. And they don’t have to, ultimately. A partition would mark the end of America as a global power, and a lot of institutions would have some serious, um, refactoring to do were it to occur (like the U.S. military). Creating a handful of weaker states out of one larger and more powerful one doesn’t seem an optimal move to me or anyone else.

But by the same token, the idea that borders are destiny doesn’t really make much sense to me. The extent to which we’re a handful of different countries operating under the same flag is perhaps overstated but not without a germ of truth. I’m less hostile to the idea of some form of partition now because the argument I used to employ was that, if we were to do it, that would mean screwing over a lot of poor people in what are now Republican states, giving up on reproductive rights outside the blue states, and so on. That was my line circa 2010, when Rick Perry was talking about Texas maybe seceding from the Union if things got too bad. Now, though, that argument doesn’t hold, since that stuff is happening anyway on a state level, and in no way does it appear to be opposed to what the majority in many red states want. Making the argument that we should keep around a structure of government solely to prevent regions from doing what their citizens want them to do is not really in keeping with the basic principles of democracy. And personally, I will admit that the idea of a Western American Republic, including California, Oregon, Washington and maybe Nevada, where the political spectrum runs from Barbara Lee to Tom Campbell, is not an inherently awful idea to me. If a partition were to happen, my guess is that the traditionally Republican areas would struggle without the transfer payments they take for granted and an overreliance on resource extraction. I suspect the West would be even stronger if it could keep that transfer money there, and invest more in education and infrastructure. Add that to a very diverse economy, and it could really take off. It’s all theoretical, but I could see it happening. Especially if we got a new unitary government with no hint of any 2/3 rules.

Still, the time hasn’t really come to discuss this seriously, for the reasons I’ve said and one other major one: liberals might still win. The South is changing. Now, Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina are two-party states. Georgia is well on its way, and Texas might show signs of it in a few years or so. Possibly in other places too, after demographic trends run their course. I don’t take for granted that Democrats will be in ascendance, but the trends seem pretty reasonable to believe, even after all the junk of the past few years. Republicans have not yet been able to come up with an appealing new version of conservatism, which is why Mitt Romney says almost nothing about policy (except that Obama is always wrong, of course). That strategy might work in a moribund economy against a president who hasn’t entirely lived up to what was wanted of him, but it’s not going to work long-term. Losing is not a certainty is all I’m saying. In fact, it might not even be likely. But if it occurs, partition is going to look an awful lot more appealing, and it’s the people perpetrating the polarizing that have a lot more to lose from that proposition.

Though I do have a quibble with this:

To put it another way and in a very current context, I may well believe that Scott Walker wants to model Wisconsin’s public policies and economy on South Carolina’s, but that’s mainly because Scott Walker (and many other conservative politicians from far beyond Dixie) serve ideological and economic masters, and live in a moral universe, that may be prevalent in the South (though not without massive and continue resistance from many southerners) that is no more native to the South than Hollywood culture is native to southern California. Getting rid of the South, if that were somehow possible, will no more kill off right-wing politics and culture in other parts of the country than letting California drift off into the Pacific would destroy the worship of celebrities.

Putting aside the discussion of whether the Koch brothers are truly Southern conservatives, this baffles just a bit. Were the South to somehow leave the United States, the country would grow quite a bit less conservative because there would be fewer conservatives in it.  It wouldn’t be a liberal paradise by any means–Shelly Adelson would still be in it–but the basic logic of the idea is sound.