NOW THEY WANT A DIVORCE!
By Edwin Cooney

It’s taken me awhile to know exactly how to respond to an email a dear friend and reader sent to me a couple of months ago. It appears that many people on the political right in this country want a divorce—a friendly divorce, of course.

It’s my experience that those who call for partings, especially political or romantic, always insist that they “…want to be friends, after all.” Of course, the painful aspect of separation invariably defies the main element of friendship which is mutually comfortable and supportive association.

What this email conveys is that many Conservatives have had enough. They suggest that we can equally divide the American landmass. They’ll take the flag, our national anthem, oil, cops, guns, doctors, trickle-down economics, the Bible and the Constitution.

Liberals can have taxes and redistributive economics, the United Nations, Barbra Streisand, universal healthcare, and a “nicey nice” foreign policy. Liberals can replace “The Star Spangled Banner” with “Imagine” or “Kumbayah.”

The author of this proposal does admit that the land divide would be the most difficult aspect of our divorce, so to that end he stops being specific. I’m not sure whether these people would force low income citizens who count on Social Security to move to the Liberal part of the divide or whether they would recognize the power and depth of relationships that aren’t primarily political or economic. They don’t say whether every person who remains in the America they would govern would have to march in lockstep with their socio/economic and religious/cultural mores. The point is, they want out. They don’t want to pay taxes to educate, house, feed or care for those who possess less than they do. However, they’ll insist that they love Jesus as long as we don’t institutionalize Jesus’ insistence that we love our neighbors as ourselves.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Americans have wanted to separate from one another. The first time was during the War of 1812 when New England Federalists no longer wanted to pay for and suffer from James Madison’s war that was stifling trade and profit throughout Federalist New England. As a result, they called the Hartford Convention of December 1814 which ultimately rejected separation or secession.

Then, of course, there was the Civil War when slave holders insisted that if they couldn’t hold on to enough political power to protect slavery, they’d create a separate society for slavery’s perpetuation.

What’s puzzling to me is that this cry for divorce is counter to the family values that Conservatives insist they believe in – even more than Liberals or “secular humanists.” Since divorce is mainstream these days and useful to men and women of all political doctrines and to most religious and cultural faiths, it is now as legitimate as chattel slavery was in the antebellum South.

What it appears to boil down to is that anything right-wingers or Tea Partiers are uncomfortable with is immoral. Hence, where divorce was once in itself immoral, it is now a sad but nevertheless legitimate way out. Never mind what scripture dictates: it’s okay. We just won’t talk about it.

After much consideration, granting that our clashing ideas and ideals are exceedingly uncomfortable, I deny the legitimacy of this proposed American divorce.

First, I don’t love anyone because they’re perfect, not even political Conservatives (vital as they are in a free society). Second, I don’t regard patriotism as the sole responsibility of soldiers. If it’s patriotic to ask young men and women to die on foreign battlefields, why isn’t it just as patriotic to ask powerful and articulate Americans to be patient and work with each other? Finally, no relationship is always comfortable, although the first priority of each of us in every type of relationship should be to maximize each other’s comfort and wellbeing.

The culture war through which we’ve been passing since the mid 1970s has created a set of professionals, many of them both entertaining and persuasive, who profit from making us angry at one another. I am referring to talk show hosts, political doctrinarians, and politicians of all stripes and types. We are thus institutionalizing disunity rather than fostering commonality.

Thirty years ago when Americans elected President Reagan, every fiber in my being resisted the political ideas and ideals of that man. Nevertheless, there remained in me the realization that I might be overlooking something very useful in his service. Perhaps he’d do something that I could accept if I’d only give him a fair chance to impress me. Ultimately, I had to grant that his leadership was significant enough to bring about the end of the cold war. Although I believe his role has often been overstated, the fact that he played a significant part in bringing this happy event about is undeniable. Ronald Reagan, a man with whom I’ve never been comfortable, is the same man in retrospect I must salute.

The very idea of a “friendly” political divorce, traditionally American as it is, must be denied as unrealistic and outrageously unpatriotic.

Besides, how can I divorce my brother and my sister and the obligation we both have to make tomorrow better than today?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY