libertarianhawk | Against National Divorce

(This is recycling some stuff I wrote on twitter. I figure I'll archive it here, and bring some other rants over. There's a few posts I want to make here, but my writing energy is going into fiction these days.)

A writer responded to the political craziness with, "National Divorce, folks. Now more than ever."

I disagree. If I thought the Red and Blue Tribes were actual immutable solid groups, this would tempt me. But the split is a symptom of other forces driving it.

First past the post voting drives partisans to declare their rivals evil to boost turnout/activism/fundraising.

Centralizing the state raises the stakes of every election.

Atomizing families/churches/communities makes political parties the default identity.

Social media is a force multiplier to all of that. Find the single worst person in the other faction, tell everyone you know he's proof that you have to do whatever it takes to win. When someone believes you and goes too far, the other side has a new worst person to point to.

Divorce the two parties and they'll each split into two sub-coalitions to fight over power in the new state.
That fight's not even going to have the inertia of "secession will mean a horrible civil war" to hold the sides together.

Split the USA and you won't get the Balkanization seen in Heinlein's Friday. You'll get Stephenson's Snow Crash, where every hundred-house subdivision is its own sovereign entity.

And that's the best case, because it means no one set off a nuke.

I don't see any obvious fixes.

The one idea I see worth trying is breaking up the social media sites into small enough fragments that outrage mobs can't "go viral". Up the friction of spreading memes.

Sure, we could lower the stakes in the political battles by reducing the power and scope of the federal government . . . but I've been voting libertarian for decades without that happening. Doesn't seem a practical plan.

Switching from first past the post to proportional representation would lower the temperature. If two parties attack each other viciously, voters would ditch them for other parties. We'd need a consensus for restructuring the Constitution. We don't have one for anything.

I never went to football games until my daughter joined HS marching band. Attending some games made me understand why the national anthem was played at the beginning: "Before we fight hard against each other, remember we're on the same team at top level."

This country has done great things working together. I'd hate to give all of that up for infighting.