Listeners of Erick Erickson Show were delivered a bomb, recently, when the host became one of the most prominent conservative commentators to affirmatively consider, “Why not break the country apart?”
For those who don’t know, Erick Erickson is perennial contributor to various cable news outlets like CNN and FOX Newschannel, formerly a blogger at Red State and now heading The Resurgent and his own radio show at 750 WSB in Atlanta. Most recently, Erickson is known as the one to break the story that some of leaks from the Trump White House actually came from Trump supporters trying to help their inattentive President.
On his Tuesday show, dismayed with how polarized U.S. politics has become, and citing the case of a disgruntled woman running her Republican Congressman off the road for his vote on the Obamacare repeal/replace as well as the left-wing press’s justification of this woman’s assault, Erickson offered the idea of splitting up the country as the peaceful solution to a progressively alienated and violent political landscape.
“We are increasingly a dysfunctional society,” said Erickson. “And we are led by a dysfunctional capitol, with a dysfunctional group of kleptocrats, in a kakistocracy,” meaning rule by the worst people. “There’s no moderation, here. It used to be that when one party lost power, they would spend four years trying to make the case of why they should be given power. Instead, what both parties now do is try to make the case of why you people were idiots for giving that guy power!” Erickson continued to point out that Democrats argue that they must stop the racists that put Trump in the White House, whereas before Republicans argued the need to stop that communist/secret Muslim in the White House. It seems an obvious thing that if these are the firm beliefs of both sides, how can we have a society together? How can we function if our system is a battle between two groups, whose sole purpose is to uproot the rule and values of the other and supplant it with their own, with almost nothing held in common? Not morality, nor belief in the rule of law, nor a common frame of reference for anything.
“We’re not supposed to have one-size-fits-all democracy, [governance, morality, values, or anything] other than a common national defense to keep us safe and a common trade policy between the states!” Erickson continued. “Everything else is supposed to be done at the state level. If California wants gay marriage and abortion and Georgia doesn’t, God bless ‘em, let ‘em have it! We’ll breed ‘em out of existence! But let ‘em have it until they all die off! If Vermont wants a single payer healthcare plan and Texas doesn’t, well God bless ‘em, they should be able to do it!” Erickson goes on to point out that this is what the founders intended instead of a revolving federal dictatorship of every facet of our lives, where facts don’t matter, just our treasured partisan squabbles.
Although Erickson didn’t completely dedicate himself to the proposition of splitting up the U.S., he made a very good case that If we can’t get back to the idea of state sovereignty and limited government, then the division of the Union might be a more preferable and peaceful course than the mutually assured destruction of governance by thieves and villains over a country split down the middle, with each half hating the other. “I’m honestly waiting for violence,” Said Erickson. “We are coming apart at the seams, and I don’t know if it’s sustainable. And I’m starting to wonder if maybe we just all need to go our separate ways and have 50 countries.” “It’s something to consider, at least.”
