Greene's 'national divorce' would be disaster for the South

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, now a major figure in the House Republican Caucus, is calling for a “national divorce” that would “separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government.”

- Jesse Jackson

Like her hero, Donald Trump, she claims widespread anonymous support for the idea: “Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issue shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”

This is a call for secession. The last move for a “divorce” led to the Civil War, the bloodiest war in American history. If taken literally, it is treasonous. The conservative former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, reminded Greene that “our country is governed by the Constitution. You swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Secession is unconstitutional.” The right-wing Republican Utah Gov. Spencer Cox tweeted that “This rhetoric is destructive and wrong and – honestly – evil.” Republican Mitt Romney was more on point, calling it “insanity.”

Yet, as America’s politics gets more polarized and poisonous, with Donald Trump’s supporters sacking the Capitol in a failed effort to stop certification of his defeat and the vast majority of Republican voters buying into his Big Lie that the election was stolen, Greene’s drivel is echoed elsewhere. Delegates to the Texas Republican State Party convention, for example, recently called for a statewide referendum on whether Texas should secede from the Union. In the netherworld of right-wing extremists, talk about secession or of violent overthrow of the US government fuels murderous fantasies.