It’s Not a “National Divorce.” It’s a Call for One-Party Authoritarian Rule.

She continued, “What I think would be something that some red states could propose is: Well, OK, if Democrat voters choose to flee these blue states where they cannot tolerate the living conditions, they don’t want their children taught these horrible things, and they really change their mind on the types of policies that they support, well once they move to a red state, guess what, maybe you don’t get to vote for five years. You can live there, and you can work there, but you don’t get to bring your values that you basically created in the blue states you came from by voting for Democrat leaders and Democrat policies.”

“National divorce,” in other words, is a call for one-party rule. Its proponents hope to abandon all those pesky democratic processes and practices so they can simply impose their policy agenda upon Americans by fiat. Never mind that the states aren’t homogenous, with plenty of Democrats living in the red states and plenty of Republicans living in the blue states. Never mind that the idea of “red states” and “blue states” itself is vague and malleable, as Greene’s own state of Georgia has shown in the last few election cycles.

The idea of breaking apart this country over pronouns or climate change regulations is nonsense. It should not be taken seriously. But Greene’s underlying idea—that all our perceived national problems would go away if we stopped trying to resolve our differences through elections and the democratic process—can’t be ignored. It demonstrates a dangerous and malignant view of politics in this country, one that has led to bloodshed and madness everywhere else it has been tried. The American republic doesn’t exist to make dreams come true, but to prevent nightmares from becoming reality.