Break up the USA

[I Shrugged]

I contend that the US will break up sooner rather than later. And that it will be a good thing. Hopefully with a soft border between the new nations.

What do you think about the idea? Are you willing to let "the other side" have their own place? Or must they be brought back into line?

[stuper1]

Sounds good to me, but I can't see it working in practice. Just to start with one hot-button issue, how would the nuclear weapons get apportioned between the two new nations?

I mean, just to be hyperbolic about it, if the leftist nation were given some of the nuclear weapons, don't you think they would immediately use them on the rightist nation because the rightists would certainly deserve such treatment for not recognizing the righteousness of the leftist positions?

[Xan]

Historically, breakups like this have happened, and military assets have been negotiated reasonably between the two countries. (Not to bring up another hot topic, but the South was trying hard to negotiate with the North for the military bases before the war started.)

Stuper, your distrust of "the other side" is probably mirrored by them: they might say that the right-leaning nation would immediately nuke them for aborting babies or some such. I think really this illustrates that there's too much mutual distrust to negotiate a split. Which of course means there's also too much mutual distrust to remain together. Quite a conundrum!

I think a bigger issue than military assets is currency. Who gets the US Dollar? Or does it go away in favor of two new successor currencies? Or can the two countries continue to share a currency?

[stuper1]

Yes, you are definitely right that currency would be a bigger issue. The dollar is the world reserve currency. Whichever of the two nations controls the dollar would obviously be in the stronger position. I don't see how two separate sovereign nations could control one currency. Sure, some kind of fictional dual-control could be concocted, but when things get down to brass tacks, the fiction would become apparent. That's probably when the military division would become crucial.

[vnatale]

Is this being discussed in seriousness? If so, where do you see the geographical splits occurring? Would each nation have to be gerrymandered so that all its land would be contiguous? In a husband / wife split which decides which nation the kids go to? What if there is a third nation - the neutrals or moderates? I think that would be the largest nation by far of the three.

VInny

[Mountaineer]

Is this being discussed in seriousness? If so, where do you see the geographical splits occurring? Would each nation have to be gerrymandered so that all its land would be contiguous? In a husband / wife split which decides which nation the kids go to? What if there is a third nation - the neutrals or moderates? I think that would be the largest nation by far of the three.

VInny

Nation Anarchy - Pacific Ocean saltwater states except Alaska, mid-Atlantic (MA to VA) saltwater states

Nation Big Stick - everything else

Nation A - easy access to importing all their physical needs from low pay countries. Easy access to all the E.Coli greens from CA and drugs from Mexico. After CA, OR, WA fall off and sink from a megaquake, Nation 1 will be contiguous, but will have to find a new source of E.Coli greens and drugs.

Nation BS - Great wheat and corn and beef and hogs, .... and missle silos.

Not perfect, but close enough?

Or, a second option:

Nation A - all cities with population over 500,000

Nartion BS - everything else

All in semi-jest of course.

[pp4me]

Reminds me of the "Man in the High Castle" about a parallel universe where the Axis powers won the war and Germany controlled the eastern states with Japan the western ones and a non-man's land in between.

Something cataclysmic like that seems like a more plausible scenario than any voluntary separation.

[dualstow]

I contend that the US will break up sooner rather than later. And that it will be a good thing. Hopefully with a soft border between the new nations.

What do you think about the idea? Are you willing to let "the other side" have their own place? Or must they be brought back into line?

My first choice would be to maintain the union but I wouldn’t mind a so-called velvet divorce, i.e. a bloodless separation.
I don’t think it will happen in our lifetime.

[stuper1]

I guess it might end up being sort of a religious partition like what India and Pakistan did. Instead of dividing Hindus and Muslims, we would be dividing leftist zealots from rightist zealots. We certainly see religiousity in these groups. Both India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons now, so maybe that wouldn't be unsolvable. The currency issue, as mentioned above by Xan, might be harder to solve.

[vnatale]

Reminds me of the "Man in the High Castle" about a parallel universe where the Axis powers won the war and Germany controlled the eastern states with Japan the western ones and a non-man's land in between.

Something cataclysmic like that seems like a more plausible scenario than any voluntary separation.

I watched every episode of that series. I went into watching it with great anticipation. It never came close to meeting expectations.

Vinny

[WiseOne]

Yeah it would have to be like that. Except, it gets even more interesting when you look at the electoral map by county instead of state. The blue areas are heavily focused in cities and dense suburbs. Virtually all the rest of the map is red.

I'm not sure how a breakup along those lines would work. There would not be any way to make a clean geographical separation. Perhaps more likely you'll see states breaking up. New York would be a prime candidate; it's already divided into "Downstate" and "Upstate" sections. Same with California. The stretch along the coast from San Francisco (including Marin County) down to San Diego would split off, leaving the northern and eastern sections to most likely turn as red as upstate NY.

[pp4me]

Reminds me of the "Man in the High Castle" about a parallel universe where the Axis powers won the war and Germany controlled the eastern states with Japan the western ones and a non-man's land in between.

Something cataclysmic like that seems like a more plausible scenario than any voluntary separation.

I watched every episode of that series. I went into watching it with great anticipation. It never came close to meeting expectations.

