Following the leftward lurch of the Republican Party under the influence of Teddy Roosevelt, it returned to “normalcy” in 1920 with the election of Warren G. Harding and his running mate-cum-successor, Calvin Coolidge. By “normalcy” I mean that Harding and subsequent GOP nominees have paid lip service, and sometimes actual service, to the project of limited, constitutional government. In any event, GOP presidential candidates, whatever their platforms and programs, have been consistently to the right of their Democrat opponents.
Given that, the division of the popular vote between the two major parties gives an approximation of the left-right divide in America:
The wide swings that prevailed through the 1980s have given way to much narrower ones. In fact, the outccomes of the presidential elections of 2008-2020 suggest that there is now a permanent and possibly growing tilt toward the left. Some States and regions will remain reliably on the right, for a long while, at least. But — barring the resurgence of a charismatic Republican or a national catasprophe that can be ascribed solely to Democrat policies — it’s beginning to look like there’s a permanent Democrat (leftist) majority in the nation as a whole. Party-switchers won’t disappear, but their number (relative to the rising number of voters) seems to have shrunk considerably.
The hardening of ideological positions strikes me as another reason to sue for a national divorce. “United we stand, divided we fall” has become a hollow slogan.
A formal division is preferable to the pretense of unity. The latter weakens the nation, emboldens its enemies, and enables the domestic enemies of liberty to trample on their foes. With a divorce, at least half of America would be able to mount a credible deterrent to economic and military blackmail, while also restoring liberty to part of the land.
Politics and Prosperity 