By Erick Erickson

This past week has made me realize the situation in this country is unlikely to get better. We have 320 million people who hate each other and the left shows no signs of toning down rhetoric after last week’s mass assassination attempt. If anything, too many of them regret there were no deaths.

At the same time, the left would have us believe that there is more violence on the right where history itself shows that is not true. From Nazism to Communism to progressivism itself, there has been more butchery from leftwing ideologies throughout human history than from the right — and yes despite popular historic revisionism, Nazism is from the left and had an American progressive fan club that included Margaret Sanger, patron saint of killing kids. On college campuses, conservatives are chased away by mobs and the left excuses it. After all, they say, the right deserved it. Steve Scalise deserved it. The Christian bigot needs to bake the cake, but the performer who does not want to perform for President Trump is a saint.

There is only a one way street and the crowd that demands tolerance only wants tolerance for themselves. All others must be silenced.

The political left is becoming the American ISIS.

But let’s not excuse the right. Increasingly, there are those on the right who think they have to behave exactly as the left to give them a dose of their own medicine. They will storm the stage and disrupt the play. They will form an angry mob to chase away liberals. It is only a matter of time before some nut on the right decides to seek vengeance for Republican congressmen.

The situation is getting out of hand and neither side wants to rein it in. Those who do suggest we calm things down are hounded for their own transgressions because neither side shows grace. Because someone did something bad once, he cannot be listened to now. And because someone says something another disagrees with politically, that statement is proof positive of hypocrisy, instead of differences of opinion.

Both the left and parts of the right are now all using the Alinsky playbook, which itself was dedicated to Satan. It’s all going according to his plan as we slip and slide toward armageddon.

Federalism should be the answer. Those who want gay marriage and kid killing should be allowed to do it in their state and those who want to live in state that does not allow gay marriage or the murder of children should be allowed to. The founders wanted us to solve those moral issues at the state level and allow each state its own values and ways. That is how it should work. That would be the cure for what ails us.

But let’s not kid ourselves. If Texas decided to end abortion on demand and prohibit gay marriage, three-quarters of the Fortune 500, the NCAA, and every professional sports league would boycott the state. It is not enough that each state should be able to set its own values, even here the left demands adherence to its beliefs and punishment for the beliefs of others. So there is no escape from the culture war. There is no escape from the politicization of everything. There is no escape from an escalation of violence in politics. The minority nows gets to exert its will over the majority and every vice gets declared a civil right we must all worship and subsidize.

In our present atmosphere there is no escape from the American ISIS that is the political left. Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant and then it seeks to silence good. Evil is now dominant — but the partisan line is blurred.

The only escape is dissolution. We should part ways if we cannot have federalism. We should start talking about secession. If both sides have decided that every hill is a hill to die on and control of Washington means reward for their friends and punishment of their enemies, we need to end Washington. The way to do that is end the union.

I am no longer an optimist about the future of this country. This past week has shown there is no incentive for the better angels of ourselves to rise. Both sides are out for blood. The only way to calm the situation is for us to part ways. Frankly, and historically, the only thing at this point that is going to save us from ourselves is either breaking apart our union or a major war not of our choosing that forces us to unite. I suspect the latter is coming, but we should start talking about the former if we are not going to live and let live within the rubric of federalism.