It’s no secret that the Republican Party has been reshaped by former President Donald Trump, even as the time since his victory in the 2016 Presidential Election approaches a decade ago. His current plans are similarly clear, having launched his 2024 bid for the presidency. One of the most important steps in this endeavor is to secure an effective running mate.
Given that Mike Pence, his former vice president, has gone on record saying he thinks the party will be able to produce better candidates than Donald Trump (potentially himself), the question of Trump’s choice looms large. While there’s no shortage of politicians, only a few stand out as viable candidates for Trump’s 2024 campaign. Near the top of that comparatively shorter list stands Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Her ideas and policies are conservative in nature, which is to be expected from a member of the Republican Party. However, she has demonstrated herself as one of the more extreme and attention-grabbing figures in politics. Last Monday, Feb. 20th, she announced, “We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states…”
The question of secession has always loomed over the U.S. The Civil War demonstrated this clearly, but recently the idea has gained traction as political discord escalates. Texas, the lone star state, is well known for its fairly open desire to become an independent republic, and California, as recently as its 2021 ballet, heavily considered having the state’s citizens vote for secession.
Clearly, neither of those states have succeeded in secession, and are still a part of the union. After all, the U.S. Constitution does not provide for secession in the first place. Bearing this in mind, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bold statement is likely a publicity stunt aimed to appease a MAGA base concerned with culture war rhetoric that runs rife in the Republican party.
Political polarization has been growing rapidly since the 1980s, and in 2014, over a third of the Republican party saw the Democratic party as a threat to the nation’s well being and nearly thirty percent of the Democratic party viewed the Republican party as a threat. Since 2014 that number has not only gone up but surpassed international trends, demonstrating fragmentation on both sides of the political spectrum.
The growing extremism in American politics has brought about a larger divide than ever before. So Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claim that it’s time for us to separate the two and undergo a “national divorce” has more credence to it than one initially would expect, especially considering that she’s one of the most popular Republican congressional figures as of right now and a potential Vice-Presidential candidate for Trump’s 2024 presidential bid.
Any claims about the union of the U.S. weakening are alarming, and Greene’s claim has dealt with appropriate backlash from either side of the political spectrum. In this day and age, as research shows, there’s more reason to believe the U.S. might be approaching a genuine political divorce of the nation than there has been in decades. In the midst of a lack of understanding on either side, Greene’s call for such bold action stands as a scary possibility that feels all too realistic.
In a way, this extremist claim perpetuated by one of the Republican Party’s most prominent figures has actually brought the remaining members of the two parties together in criticism of her claim. However, even with the solace that comes with backlash to the idea of our political parties separating, the fact Greene voiced this concern at all shows a prominent and scary sense of divide among the leading forces of the United States.
