Splitsville OUT OF MANY, ONE. OUT OF ONE, TWO

First in a new series of newsletters

So.

For a year, now, what we’ve meant by “Splitsville” is, as depicted in The Split, the (peaceful) separation of the red states from the blue, resulting in two distinct countries: The Confederation of Conservative States of America (CCSA), and the USA. The CCSA is, as we describe it, a freaking nightmare, i.e., a nation dedicated to right-wing “conservative” values: minimal governmental regulation and oversight of capital; drastically limited taxation and the consequent absence of social services and the starvation of the public sphere; flaunted Christianity; the widespread hypocritical violation of those “Christian” principles; disdain for intelligence, education, and expertise; th—

What? You know all this shit? Okay. Let’s move on.

 It’s not that “we all live in the CCSA” now. It’s that if Trump, and his Army of E-vil, completely have their way, eventually we’ll all live in the CCSA. Note that this does not mean, “languishing in an oppressed nation run by a steely-eyed, ruthlessly efficient fascist machine.” Nothing Trump does is ruthlessly efficient. He’s greedy and shameless, yes. But that’s just a description of his personality. In action—in the transition from wanting something to attaining it—he’s a big fat dumbbell, too lazy to apply himself, too insecure to defer to experts, too narcissistic to know his own limitations. Why else would he have had to cheat at literally everything he’s ever tried?

Oh, and he’s mentally deteriorating and getting worse.

Meanwhile, the people he hires, and will hire, are chosen not for their ability, but for their craven loyalty. Indeed, like all mediocrities, they owe their success to kissing ass more than to talent and accomplishment. (Some of whom he picked for his first administration proved to be competent and to possess self-respect, and consequently were, when they objected to one or another of his grotesque orders, fired. He’ll never make that mistake again.)

The result, during his first term, was a shit show. From the Bizarro-world foreign policy to the willfully stupid mis-handling of covid to the deaths and mayhem of January 6^th, from his fealty to Putin (“Puppet! Puppet! He’s the puppet!”) to the clockwork-regular inability to build a big, beautiful wall (and get usted-sabe-quien to pay for it) or replace the ACA or make Infrastructure Week anything but a punchline, Trump 1.0 was a miserable combination of tragedy and farce.

Terrible. Embarrassing. Enraging.  Morally repugnant. And yet! Could all this possibly constitute good news? Might Trump 2.0 unfold amid similar levels of hubris, ignorance, ineptitude, and opera-buffa clownishness?

Maybe.

Granted, what they have planned is monstrous, and is guaranteed to result in the deaths of innocents, sabotage to the economy, a disaster for the environment, catastrophe to women’s reproductive rights, a repellent incursion of Christianity into secular society, a widespread tolerance of racism and anti-Semitism, and an absolutely nauseating spectacle of rapacity and greed.

Still: Despite Musk, despite Vance, despite Bannon, despite all the other plug-uglies and strutting Nazis and dime-store Bond villains around him, might Trump’s very character (or lack thereof) offer some hope for America?

Well, that depends on what we mean by “America.” And that brings us to Splitsville.

In our previous 36 newsletters, entitled “The Road to Splitsville,” we chronicled the real-life events that maybe—just maybe!!!—could have presaged a Split-like split. Readers were presumably quick to note one thing: All these proto-split events (the laws passed; the speeches made; the campaigns mounted) came from the right. It was the red states’ misogynists, racists, religious loons, and choads that, whining self-pityingly under the jackboot (or, really, the fuzzy bedroom slipper) of the Biden administration, fantasized about going into business for themselves.

 Well, now they’ve won. There’s no need for them to go anywhere. The dog, as many have said, has caught the car. All mention of leaving is done by liberals checking their passports and asking about Canada. Some tiny fraction will go but most will remain. And the US will find itself, not en route to a formal Split, but actually embodying our new definition of Splitsville.

Which is to say, two countries within one geo-political entity. The people saying that Trump and his cohort are fascists, aren’t wrong. But the US is not Hungary, or Russia, or Chile, or Brazil, or Italy, or Spain.  The US was invented to be, by definition, a democracy. Sinclair Lewis may have predicted how fascism would arrive in the US (wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross), but he may have overestimated the warmth of the reception it would get once it made its presence known. Many of the honest, upright, decent idiots who voted for Trump might find themselves offended and repulsed by what the Strongman (whom we propose referring to as The Fatman, or maybe The Weakman) and his loathsome cronies do.

Or what they attempt to do—because, again, Trump is not surrounding himself with the good and the bright, let alone the best and the brightest.  His cabinet nominees could have come from the front page of The Onion. Matt Gaetz as A.G.! Tulsi Gabbard at the CIA! Pete (who?) Hegseth at D.O.D.! There is no need for Trump (and the Iago-like Vance) to fire thousands of career civil servants and replace them with unutterably incompetent loyalists. The staffs of these departments will be too busy rolling on the floor, laughing, at their new bosses, to get much done anyway.

Nonetheless, a lot of this won’t be funny. There will be ample corruption, injustice, racism, violence, and flouting of the most basic kind of decency. But if half the country is bad or stupid, the other half is good and intelligent. Put them altogether, they spell SPLITSVILLE.

Ever since the founding, a common—if not the predominant—view is that we have been and are one country, E Pluribus Unum-style. But ever since the Civil War (which some are saying has never ended), that idea has suffered a blow to its credibility. And now look: “We” have elected an aspiring fascist dictator, supported by a completely debased Republican Party and an openly corrupt Supreme Court. Whether or not we always have been two countries occupying the same space, we are now. What’s new is the perception. What’s new is that now we know it.

That—the clash of these two entities—is what we’ll be writing about next.