America Divide and Conquer O


Americans are rapidly segregating by politics, fueling the greatest separation between states in modern history. BY NICHOLAS RICCARDI


nce he and his wife, Jennifer, moved to a Boise suburb last year, Tim Kohl could finally


express himself. Kohl did what the couple never


dared at their previous house outside Los Angeles — the newly retired Los Angeles police officer flew a U.S. flag and a Thin Blue Line banner repre- senting law enforcement outside his house. “We were scared to put it up,” Jen-


nifer Kohl acknowledged. But the Kohls knew they had moved to the right place when neighbors compli- mented him on the display. Leah Dean is on the opposite end of


the political spectrum, but she knows how the Kohls feel. In Texas, Dean had been scared to fly an abortion rights banner outside her house. Around the time the Kohls were house-hunting in Idaho, she and her partner found a place in Denver, where their LGBTQ+ pride flag flies above the banner in front of their house that proclaims “Abortion access is a community responsibility.” Americans are segregating by their


politics at a rapid clip, helping fuel the greatest divide between the states in modern history. One party controls the entire legis-


lature in all but two states. In 28 states, the party in control


has a supermajority in at least one leg- islative chamber — which means the majority party has so many lawmak- ers that they can override a governor’s veto.


Not that that would be necessary


in most cases, as only 10 states have governors of different parties than the one that controls the legislature.


16 NEWSMAX | AUGUST 2023 The split has sent states careening


to the political left or right, adopting diametrically opposed laws on some of the hottest issues of the day. In Idaho, abortion is illegal once a


heartbeat can be detected in a fetus — as early as five or six weeks — and a new law passed this year makes it a crime to help a minor travel out of state to obtain one. In Colorado, state law prevents any restrictions on abortion. In Idaho, a new law prevents minors


from accessing gender-transition care, while Colorado allows youths to come from other states to access the proce- dures.


Federalism — allowing each state


to chart its own course within bound- aries set by Congress and the Consti- tution — is at the core of the U.S. sys- tem. It lets the states, in the words of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, be “laboratories of democ- racy.”


Now, some wonder whether that’s


driving Americans apart. “Does that work as well in a time


when we are so politically divided, or does it just become an accelerant for people who want to resegregate?” asked Rob Witwer, a former Republi- can Colorado state lawmaker. Colorado and Idaho represent two


poles of state-level political homogeni- zation. Both are fast-growing Rocky Mountain states that have been trans- formed by an influx of like-minded residents. Life in the two states can be quite


similar — conversations revolve around local ski areas, mountain bike trails, and how newcomers are making things too crowded. But, politically, they increasingly occupy separate worlds.


FRIESEN Democrats control all statewide


offices in Colorado and have their largest majorities in history in the leg- islature, including a supermajority in the lower house. In contrast, Idaho has moved even


more sharply to the right and become a beacon to those, like the Kohls, flee- ing blue states where they no longer feel welcome. When Americans move, politics is


not typically the explicit reason. But the lifestyle choices they make place them in communities dominated by their preferred party. The switch might have been flipped


during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which created a class of mobile workers no longer bound to the states where their companies were based. Those who are now mobile are predominantly white-collar workers and retirees, the two most politically engaged parts of the national popula- tion.


Mike McCarter, who has spear-


headed a quixotic campaign to have conservative eastern Oregon become


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