Anti-secessionists sound like abusive spouses.
"You'll never leave."
National divorce is an excellent metaphor. The two sides of America are in a toxic relationship, so it's time for an amicable separation.
But when one spouse doesn't want the other to leave, it gets messy. And if one tries to prevent the other from leaving, it gets abusive. Anti-secessionists too often sound like that abusive spouse – bullying, condescending, and frequently threatening violence.
Here's the kind of things they say.
“You're too weak to go alone.”
If we take weakness to mean economic weakness (and not a veiled threat of war), the anti-secessionist wants you to believe that a smaller country detached from the US would immediately fall into the third world. The idea is that bigger countries have better economies and higher standards of living, and smaller countries have smaller economies and lower standards of living.
But big countries can have mediocre economies and low standards of living, and plenty of small countries are economic powerhouses and wonderful places to live (such as Ireland, Singapore, Taiwan). And Europe is full of highly productive, prosperous little nations.
As long as you have the desire for independence, you're never too weak to go alone.
“I know better than you. You're too stupid to be without me.”
Those dumb Southerners (or Irish, Scottish, Maltese, Catalans) could never make it without the rest of us. They don't know what's good for them.
This is ego and arrogance manifesting as a political sentiment to conceal anxiety about dissolution. An 'American' may interpret the desire to break up the country as an attack on their personal identity. It would be a dissolution of themselves – much like a bitter divorcée – and so they lash out.
But like anyone leaving a bad relationship, smaller groups are perfectly smart enough to go it alone.
“You're selfish. Think of what this will do to me!”
Here's that identity insecurity again. Americans are educated in the banal nationalist school of unity. And anything that challenges our nationalized identity is ego threatening.
Banal nationalism refers to the expressions of national reproduction that go unnoticed by it's adherents – like the pledge of allegiance.1 We're taught in school (especially when studying the Civil War), that we are "One Nation," unified under one banner. We're one people melted together, joined by the constitution, democracy, and history. We are, as every American child says 10,000 times before they graduate, "indivisible."
People can be nervous about the idea of secession because it threatens this American identity. Much like how divorce threatens the identity of the person being divorced. If part of your people leave, it can be extremely distressing, and that distress can embitter.
“If you leave, I'll hurt you.”
Here's where that bitter distress turns into anger and gets ugly.
Another part of our national psychology is the idea that secession requires war. So if parts of America try to secede, it will require another war. And the U.S. is stronger, deadlier, and more militarily powerful. “If you try to leave,” the thinking goes, “I'll hurt you.”
But war only occurs when the party being left wants to prevent the secession by any means necessary. And so they invade. But there's plenty of examples in history of peaceful independence (Malta leaving the UK, Britain leaving the EU). Secession does not require war. And divorce does not require violence.
In fact, the threat of violence is a good enough reason to separate.
What scares me the most about anti-secessionist sentiment is the cheery embrace of violence. I've met peaceful, anti-war liberals who will turn around and chuckle about "beating the South again." I've met America First isolationists who glibly discuss preventing secession with F-15s and tanks.
In the shadow of the Civil War, some people believe in keeping America together by any means necessary. Even if it means hurting the ones you love.
Banal Nationalism, by Michael Billig, 1995