Welcome to The Road to Splitsville!
We take our title from the rich tradition of Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movies that no one watches anymore (The Road to Rio, The Road to Bali, The Road to Zanzibar, etc.), and from the title of a scary book about libertarianism (The Road to Serfdom) that most people don’t read. All these roads—are we there yet?
You bet we are. Okay, but where, exactly—and what—is Splitsville?
If you are of a certain age, or even older, first, how are you even alive? Second, you might recall that “Splitsville” was a snappy, slangy term used by gossip columnists in earlier decades, for the idea of divorce. Instead of asking (or insinuating) in a tedious, literal way, “Is it possible that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton are contemplating ending their marriage via the formal dissolution of that union in the proceedings of a divorce?,” the writer would use the smart, sharp, breezily insider-ish, “LIZ AND DICK: HEADED FOR SPLITSVILLE?”
And that’s how we’re using it, too. But instead of pondering so trivial a thing as the divorce of two movie stars, we’re talking about the “divorce” of the union known as The United Freaking States of America, okay?
Naturally, most Americans gaze upon this scenario with horror. But do they? Really? We think it’s possible that there’s a sizeable number of Jesus-worshipping, gun-toting, proudly heterosexual, unvaccinated red staters who would love to be rid of their libtard soy-boy Jew-coddling homosexual socialist-cuck blue state compatriots, and an equal number of educated, rational, tolerant blue state liberals who would be happy to wish their bigoted, misogynist, anti-Semitic, Bible-thumping dumb-as-dirt fellow citizens a fond, or maybe fond-ish, legal farewell.
Don’t pretend to be shocked. Don’t pretend that, when you read about this county in Idaho or that political group in Texas openly advocating for secession, you don’t think, “Yes, please.” (Or, better yet, as Burt Lancaster says in The Sweet Smell of Success, “Here’s your hat. What your hurry?”) Of course, there may be good, sound historical, economic, and cultural reasons why this could never happen or, if it could, why most sensible people think it shouldn’t, and would take steps to prevent it.
“Oh, yeah? Name one such person.”
“Abraham Lincoln.”
Fortunately, we’ve ignored those reasons and those people. Instead of blanching or tsk-ing or sighing in disapproval at the formal, legal separation of the red and the blue, we’ve written a novel in which it not only takes place, it has already happened. Fifteen years earlier! So—as you subscribers well know--we (and you) get to see some of the results and ramifications of that event.
Granted, we can be accused of being naïve or idealistic. In our (perhaps romantic) fictional world, we’re suggesting that, some years in the future, the hard-right “patriots” in deep red states will, as one, rise up and declare, “Yes, we want to repeal the Enlightenment. We wish to live in a world that combines the best of First Century theology, a conception of science straight out of the Bronze Age, Robber Baron-era capitalism, and medieval social roles. But that’s us. So we’ll go our way, and the rest of you do you.”
It’s a nice fantasy, isn’t it? But these days, that’s all it is. In real life, it’s darn hard to find a white supremacist or Christian nationalist with the decency to keep his or her values to themselves, and to live and let live. No, to them, “freedom” means, “the freedom to inflict their values on everyone else.”
That’s how you know The Split is fiction. And if some ask: “Is the future you describe dystopian? Or utopian?” the answer must be: Well, it’s certainly topian. Otherwise, it depends on who you are.
Some readers will find life in the Confederation of Conservative States of America (CCSA) to be a perfect libertarian paradise of minimal government interference, maximal gun rights, solidly white, Christian patriarchy, low-to-nonexistent taxes, traditional “American” indifference to the environment, and the just-plain-common-sense belief that if God had wanted abortion to be legal, He would have put it in the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount.
Others may find our depiction of life in the CCSA to be less than alluring.
In any case, both constituencies can agree on one central question: How likely is such a split to occur? Or, to put it another way, What makes you two jokers think it’s even halfway conceivable enough to write a novel about it?
Well…
On the one hand, it’s unthinkable. But forget that hand. Look at the other hand. Two or three times a damn week, we see news stories suggesting that it’s getting more and more thinkable.
Hence, The Road to Splitsville--a weekly newsletter (for subscribers only!) in which we review real-world events that at least hint at the willingness of certain red state governments, organizations, or individuals to contemplate, as the old country song had it, “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”
For example, from December 9 of last year:
Kate Cox, a 31-year-old Texas mother of two who was pregnant, was told her fetus had Trisomy 18, a genetic condition that “cannot sustain life” (as she wrote in an op-ed for the Dallas Morning News). Per the Washington Post: “Almost all such pregnancies end in miscarriage or stillbirth, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Babies who do survive often die prematurely…
Cox’s doctor warned that carrying the pregnancy to term could jeopardize her health and future fertility, including uterine rupture and hysterectomy…”
So she sued the state. A lower court ruling indemnified Cox’s husband and doctor, and allowed her to have an abortion. But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (you know—the same Ken Paxton who has been under indictment for nine years, and whose trial for securities fraud will probably take place in April) filed an appeal with the State Supreme Court. As the appeal was being heard, the Coxes left Texas for New Mexico, where Kate had the abortion.
While they were gone, the Texas Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling. Thus, a panel of Texas judges, no doubt fancying themselves to be proudly “pro-life,” condemn a mother of two to either a miscarriage or a stillbirth, endangering her health and her future fertility, by ruling that, in this case, being pro-life means being pro-death.
A pregnant woman in need of an abortion flees Texas for another (blue!) state. Sound familiar, The Split readers?
Gotta tell you - I've been reading and enjoying The Split for weeks, but slowly, in well-spaced installments (I am many weeks behind), and without commenting because, notwithstanding the exquisite craft of the writing, it just makes me too sad to be glad of it.
And this meditation of yours explains why better than I could.
“ on one hand it’s unthinkable. but forget that hand. look at the other.” Oh! is that why God only gave us two hands?!?! I’ve long wondered about that. Thank you for clearing that up!