America is holding an election. It needs a divorce

Sad to say, we’ve become two nations headed in two totally different directions. Red-state America still believes in the Constitution, American exceptionalism, and free enterprise. This means that you can come here from anywhere (legally, mind you), become an American, contribute to society, worship and raise your children as you choose, build wealth, and live the American dream.Blue-state America, by contrast, has torn up the Constitution, surrendered to socialism, and destroyed its patrimony of thriving cities and regions. Blue-state America wants to be Europe (while Europe has begun to wish it was Red-state America). Blue-state America pours scorn on the world’s longest standing experiment in democracy and wants to be ruled by unions, Islamists, and a government that fosters dependency, not opportunity. Red-state America, by contrast, appreciates our freedoms, our military, our public safety, our history, and our way of life.I say enough.In 2012, Chuck Thompson wrote a book titled Better Off Without ‘Em: A Northern Manifesto for Southern Secession. His somewhat tongue-in-cheek theme was that if the South seceded again, then smug, self-satisfied Northerners would benefit from their absence.Today, the reverse is true. If “flyover country” seceded today, the resulting alignment would be a nation worthy of our founders.Let the Pacific coast states, Michigan, Minnesota, Chicago, and everything from Virginia to Maine fend for themselves. Let them live their dream of crumbling cities with failing infrastructure. Let them allow the homeless to multiply on their streets and highway underpasses. Let their taxes rise to the point where anyone who can make an honest living flees to red-state America or RSA.It’s true that BSA (that stands for blue-state America, not “BS”) features higher economic output per person and higher incomes than RSA. But how long will that last when you foster a tax-the-rich mentality that only drives the rich and their job creation out of town?Red states have lower living costs, lower taxes, faster population growth, less homelessness, more manufacturing, more energy production, and less crime. Blue states have dangerous cities and universities steeped in wokeness, antisemitism, and McCarthy-like limits on free speech. Red states have plenty of great schools like Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Texas, where you succeed on merit, hatred isn’t tolerated, and students speak their minds freely in class and in the dormitory.BSA would rely on RSA for food. RSA would rely on BSA for … what, exactly? Financial services? That industry is quietly migrating to Texas and Florida, to get away from the socialism infecting New York. Broadway shows? They tour the entire country. Times Square today is a squalid pit.Homelessness is a problem not least because groups that work with the homeless don’t want the problem solved. They’d lose their income streams and their jobs. That’s why you see homeless encampments in major cities, to keep the problem front and center, to induce guilt, and to keep the money coming. Eight of the 10 states with the biggest populations of homeless voted Democrat in 2024. California and New York currently account for almost half of the entire homeless population in the United States. The homeless in the new RSA would have to get treatment, get jobs, get off the street … or pack their bags for California or New York.RSA is home to most of our military bases. California has major Marine, Navy, and submarine forces. The two new countries could work out a joint military, or they could go their own way. The future of warfare is technological anyway, so much of what the military does today would have to change anyway.‘BUT TRUMP’ DOESN’T WORK: THE MIDTERM QUESTION DEMOCRATS MUST ANSWERIn short, a BSA combining Northeastern, a few Upper Midwestern, and Pacific states can go merrily their own way, inflicting a socialist nightmare on their residents, importing as many non-contributing, non-assimilating newcomers as they choose. Meanwhile, the RSA will continue to live American values and ideals. Anyone from the BSA will be welcome. All we’ll ask is that you just remember why you left.Instead of two competing systems trying to impose their incompatible values on one another, let’s give a separation a try. And mark my words, before too many years pass, BSA will come crawling back.Michael Levin is a two-time New York Times bestselling author. His next novel, 2028, A Political Thriller, will be published by Morgan James in April 2027.