Vinny

It wasn't exactly what I expected either. The parallel universe stuff was interesting but I thought the character development was exceptional and they could have even left all the parallel universe stuff out and it might have even worked better. I had never seen the actor who played John Smith before but I was really impressed with how he played out the conflicted character of the "Obergruppenführer". Also the Japanese leader on the west coast was good.

I wasn't real happy with what I thought was a politically correct ending but it fit remarkably well with the current BLM narrative. As I recall, Blacks were going to create their own country in the state of Washington but needed the help of Caucasians so they went on television to make a promise to white people that if they joined in the revolution they would keep the promises that white people made to them that were never kept. I thought, sure they will.

Still haven't figured out what the ending was all about. Probably never will .

(Update: In my initial post I had capitalized the word "Caucasions" but not "Blacks". Not that anyone here would have noticed but you never know who is scanning the web in search of evidence of racism nowadays.)

[Xan]

(Update: In my initial post I had capitalized the word "Caucasions" but not "Blacks". Not that anyone here would have noticed but you never know who is scanning the web in search of evidence of racism nowadays.)

Seems to me that "white" and "black" are parallel and would both be capitalized or both uncapitalized. Caucasian is a proper, isn't it? The Caucasus Mountains? I think it would always be capitalized.

[pp4me]

(Update: In my initial post I had capitalized the word "Caucasions" but not "Blacks". Not that anyone here would have noticed but you never know who is scanning the web in search of evidence of racism nowadays.)

Seems to me that "white" and "black" are parallel and would both be capitalized or both uncapitalized. Caucasian is a proper, isn't it? The Caucasus Mountains? I think it would always be capitalized.

It does get confusing. Notice I didn't capitalize "white" as in "white people" as that didn't seem proper. And if I had initially used the term "Afro-American" I would have capitalized it as that seems obvious too. If we're going to use the word "Blacks" in the same way we do "Caucasions" however then it does seem right to capitalize it. There was a recent stink about it somewhere which made me sensitive to the spelling. That doesn't bother me as long as I don't get my house burned down if I make a mistake.

[Mountaineer]

Yeah it would have to be like that. Except, it gets even more interesting when you look at the electoral map by county instead of state. The blue areas are heavily focused in cities and dense suburbs. Virtually all the rest of the map is red.

I'm not sure how a breakup along those lines would work. There would not be any way to make a clean geographical separation. Perhaps more likely you'll see states breaking up. New York would be a prime candidate; it's already divided into "Downstate" and "Upstate" sections. Same with California. The stretch along the coast from San Francisco (including Marin County) down to San Diego would split off, leaving the northern and eastern sections to most likely turn as red as upstate NY.

Re. Bold Underline: That is exactly what happened June 20, 1863 when West Virginia split from Virginia (or as a West Virginian might say, when Virginia seceded from West Virginia ).

[Hal]

Yeah it would have to be like that. Except, it gets even more interesting when you look at the electoral map by county instead of state. The blue areas are heavily focused in cities and dense suburbs. Virtually all the rest of the map is red.

I'm not sure how a breakup along those lines would work. There would not be any way to make a clean geographical separation. Perhaps more likely you'll see states breaking up. New York would be a prime candidate; it's already divided into "Downstate" and "Upstate" sections. Same with California. The stretch along the coast from San Francisco (including Marin County) down to San Diego would split off, leaving the northern and eastern sections to most likely turn as red as upstate NY.

Re. Bold Underline: That is exactly what happened June 20, 1863 when West Virginia split from Virginia (or as a West Virginian might say, when Virginia seceded from West Virginia ).

Could a USA'ian explain the following quote to a subject of the "British Empire" -> Australian

So, if the rights of the people of the United States as recognized by the Constitution, are not secured to them by the Government, and the people of any State have no other means to redress their grievances except by separating themselves from their oppressors, it is their undoubted natural right to do so.

https://www.historians.org/teaching-and ... lly-secede

[Libertarian666]

Yeah it would have to be like that. Except, it gets even more interesting when you look at the electoral map by county instead of state. The blue areas are heavily focused in cities and dense suburbs. Virtually all the rest of the map is red.

I'm not sure how a breakup along those lines would work. There would not be any way to make a clean geographical separation. Perhaps more likely you'll see states breaking up. New York would be a prime candidate; it's already divided into "Downstate" and "Upstate" sections. Same with California. The stretch along the coast from San Francisco (including Marin County) down to San Diego would split off, leaving the northern and eastern sections to most likely turn as red as upstate NY.

Re. Bold Underline: That is exactly what happened June 20, 1863 when West Virginia split from Virginia (or as a West Virginian might say, when Virginia seceded from West Virginia ).

Could a USA'ian explain the following quote to a subject of the "British Empire" -> Australian

So, if the rights of the people of the United States as recognized by the Constitution, are not secured to them by the Government, and the people of any State have no other means to redress their grievances except by separating themselves from their oppressors, it is their undoubted natural right to do so.

https://www.historians.org/teaching-and ... lly-secede

The answer is that the States would never have agreed to the Constitution if they thought that they could be forced to remain under the control of the federal government no matter what injustices they were subjected to, the last recourse being secession.

How do I know? Because they had just rebelled successfully against the world's most powerful empire on that exact basis.