US won't have secession any time soon, but the discussion points to a deeper issue

Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

A significant portion of the US Republican Party is refusing to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election that saw sitting President Donald Trump suffer a historic defeat.

Earlier this week, over 100 Republicans in the House of Representatives signed an amicus brief to support a lawsuit brought by the state of Texas that would have overturned the results of the election.

This suit was later thrown out by the conservative-controlled Supreme Court, and the backlash has not been pretty.

For example, one Republican Texas lawmaker vowed to introduce legislation to secede from the United States.

"The federal government is out of control and does not represent the values of Texans. That is why I am committing to file legislation this session that will allow a referendum to give Texans a vote for the State of Texas to reassert its status as an independent nation," Texas State Representative Kyle Biedermann shared on Facebook on December 8, spreading the hashtag #Texit.

While such discussion is not unprecedented, it shows a deepening divide in America that raises serious questions about the general cohesion of society. Maps of a "Balkanized" America have circulated online for years with new borders drawn signifying independent nations within the present day United States.

Texas, a conservative bulwark, has often floated the idea of leaving the union, and California, a liberal bastion, has also done so. Both of these large states contain a massive chunk of the country's total population and GDP, easily being capable of actually becoming independent in some alternate universe. It is, however, unlikely that this would happen any time soon.

The arguments that conservatives and liberals present when confronting the question of secession are interesting and reflect a question that has persisted since the foundation of the US as we know it. This question has to do with majoritarian rule and the question of how the minority ought to have a role in government.

From the start, the US has fought this battle between maintaining the established class structure, which is embodied by the idea of minority rule, and a consistent progressive force through the nation's history seen in the will of the majority.

This is why, for example, the country has the Electoral College and a bicameral Congress with different methods of allocating representatives – just two of the perplexities of American democracy.

The will of the majority is decidedly liberal. Republicans have won the presidency twice this century without having a popular mandate – in 2000 when President George W. Bush won and in 2016 when President Donald Trump won. Both won the Electoral College but lost the popular vote, and it is obvious that this system favors conservatives.

The Senate, controlled now by the Republican Party, is also generally skewed toward conservatives because each state receives two Senate seats and is not representative of the population. This institution is particularly important because of a rule that allows a minority party to block legislation, namely the filibuster.

As a result, liberals argue that this setup is unfair. Time and time again, they say, the popular will is ignored because the minority controls one or all of the elected institutions in the country and blocks their proposals.

On the other hand, conservatives argue that this is important because each state has its own interests and way of thinking that should be properly respected in the federal government. If, for example, California and New York, two large "blue" states, decided the fate of all institutions then smaller "red" states like Alabama would not have their interests represented. What works for one state, they would argue, does not necessarily work for all (and this is a decent argument on paper).

Because their interests are being reflected against the popular will, conservatives go to great lengths to suppress votes through voter ID laws, felon disenfranchisement and other means wherever they can.

This is quite a dilemma and particularly why discussions of secession are interesting at this present moment of political turmoil in the country. It is unlikely that there will be any serious secession moments at any point soon because it would be against everyone's interest.

If one large state seceded from the union, this would immediately tank the entire economy of the rest of the country and probably also that new independent nation. Furthermore, a great number of conservative states rely on tax dollars that come from liberal states like California and New York, even though they might not like to admit it.

So we won't be seeing a rogue nation created anytime soon, but it reflects a much deeper problem inherent to American democracy – the question of how exactly that democracy should function and whether it can adapt to changing times.