by Michael Cook

Created on: January 11, 2009

Unfortunately, I think the answer to the question is "Yes". The US is too large, too populous, and too politically polarized to be governed effectively.

I say that because of my experiences living out of the country much of the year.

In the Caribbean Costa Rican town of Puerto Viejo, where I spend seven or eight months of the year, the American ex-pat community, I've realized, is little more than a microcosm of the States, complete with its deep and bitter political divisons.

To be here during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, and visit friends from different regions of the US, was like taking a whirlwind tour of the American electoral map, from Obama-mania country in places like Massachusetts and California, to deep, deep Bible thumping red states where many people seem to believe Obama is the spawn of Satan or, at the very least, al Qaeda sleeper agent.

Two neighbors, wonderful people from deep in the heart of Texas, actually refused to speak to me when they learned I was an Obama supporter.

They've softened a bit, but they firmly believe he is some kind of Muslim plant put into power to undermine the United States from the inside.

They, as do many of their friends back in Texas and the South, believe Obama's birth records are fraudulent. They believe he attended madrasas in Indonesia and was indoctrinated into Islamo-fascism, then schooled on how to disguise his radicalism, and pass himself off as the cool, charming, cerebral Harvard guy the media just love.

They really believe. They will quote right wing blog sites and Fox News, chapter and verse, as proof of their assertions.

Likewise, those ex-pats who've long been contemptuous of Bush and were Obama supporters, rant and rave about the need for impeachment and war crimes tribunals to be initiated.

They, just as their ex-pat brethren on the right believe Obama's election was the death knell for America, believe if senior members of the Bush administration, including bonny Prince George the Dubyah himself, are not held accountable for their actions, the Constitution, and all the principles enshrined in it, will have been relegated to the ash heap of history.

So intense and bitter are such feelings in the ex-pat community, I opted not to host the annual "gringo" Thanksgiving that I've held at my house for eight years.

I didn't want to risk a political discussion breaking out, especially not after people have had a few beers or cocktails, because I knew all too well how stongly held different people's opinions were.

The ex-pat community here is fairly small and people have tended to stick together.

But this election cycle blew much of that ex-pat camaraderie right of the water.

Being a lover of politics and a student of all this new media, what I see on the various blog and web sites I visitis people in the US are just as divided and polarized as the microcosm of ex-pats here.

It all makes me wonder if the Russian foreign minister, I believe, was right when he predicted recently that over the next several years we may well see the breaking up of the United States of America in a way not unlike what happened to United Soviet Socialist Republics in 1991.

After all, not only is the US too large and too populous to be governed effectively, this election showed it may be too politically polarized to be governed effectively as well.

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