Splitsville US VS. THEM = US VS. GOP

The Old-Before-Its-Time Newsletter for Subscribers to THE SPLIT

Like you, we didn’t watch Trump’s State of the Union address (assuming you didn’t watch it; condolences if you did), not so much because we don’t like being lied to for 90 minutes (we can stand it if they’re flattering or flirtatious lies), but because we can’t stomach having to look at the smug, baby-smooth puss of pious Christian hypocrite Mike Johnson for longer than a few seconds. If that. And don’t get us started on JD “Juvenile Delinquent” Vance, whom some clever guy online referred to as “Divans.”

Besides, we thought of something much more pleasant to do. We obtained a pair of ball peen hammers, and hit each other over the head with them until we passed out. And that ended up providing us not only with a satisfying alternative to enduring 90 minutes of you-know-who, but with a sudden lightning bolt of inspiration. Maybe it was the relatively unusual circumstance of having our brains beaten in, but both of us, just before collapsing into unconsciousness, had the same realization, which we here present as the ultimate example (at least thus far) of Splitsville.

For thirteen weeks, now, we’ve explored various ways of describing the US as a country—a single geo-political entity—occupied by two entirely different nations. We’ve reviewed such durable dichotomies as sane/nuts, smart/stupid, rational-scientific/deluded-superstitious, and so on. And while those are all well and good, they all betray a bias toward the psychological, because we’re a couple of basically psychologically-oriented guys, living and loving psychologically and bashing our psychological skulls in with hammers.

But there’s another dimension to the Splitsvillification of America, something more fundamental—and more fundamentally American—than those brainiac binaries.

America now consists of Americans and traitors.

Hold your applause until the end. To understand why we say this, it’s necessary to review various things Trump has said and done during the six years weeks he has been in office. In no particular order, he:

· Claimed that Ukraine invaded Russia

· Called Vlodymyr Zelenskyy (sp?) a “dictator”

· Ambushed and attacked Zelenskyy in “the Oval,” and insisted Ukraine cede its rare earth minerals to the US

· Defended and expressed sympathy for Putin. (“Putin has been through a hell of a lot with me,” he said—not meaning, “I have made life hell for Putin,” but that poor Putin had been made to suffer because Trump’s enemies accused Putin very unfairly! Of bad things like nobody’s ever been accused of! Instead of Hunter Biden and Adam Schiff, who are the actual bad people!)

· Fantasized about pulling the US out of NATO

· Instituted a ruinous and stupid set of tariffs against Canada and Mexico, alienating our two geographically (and economically) closest allies

· Criticized, offended, and attacked the EU

· Voted with Russia, North Korea, and other plug-ugly countries against a UN resolution condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine

· Unleashed ketamine-krazy Elon Musk and a gang of youthful Dunning-Kruger hoodlums to take a sledge hammer to the US government

· Held “peace talks” about the future of Ukraine with Russian diplomats but not one person from Ukraine

Want more? Go here.

It is impossible, even for a person suffering brain damage from repeated beatings with a hammer not to conclude that Donald Trump is doing everything he can think of to please Vladimir Putin, if not actually doing Putin’s explicit bidding. Yeah, we know—we talked about this sort of thing last week. But that was about whether or not Trump was, and has been since the 1980’s, a Russian asset, wittingly or -un. Its debate focused on his behavior in the past. This is different.

This is about things Trump is doing now, in the open, for all to see. And the thing all are seeing is America’s president working to subvert and destroy our alliances, betray our commitment to democracy and advance the cause of a kleptocratic authoritarian state, incinerate our government, hobble our economy, defend and cosset our enemies, and render the US an untrustworthy, suspect international “partner” for a generation. It is, in short, selling us out and handing us over to Putin and Russia—our (and our allies’) enemy since the end of World War II.

What is that, if not treason?

And—to wax Trumpian for a moment—“a lot of people” are fine with it. Like who? Like the entire Republican Party, for starters. And the people who support the Republican Party.

This leaves us with, as we said, the ur-Splitsvillist dichotomy, the ultimate Us-Versus-Them, the One Binary to Rule Them All. In the US today, you are either an American or a traitor.

Too rash? Too reductive? Too glib? Well, wait. We’re not saying these two groups are of roughly equal size, and that “everybody who voted for Trump is a traitor.” The good news is that the number of Americans living in the US is far larger than the number of traitors.

Not only are Democrats all Americans—as opposed to traitors—but, perhaps paradoxically, we think that most of the MAGA faithful are, too. As we’ve said before (maybe here, maybe somewhere else; who remembers?), for the people who wear the red hats and cheer at the rallies, Trumpism isn’t even political. It’s religious. Most of them probably couldn’t find Russia on a map of Russia. They just want Trump to own the libs, cause harm to non-white and non-straight people, end “wokeism,” and, if possible, lower the price of eggs. They’re folks with…you know…good, solid, down-home, heartland, classic reactionary bigoted American ignoramus values, bless their hearts.

But even among people for whom Trumpism is political, we think there are few traitors. They voted for Trump, not to engineer the surrender of the US to Russia, but for the usual (idiotic) reasons—to “shake things up,” to “bring about change,” to “make it easier, in the US, to catch measles while dying in a plane crash.” They don’t care about Russia and, to the extent that they do, they’re anti-Russian.

Why, then, do we call everyone in the GOP traitors? Because they a) know full well what Trump is doing, and b) are doing nothing to stop it. Even if none of them is actively complicit in Trump’s daddy-worship/blackmail-inspired kowtowing to Putin (and some may be—Tulsi Gabbard? Elon Musk?), their silence, their looking-the-other-way, their unwillingness to make the slightest public protest about it, is its own kind of complicity.

At one point in his mob-style hit on conversation with Zelenskyy, Trump said—twice—“You’re gambling with World War Three.” It came and went unchallenged. We wish someone had asked, “Between whom?” Does anyone here think Trump would have said, “The US and its NATO allies versus Russia”? If so, raise your hand.

We don’t see any hands raised.

Look, it’s not as if we needed a new reason to despise Republicans. We Americans just happen to hate traitors.

LOOK OUT! By which we mean, be on the “lookout” for a hard-copy, actual paper, book-like book version of THE SPLIT, available for purchase via print-on-demand, coming soon. Very soon. Sooner than you can possibly imagine.