Il presidente Donald Trump ha ripetutamente richiamato l’epoca della Guerra civile per rafforzare la propria presidenza, dal sostegno alle statue confederate all’uso di statuti dell’era della Ricostruzione per perseguire i manifestanti. Ora Kurt Andersen, romanziere e saggista noto per opere come Fantasyland ed Evil Geniuses che analizzano le traiettorie culturali e politiche americane, sostiene nel suo prossimo romanzo sulla dissoluzione degli Stati Uniti, The Breakup, che una guerra civile letterale potrebbe essere all’orizzonte — e che il paese è già intrappolato in quella che definisce un’unione disfunzionale.

Scrivendo per The New York Times domenica, Andersen ha indicato l’escalation della retorica di alcune figure politiche come segnale d’allarme. "Days after Charlie Kirk's assassination, then-Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene reiterated her push for legally splitting up the country: 'I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it's no longer safe for any of us,'" ha scritto. "Polls since 2021 by universities, YouGov and others have consistently found that a third or more of Americans said they expected a civil war during the next decade or so."

'Soft Secession' e 'Uncooperative Federalism'

Andersen ha descritto la condizione attuale del paese non come un divorzio aperto, ma come qualcosa di più insidioso. "A national divorce — let alone a civil war — is, for now, the stuff of fiction," ha scritto. "But while loose talk from rabble-rousers has distracted us, the nation has sunk, almost unnoticed, into an unspectacular yet profoundly strange new arrangement. It's not yet a divorce; it's more like a bitter, loveless marriage in which the parties stay technically but less and less enthusiastically united because splitting up is too complicated or dreadful or expensive."

Ha definito questo fenomeno "uncooperative federalism" e "soft secession", citando azioni sia di stati guidati dai repubblicani sia di stati guidati dai democratici che di fatto aggirano o eludono l’autorità federale — una dinamica che gli studiosi di diritto hanno seguito per anni in materia di immigrazione, droga e politica ambientale.

Sul fronte repubblicano, Andersen ha osservato che "during the past two Democratic presidencies, many red states and counties declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, prohibiting their police forces from enforcing some federal gun regulations." Ha aggiunto che il termine era un’eco deliberata delle sanctuary cities democratiche, che avevano analogamente scelto di non applicare le politiche federali sull’immigrazione.

Andersen ha anche evidenziato l’approccio unilaterale del governatore del Texas Greg Abbott all’applicazione delle norme sull’immigrazione. "Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas took it upon himself to override federal immigration policy, deploying the National Guard to string the banks of the Rio Grande with coils of razor wire and ordering his troops to prevent federal border agents from helping migrants who got tangled in them," ha scritto. "More than two dozen Republican governors endorsed the show of anti-federal strength."

Gli stati guidati dai democratici seguono una propria traiettoria

Andersen ha osservato che durante l’era Trump anche stati e città guidati dai democratici stanno praticando forme parallele di soft secession. "Local police departments aren't cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement," ha scritto. "Many states passed laws to shield residents from prosecution if they are charged elsewhere with facilitating abortions, and several have stockpiled abortifacients in case federal law or regulations make them hard to get."

Ha proseguito: "Various combinations of blue states have banded together to perform functions the federal government has abandoned or degraded: forming a climate alliance that participates in international forums the Trump administration won't attend, creating de facto regulatory agencies for cap-and-trade carbon markets, issuing medically legitimate childhood vaccination recommendations. A coalition of a couple dozen attorneys general has sued the administration over birthright citizenship, tariffs and denial of federal funds to Democratic-controlled states."

Uno status quo insostenibile

Andersen ha infine descritto l’assetto attuale come insostenibile. "We can't keep going this way," ha scritto. "Escaping federal dysfunction and avoiding real hostilities over the long term will require some kind of radical shift. Perhaps states and regions could become much more independent."

Ha richiamato modelli internazionali, tra cui le comunità autonome regionali della Spagna — un sistema istituito con la costituzione post-Franco del 1978 — "some of which collect nearly all the taxes their inhabitants pay and then forward a negotiated share to the national government," e la Svizzera, "where cantons can divide or reconfigure and each one decides whether newcomers become Swiss citizens."

Andersen ha ammesso che anche riforme strutturali di questo tipo potrebbero non bastare. "Someday down the line we may decide we have no choice but to call it quits," ha concluso. "If so, I hope we could follow the lead of post-Soviet Czechoslovakia, whose 1993 breakup into two nations was so calm, it was called the Velvet Divorce, a kind of conscious national uncoupling. For our huge, heterogeneous country, it would be extremely difficult and painful. But in the long run, it might still be better for the kids."

Lo storico Timothy Snyder condivide le preoccupazioni

Andersen non è il solo ad aver lanciato l’allarme sulla tenuta del paese. A luglio, Timothy Snyder, Richard C. Levin Professor of History alla Yale University e autore di On Tyranny e Bloodlands, ha sostenuto in modo analogo che la continuità degli Stati Uniti non può essere data per scontata, puntando sulle tendenze autoritarie dell’amministrazione Trump.

"The fact that the U.S. exists and is celebrating 250 years doesn't mean that it'll exist in 5 years or 10 years or 15 years — states have a beginning and they have an end," ha detto Snyder. "I think that the Trump people are much more likely to wreck the U.S. as an entity than they are to succeed in generating some kind of homogeneous tyranny from the Pacific to the Atlantic."