Call it the "Texit" parable.
America's new civil war begins with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, creating an abortion-free zone in the Bible Belt and most heartland states.
Enraged Democrats pledge to end the U.S. Senate filibuster and expand the number of high-court justices. After restoring Roe, they seek single-payer health care, strict gun control and sweeping changes in how government agencies approach the First Amendment, with the IRS warning faith groups to evolve – or else – on matters of sexual identity. Big Tech begins enforcing the new orthodoxy.
Conservatives rebel and liberals soon realize that most of America's military, including nuclear weapons, are in rebel territory. Then federal agents kill Alabama's pro-life, Black governor – while trying to arrest him as a traitor. That's too much for Gov. Francisco Gonzalez of Texas, who decides that it's time for a new republic.
David French fine-tuned this "Texit" vision early in 2020, while finishing "Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation." Best-known as a #NeverTrump conservative pundit, most of the Harvard Law graduate's career has focused on old-school First Amendment liberalism – which in recent decades has meant defending conservative religious believers in religious liberty cases.
The book's first lines are sobering, especially after recent scenes on Capitol Hill.
"It's time for Americans to wake up to a fundamental reality: the continued unity of the United States cannot be guaranteed," wrote French. Right now, "there is not a single important cultural, religious, political, or social force that is pulling Americans together more than it is pulling us apart."
Americans are divided by their choices in news and popular culture. America remains the developing world's most religious nation, yet its increasingly secularized elites occupy one set of zip codes, while most traditional religious believers live in another. In politics, more and more Democrats are Democrats simply because they hate Republicans, and vice versa.
Ironically, cultural conservatives now find themselves hoping that the Supreme Court will protect them, said French, reached by telephone. Conservatives know they have lost Hollywood, academia, America's biggest corporations, the White House and both houses of Congress.
"I constructed the Texit scenario around court packing because that has become their last firewall," said French.
