Colin Quinn: Red State, Blue State

Thanks, folks.

Aww. Thanks, folks. Thanks.

You seem like, uh...

Very nice, reasonable people in the short time I've known you, you know.

I mean, most people want the same things.

Dallas, Omaha, Sacramento, New York...

People everywhere want family, community,

uh, security... universal values.

But if we can't agree how to get these things after all these years,

maybe we need to take some time apart,

separate, divorce, consciously uncouple.

The Founding Fathers warned us it would come to this.

John Adams said the two-party system is the greatest political evil

under our Constitution.

George Washington cautioned in his farewell address

against excessive political party spirit and geographical distinction.

Wise words.

They tell us what to do about it?

They did not. They just said it,

then they died...

And now, they left us to figure it out.

Real geniuses.

America...

Two parties. Still! All these years later, two parties.

There's 350 million people and there's two parties.

There's 15 genders...

and there's two parties.

There's four bathrooms, and there's two parties.

And those parties are too proportionate.

Every vote, 51-49.

That's too many unhappy people every election.

That means, every election,

our system is saying to steak-eaters and vegans,

"Okay, election's over, you gotta eat steak."

"Well, I don't like steak. I'm a vegan.

Steak makes me physically ill. I'm allergic."

"It's only every day for the next four years. Don't worry."

Two parties that see the country totally differently.

The right sees only the positive, the left sees only the negative.

Right sees this country

like they're at a high-school football game in the stands.

Cheering, "USA! USA! We're number one."

And the left sees it like they were at an ICU unit.

"I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do.

America is terminally racist and fatally patriarchal.

It's hopeless."

Let's be honest. We don't even like each other.

We don't even support each other's businesses or economies.

Red states hate Hollywood and the media.

They won't go to the movies or read The New York Times.

And blue states

won't use tobacco, dairy, or carbs.

The red states base their vote on Paul's Letter to the Corinthians.

Blue states base theirs on The Chomsky Reader.

And nobody wants to admit

it isn't really working out.

Because it's embarrassing to be the generation

that lost the United States.

I get it. I grew up here too.

Lot of it was about enthusiasm, positivity, hype.

People would say, "America is the greatest.

The greatest! The greatest."

And you'd go, "Yeah, it's great."

They'd go, "Why're you being so negative?

We just said, 'The greatest.' Why would you say 'great'?"

Yeah, nobody wants to admit, it didn't really pan out.

It's nothing to be ashamed of. No country really worked.

We had as good a run as anybody else.

We still have the remnants of the greatest empire in history.

Still have the best towels out of any country you'll ever go to.

You go to the nicest hotels in Europe,

you're still wet after using them.

You're wet, and the towels are wet.

The towels don't work.

Still have the greatest abundance of ice cubes.

Prime Minister of England asks for ice cubes in a glass,

they give him one ice cube.

Average person here,

six ice cubes, seven ice cubes.

You go out for a drink after this show,

they'll give you six ice cubes.

That's the society we set up.

This guy's worth more ice cubes than the Prime Minister of England.

We're so successful, we have a diet called "intermittent fasting"

where you go to bed hungry.

I mean, in the...

History of civilization,

everyone's primal goal, not to go to bed hungry.

And we get to the point, people walk up to you,

"How are you doing?" "I'm starving."

"Congratulations."

We succeeded. We're badass.

If there's a World War right now,

we have to worry about maybe, two countries,

China and Russia.

Out of 190 countries, two.

Uruguay has to be nice to everybody.

They go to the UN Security Council meetings,

they bump into Luxembourg coming out of the bathroom,

they're both going, "Excuse me." "Excuse me. I didn't see you."

Meanwhile, our President can go, "Up yours!"

Everybody's like, "Oh, it's America. You know how they get. They're crazy."

'Cause they know we can really hurt them.

You know, while other countries talk tough,

but they can't get off the barstool.

So, the problem is not out there. The problem is in here.

We have met the enemy. It is us.

And now, we're at risk of a civil war.

And you don't want to see a civil war in this country.

This country is not built for another civil war.

It's gonna be the first time in history

that you see fat refugees.

That's not gonna be a good look, really.

Refugees in jorts and flip-flops

and Dunder Mifflin T-shirts,

pulling coolers towards the Canadian border.

It's gonna look like a giant cattle drive.

There's nothing glamorous... Fifty years from now,

kids are in history class reading about the Battle of Six Flags.

The Siege of Dave & Buster's.

The problem with war, it makes idiocy contagious.

You wind up with mass hysteria, like this country right now.

Half this country swears there's a Muslim invasion, right now,

and the other half swears there's a Nazi invasion.

That's why this country's built on compromise.

'Cause the Founding Fathers understood most people are mentally ill.

And the problem with compromise, nobody ever compromises.

Our system has been in gridlock for 40 years

and no one seems alarmed by this.

It's like our system's like, you're sitting in your car in traffic

for 40 years.

You're honking your horn, your battery's dead,

you're out of gas, you've pissed your pants.

You're cursing, "I'm gonna kill everybody!

I'll kill... I'll kill myself and everybody else."

And the person next to you goes, "Yeah, but at least you get to say that.

That's the beauty of this country."

And let's remember, war is more likely to start

when extremists start to rise to the top.

Because extremists are who you want in charge during a war.

You don't want moderate generals.

Who needs a moderate general?

You don't want a general giving that pre-battle speech,

"Okay, men, we're gonna descend that hill and destroy that village.

Remember something. Those people down there are basically just like us...

deep down.

It's a different culture. Now, let's go kill 'em."

You don't want philosophers. You want generals.

"They're bad. We're good."

And we're not gonna be able to stop war once it starts.

No one in history has figured out how to stop a war.

Nobody's even figured out how to stop bar fights.

How are we gonna stop wars?

And bars are the last place there should ever be a fight.

Bars are the happiest place on Earth.

It's like Disneyland for adults.

You're not at work anymore.

You're with friends. There's liquor, music, attractive people,

and there's still violence.

Work is where you would've expected to have seen violence, is all.

'Cause you're at work.

9:30, Tuesday morning,

should be the most violent place on the planet.

"Don't go near the copier. It's a bucket of blood."

So, how did all this happen to such a great empire?

Well, for one thing, we wanted more.

That was our mission statement.

"Bigger, better, faster, more."

Started out with 13 colonies and now we're at 50 states.

What was wrong with 13 colonies?

Thirteen seems like a lot.

We were already bigger than England and France.

But we got greedy.

We didn't take the hint from God.

God put giant mountain ranges and rivers all over the place.

That was to indicate different countries.

Europe, same size as us, basically. Bunch of different countries.

'Cause they understood,

every 700 miles, people have a different personality.

I mean, do you really think Hungary and Scotland have less in common

than Utah and New Jersey?

And the glue that was gonna keep us all together,

keep us from tribalism, civil war...

All that Constitution stuff,

democracy, equality, free speech.

"Free speech." Boy, did we take that one too far.

Nobody ever shuts up in this country.

And for a country based on free speech, I gotta say,

haven't heard a lot of great speeches come out of here.

If you can name 20 great speeches since our country began,

I'm wrong, but you can't.

There's been like five.

The Martin Luther King speech,

the John F. Kennedy speech,

and the next three were end-of-the-season monologues

on The Bachelor...

Where the guy gives the speech to the girl.

He's like, "With you, I feel like I can be me,

but..."

"But with her,