How a “National Divorce” Could Actually Unite Americans

“Far from giving up on the American project, national divorce aims to renew and deepen our ability to live in harmony together.”

This Presidents’ Day, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took an issue that has long been at the fringes of American politics and brought it to the center of our discourse: national divorce. Her tweet exploded with over 33 million views and earned primetime discussion across cable news. The negative response was swift. Utah’s Republican Governor, Spencer Cox, called the idea “evil,” while other prominent Democrats and Republicans explicitly conflated this idea with civil war.

National divorce has entered the American conversation amid an era of increasing division, so it is unsurprising that it was introduced by one of the United States’ most polarizing political figures. But even though many people view the prospect of national divorce as being rooted in hostility and alienation, this is a fundamental misunderstanding. Far from giving up on the American project, national divorce aims to renew and deepen our ability to live in harmony together.

The American system of representative democracy sought to take the raw power that had defined governments throughout history and force it to respond to the will of its constituents. Rather than needing violent revolution to replace a government, our conflicts could be addressed through peaceful electoral processes. This was a landmark improvement, but the new American system still left largely unresolved the issue that drives all political struggles (violent or electoral): the desire to use political power to control others.