Suppose further that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer have left the Supreme Court, and Trump fills both seats with conservatives. From prominent Democrats, there are daily calls for resistance in the streets, and our restaurants and theaters have turned into no-go zones for people of the wrong political party.

Were that to happen, Lincoln’s “house divided” would have new meaning, and we’d begin to wonder whether we all belong in the same country. “Some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America,” said Clinton, about the millions of “deplorables.” Yet if they’re not Americans, they might reasonably ask themselves to what country they belong or should belong.

Maybe we should stare the possibility of a breakup in its face, if we’re ever to regain our old civility and affection for fellow Americans. Before criminalizing honest policy differences, before the online shaming, the Twitter mobs and the no-platforming, before doxing ideological enemies, let’s recall that those enemies just might have exit options.