Unbridgeable differences push U.S. to the brink

Right about now, a lot of Republican senators who refused to convict Donald Trump and remove him from office ought to be very worried.

Why?

Because yes, he really did suggest at his press briefing Friday that an instant cure for COVID-19 might be ingesting some sort of home disinfectants.

Of course he swears he was being sarcastic, but no one who saw him saw any trace of sarcasm. As he floundered for an excuse, he even said it was a prank and that he said it just to see how people would react.

Fake news?

No, fake president.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
As of Saturday evening, 54,340 Americans had died in the current pandemic. Apparently Trump's "prank" about disinfectants has contributed to the problem.  In cities such as New York, calls to poison control centers have more than doubled since his remarks.

It won't be long till that number tops 58,220.

What's that, you ask. That's how many Americans died in the Vietnam War.

The next milestone is 116,516, the total of American casualties in World War I.

The biggest previous pandemic, the 1918 Spanish Flu, had an American death toll of 675,000. At least from the original projections of between 1 million and 2.2 million deaths, this has the potential to be the greatest loss of life in U.S. history.

Writing in the New York Times, columnist Andrew Friedman pointed out how tragic it is that at this crucial time, we have maybe the most incompetent president in history. Wrote Friedman:

"We need a president who is a cross between FDR, Justice Brandeis and Jonas Salk. We got a president who is a cross between Dr. Phil, Dr. Strangelove and Dr. Seuss."

Tough, huh? And while I do feel obligated to stand up for my fraternity brother Dr. Seuss, I think the comparison is valid. Hearing Trump rave about his performance in the crisis being a 10 on a 1-10 scale, hearing him say he took no responsibility at all for the deaths, it's enough to make your head spin.

Yet Republicans still support him. They want to get as many right-wing judges appointed as possible before Trump's tenure ends. They know fewer and fewer voters support them, and they're hoping conservative courts will give them power for 20-30 years after they lose legislative power.

Of course, what they're really doing is killing a lot of people's belief in e pluribus unum. There are tens of millions of people on the right -- and large numbers also on the left -- who see folks on the opposite side as not just wrong but evil.

Folks on the right are never going to accept single-payer health care and other things like it, and folks on the left will never accept a ban on abortion. In fact, we might end up with a lot more than two different countries.

The map on the right is just one of many speculations on how the country could come apart.

The Founding Fathers feared that the country they were creating would divide into two or three separate nations, but I don't think they ever imagined sea to shining sea.

The fact is, we have reached a point where some problems can't be solved. About seven percent of the country -- slim majorities in the smallest 13 states -- can block any constitutional amendment that would diminish their power.

About 20 percent of the country -- majorities in the smallest 21 states -- can block 60-vote supermajorities in the U.S. Senate.  That's what makes Mitch McConnell so powerful.

I don't know if it will happen in my lifetime -- hell, I'm 70 years old -- but I think eventually you will see one of two things. Either the country will split into at least two nations and maybe more, or you will see a much more authoritarian government.

Either would be awful.

One or the other may be unavoidable.