Matt Walsh writes at The Daily Wire, his admittedly bleak assessment is that the U.S. is so divided there is no way for us to come together. Absent a violent attack by a recognizable foreign power which would unite us in the short run, he may be correct. Read his assessment only if you are resistant to depression.
As people who hold different opinions sort themselves into states where most agree with them, the proverbial blue and red states, we get closer to a point at which someone with a big audience (no danger of it being me) will ask whether we might have a "Velvet Revolution" like Czechoslovakia had, a non-violent parting of the ways?
At one point in our history, some 150+ years ago, the answer was "No." A sorting had happened - free and slave states - and letting each side go their own way was a non-starter. Bloody civil war was the result. Maybe we're more grown up now?
A stay-together alternative would be some form of extreme federalism where states could largely do their own thing with minimum federal intervention. We're doing some of this now, with different concealed carry laws and liquor and pot laws.
These of course make interstate travel and trade complicated and, sometimes, fraught. On the other hand, travel to another state for an abortion or to get high might be an okay alternative between the two halves, much as Californians traveled to Nevada for decades to gamble, drink at all hours, and buy sex.
Lacking either of these, we are in for a rough patch, with the losing side in each presidential election becoming the "resistance" and doing its level best to stymie the other side which is trying to govern. This is not, I think, a recipe for national excellence.
