A group of panelists on the Friday episode of Fox News’ “Gutfeld!” debated the merits of breaking up the United States into smaller regions after a recent poll indicated many Americans would support such a measure.
The panel was discussing a YouGov/BrightLineWatch poll released last week that showed two in three Republicans and half of independents in the South want to secede from the Union. According to the same poll, 47% of Democrats in Pacific coastal states, including Hawaii and Alaska, would be open to breaking off.
“You know, I’m probably going to get myself in trouble for this, but would it be the worst thing?” asked Fox News contributor Lisa Boothe regarding secession. “I don’t know, I’m sick and tired of people who hate this country, I’m sick and tired of [those] who say the flag is some sort of sign of evilness or oppression, who despise the country we live in. I’m tired of the government now, you know, people like Biden want to weaponize the government against people who supported Trump.”
“So I don’t know, would it be the worst thing?” Boothe reiterated, adding that she would want any national divorce to be peaceful.
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“I would take a little different view than Lisa on this because, you know, we did try this once and it didn’t end well,” said Bahnsen Group founder David Bahnsen. “This is what I would say. It is not one of the enumerated powers in the Constitution that — those of us on the Right care about the Bill of Rights — the states are in, they joined, and I have a bigger problem with the states that act like they already have seceded, that don’t care about flyover country, don’t care about rural America[.]”
Bahnsen went on to explain that any modern-day secession would be very complicated because the divide does not fall along state lines as it did during the Civil War. “Secession doesn’t work because we don’t have a country divided red-state and blue-state. We have blue cities, so even within the states you would have to have mini-secessions.”
Gutfeld went on to jokingly suggest that rural Americans could wall up the cities.
WATCH:
As The Daily Wire reported:
BrightLaneWatch, which conducted a similar survey right after the Capitol riot on January 6, anticipated political tempers would have “cooled” with the removal of former President Donald Trump. “Yet rather than support for secession diminishing over the past six months, as we expected, it rose in every region and among nearly every partisan group,” they wrote.
The poll comes as President Joe Biden and others increasingly invoke the Civil War to describe GOP voting laws and the Capitol riot. During a Wednesday appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” author Mark Steyn discerned the Left is using such heated rhetoric to demonize their political opponents in an attempt to position themselves more likely to win a “cold civil war.”
Related: 2 In 3 Southern Republicans Want To Secede From Union; Nearly Half Of Pacific NW Democrats: Poll