Maybe America Should Just Divorce

California and New York (or Sodom and Gomorrah as they're called by their Christian names) are a different world from middle America, and it may be time for the barely united states to divorce over irreconcilable differences. This could be a good thing. I'll never forget the day a Bible belt woman told me that she didn't know where I could find a pub and wouldn't help me locate the devil's brew if she did. Okay, sorry I asked. Nor the night when a festival crowd in my native California glared at me as an irredeemable hater, because I softly declined a transgender's bullying insistence to dance. Unity isn't always desirable or possible.

Still, yesterday I witnessed a miracle of unity and love on CNN: Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Mitch McConnell acting like buds at the congressional baseball game. What produced this miraculous love-in? Nothing motivates congressmen to oppose partisan violence more than discovering they're the targets. Poor homies and rednecks are acceptable collateral damage. But a civil war that puts a bullet in a congressman's ass goes too far. (I would suggest we merely attach battery cables to their nipples until they get some work done.) That congressman is a valued spouse and parent, but so are most of the casualties in this escalating civil war that media and politicos consider a game.

Left and right wingers are brutally torturing enemy combatants. Obama forced farmers to fund the ghoulish dissections and body part auctions of Planned Parenthood. Trump expects hippies to accept his withdrawl from the Paris climate accord plus the end of the world they expect to follow.

Consider the dirty bombs set off in this dirty civil war. During the recent campaign, Republicans scored cheap points with underemployed workers by promising Mexico's unlikely and unnecessary funding for the border security wall. Since the election, Democrats have been attempting a coup by any means possible. First, there was nonstop media coverage of a Trump/Russia conspiracy they had no hard evidence for, combined with a conspiracy of silence among Washington insiders who knew it was mostly untrue. Then, there was illegal dishonorable leaking by the Comey cabal to force a special investigation that would at least disable the government till the next election.

Now, we see respectable lawyers (who yawn at protective custody deals for mafia hitmen snitches) spending fortunes of taxpayer money that won't go to schools for poor children or medicine for sick elders or defense against crazy jihadists to investigate whether Trump whispered that he hopes America won't devote its dwindling resources to prosecuting the emotionally-unstable war hero Flynn. Yeah, that's the big scandal now threatening America: a former casino and strip-joint mafioso showed some legally-inappropriate compassion for his veteran bud. I'm sure the righteous lawyers are as horrified as we all are.

As the wise historian said, "A great civilization is not conquered from without, until it has destroyed itself from within." If America wants bloodless coups, followed by bloody coups, followed by take-no-prisoners war, followed by collapse, long departed Romans and Mayans testify that we can surely have it. However, partitioning the coasts from the prairies (like India from Pakistan and Bangladesh) might avert a coming dark age of mutual destruction. If we can't make America great again, wouldn't a bitter divorce and moving on with our lives be better than beating each other to a pulp in front of the children?

I know my musings are odd and inappropriate, because I missed the meeting where God announced that America is his favorite and indivisible country. But should he ever unexplainably change his mind, it's something to think about. The only other option is for Americans to change their minds and the cycle of human history by truly respecting other folks' right to think, speak, and vote. That miracle would make the ancient Romans and Mayans stand up in their tombs and applaud.