We the people, to dissolve an imperfect union,
grant a divorce to the United States of America.
An argument, written by Jeffrey J. Weiss on March 5, 2025
(updated July 2025) to citizens of the United States of America.
It shall be resolved:
• Republican Party members move to one side of the Mississippi River; the party will henceforth elect a transition team to organize the dissolution and form a new republic.
• Democratic Party members move to one side of the Mississippi River; the party will henceforth elect a transition team to organize the dissolution and form a new republic.
• Flip a coin to determine which side of the Mississippi River will
become the domicile of the two tribes. North America is big
enough for both, with abundant resources and navigable rivers. A treaty, negotiated during the dissolution, will share the river.|
• Citizens can remain in their residence or move to either side of the river. They will not become full citizens of a new republic until it has been established. Independents or citizens registered in third parties make up their own minds.
• The current Presidential Republic will remain in Washington D.C. as caretaker government for a 365-day transition; state and local governments will remain during the same time frame.
• After transition, the Presidential Republic of the United States of America shall formally dissolve.
• In new territories, party leaders will convene citizens and form
sovereign republics. Both republics will agree to the non-
interference in the internal affairs of the other, and can set up the structure, form, and type of government of their choosing.
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An explanation for dissolution as an argument:
Americans often get advice from marriage counselors; therapists help a couple decide if it’s time to separate by asking a series of questions; I will appropriate these questions for the red and blue members of our presidential republic.
1) Have you resolved the internal conflict over divorce?
Guilt and betrayal need not be present, according to Thomas Jefferson. In 1776, the right to create a new government was written into the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness… it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
(Excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, 1776)
2) Do the two sides still have feelings for one another? Both parties consider the other as a threat to the republic. More than half of both parties would disapprove if their children married a person from the other party. Republican voters rank foreign leaders who are enemies of the republic higher than members of the other party.
3) Were the two sides truly in a marriage? The closest the U.S. came to breaking up was the Civil War. What came after federal troops left the Confederacy, however, is instructive. As Reconstruction collapsed, Jim Crow walked in. White Americans put aside differences through a mutual disenfranchisement of women and African Americans; this unity of the majority lasted until women gained citizenship in 1920 and African Americans in 1965.
The country over time has become less white, with more immigration. Thirty percent of the population in 25 years will be Latino. No country has seen such a majority in fear of becoming a minority making a successful transition, according to Steven Levitsky, professor at Harvard and author of “How Democracies Die.” Levitsky concludes we’ll either become a multi-racial democracy or devolve into an authoritarian one. Dissolution provides choice: citizens who want to live with diversity on one side, and the latter who don’t live with it on the other.
In addition, gerrymandering, an undemocratic Senate, and an Electoral College point to “minority rule.” In addition, the urban v rural divide means majority consent is no longer necessary to rule. No theory of democracy subscribes to minority rule.
There are no checks and balances when one party runs three branches. At the state level, this is also becoming a norm.
4) Are the two sides ready for divorce or just threatening?
Counselors caution two sides from making a choice out of frustration or for power. In this divorce, however, both sides can reason they are not damaging the other side and can retain their own autonomous power in new republics.
5) Is divorce based on self-awareness or a reactive decision?
Our tastes, desires, and activities are increasingly shaped by cloud capital, the newest form of capitalist production. We are living in echo chambers; the liberal promise of the American experiment, that sees the individual as free from church and state, is lost to the algorithm. In short, we are desperate: roll the dice.
6) What is your intent in wanting a divorce? Counselors caution divorce has no power to right wrongs or change hearts and minds. Each republic can teach history the way it sees fit.
Divorce frees a person to make new attachments. We can now live with the people we wanted to live with in the first place.
7) Can both sides handle the unpleasant consequences of divorce? Only twenty-eight percent of Americans think our ‘American Dream’ is on the right track, an all-time low. Businesses can stay home or check out opportunities on either side of the river.
8) Are you willing to take control of your life in a responsible and mature way? There is value living where you don’t have to be constantly questioning whether the society you are living in has gone haywire. When one asserts “alternative facts” for its own reality. Such self-delusion may have landed a neighbor in a county home generations ago.
Psychologists argue it’s often the best choice to end relationships with people in cults and one of our two parties is a cult. Total devotion to party line is lethal in a plurality voting system that produces two parties.
9) What happens after dissolution? One side may envision higher taxes, more redistribution of wealth, national health insurance, and renewable energy, as in a social market
economy. The other side may lower taxes, create a national religion of Christianity, and support an economy fueled by fossil fuels. Nobody needs to utter the words climate emergency or diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Final arguments on dissolving the United States of America:
The Founders bestowed the most power under Article 1 of the
constitution to Congress: the power of the purse, the power to declare war, power over trade, to name a few fixed powers. The original authors of the Constitution feared an elected monarchy.
Presidential republics tend to create executive dictatorships, nearly everywhere where it’s been tried. New constitutions improved much of South America. They were rewritten after a period of military rule in the 1970s to introduce proportional representation voting, a national popular vote and one term for presidents. Africa has confronted presidents for life, with dire consequences.
As a friendly reminder, I will list a few of Jefferson’s grievances against King George III:
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.
Modern presidents write budgets, refuse to spend money authorized by Congress, ignore federal court decisions, and write signing statements. The distance between King George III and George Bush Jr. was not that large, according to author Bruce Cannon Gibney in “The Nonsense Factory: The Making and Breaking of the American Legal System.”
These constitutional overreaches have been increasing every year. Congress, the courts, and the public have tolerated a runaway executive. The current resident of the White House aspires to be king and is treated as such by his own party and a portion of the press corps. The captains of industry (cloud capitalists) sit beside him at his inauguration.
To sum up, the Founders of the United States of America would not disapprove of my resolution to dissolve the republic, for the same reasons they dissolved the British Crown. Jefferson cautioned against revolution for “light and transient” causes. Sliding towards illiberalism, however, at breakneck speed is not trivial.
Ben Franklin is said to have proclaimed, “It’s a republic, if we can keep it.” But the United States has the hardest constitution to amend. A two-thirds vote of both chambers of Congress and three-quarters of the states makes it impossible to reshape institutions, or our voting system, or the influence of money in elections.
The reality is that the ideological and ethnic differences cannot be negotiated in our presidential republic, with its plurality voting and a constitution nearly impossible to change; we’ve only had one person one vote (democracy) since 1965, so it’s been a short run anyway, if we are honest.
Our Constitution is like a prenuptial between a married couple, written in such a way that forces them to stay together, without providing a pathway for either of them to pursue happiness.
The End –
I conclude my argument to for an amicable divorce of the United States of America.
Jeffrey J. Weiss
Professor of Political Science
Des Moines Area Community College
jjweiss@dmacc.edu
515-255-2465