This throws under the bus the many many non republicans in places gerrymandered such that the minority can continue it’s rule. My life would probably get better, but only at their expense as more and more solvent states leave the union. I’m not willing to ‘punish’ those people for the crime of being born in a impossibly corrupt district.
Why did democrats not stop the gerrymandering? Why are there so many laws that should not exist still there?
And that outdated electoral college, smells like the fourth republic in france IMO.
Because democrats have found a way to benefit from their own misuses of the law as well, so you can see how this leaves the people trying to change this with impossible choices they have to suffer consequences of even if they make the best one. It takes a lot of fight to stand up and keep pushing through that, and those are exactly the folk I’m proud to call my country-kin
Democrats do gerrymandering too. Basically without gerrymandering, the power would shift about 4% in Democrats favor. Enough to shift power in the House, but not as much as people think.
(That statistic comes from a video I watched a while ago, and could be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt. I’m not an authority on this matter.)
I suspect politics would actually shift a huge minority amount towards “no, don’t kill the planet, my grandchildren live here”.
The billionaire planet killers can afford to buy up and lock down two parties. I doubt they can afford to buy out everyone.
It was long and slow and by the time it was clear what was happening it was well underway.
I’m someone who grew up in ohio as it happened and it was subtle. But we eventually passed constitutional amendments banning gerrymandering, but congress ignored us. And as it happened bit by bit we left. I stayed until it was clearly about to get unsafe for folks like me (I left a few months ago), and democrats are still fighting there. But political polarization is strong and a lot of coastal Republicans have moved in because its nearly impossible for them to lose there at this point in anything except single issue votes on constitutional amendments
I’m not so sure. Once the Republicans no longer have the democrats to fight against, they will fight against each other. This might happen as well in the leaving blue states, but I feel like the democrates don’t hold as big of a majority in most of them. So they are already used to it. And they aren’t so much the party of fire and brimstone. So more likely they would try to do all the social reforms and just fall on thier faces.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Gotta break a few eggs, etc.
Might be cruel but kinda my thought. We can’t save everyone.
Especially those unwilling to fight back.
Coloradan. Only if a neighboring State does, because if not, we are neighboring other borders and we would be landlocked without food or water imports. Its either all Pacific and Front Range States agree we have to split, or none of us can.
Our most populous cities, Denver and CO Springs, are below the mountains, and are screwed in a combat scenario.
I don’t see Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, or Kansas doing so willingly.
In American balkanization I imagine yall would be a battleground of the literal variety. Colorado and new Mexico would want to join Pacifica and Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, and Montana likely won’t. But also you’re valuable enough to justify putting up a stink for
I think Colorado could force AZ to do what they want just by threatening to turn off the water.
Our water? It comes from dwindling snowpack due to climate change. I think you are overstating our pull here dude.
No your missiles and natural barriers.
New Mexico went Kamala. Border state.
Californian here, bye Felicia. I’m fucking done with my hard earned money going towards ungrateful backwoods idiots that actively hate me, my state, and my neighbors because they’re told to by thuh teevee, yet don’t realize it. I’m done subsiding hatred for the sake of it, because “it’s the right thing to do.” I’m done being at the political whim of people that can’t spell potato. I have a lot of heart for my countrymen, but considering far too many of them hate us for reasons they don’t even understand, I don’t see the point anymore.
I just hope they automatically give former residents citizenship. I’m stranded out in the badlands for now.
If honestly be curious how that would work out. CA tends to know the value of immigration, and i couldn’t really see them holding a policy of closed borders, at least not in the long run.
Any American balkanization would likely go very similarly to the partition of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The liberals would be given a period of permission to move to the coasts, and the conservatives to the red states, and in this process communities would shatter and a lot of people would die, but it’s better than a civil war and/or white terror.
You should have a US Passport and all your documents needed to get it on hand and in a fire safe.
So, explicitly maintain the societal shadow-rung of illegal immigrants…? Can’t say I love continuing to underwrite that idea.
A US Passport implies you were a US Citizen once
Personally I would respect all US citizens as Pacficians automatically unless you were an accessory to the Trump Admin or ICE (Whatever the fuck you did is Treason, you don’t get to keep citizenship, you don’t get to join our new cool country and if you try to stay, we will respond with capital punishment).
I would partially base it on tax records, honestly.
And yes, I’m specifically trying to exclude billionaires who declare their residency in zero income tax states; they’re specifically trying to evade societal responsibility in the form of tax avoidance, so we should avoid making them a part of our society.
Clearly there’s more nuance to be implemented, but I think addressing wealth inequality very pointedly at a foundational level would be a GREAT idea.
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Yeah, it’s a little too late for that.
Agreed, that ship has sailed.
Can’t believe you’re not downvoted. How dare you say you want to change the nation for the better and not just secede
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I would absolutely prefer to be something else
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I don’t think the population is as hopelessly divided as the social media spaces make it out to be, but at the same time, the federal government looks more and more unrecoverable from corporate interests and back to the people every single day. It’s probably past the point of return, excepting major societal shakeup.
It feels like there may come a point where the states that are large enough to be countries on their own start looking into any mechanisms that would allow them separation, just to be able to run themselves without federal interference and incompetence.
Anything that hastens the death of the U.S. is good by me.
No. Imagining an independent future for any state (including California and Texas) is pure cope. The states are so interdependent that attempting to secede would be ruinous for the state in question.
The only exceptions I can think of are Alaska and Hawaii, which might be able to survive if they found another country to keep them supplied and economically connected.
Washingtonian here, I’ve been saying this should happen for like 8 years now lmao
The marriage isn’t working. Let it go.
We have had a name for it for awhile, my fellow Washingtonians call the Washington/Oregon/California union ‘Cascadia’. Wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Fuck yeah! Cascadia! Let us stop funding this awful government and actually put our taxes towards improving people’s lives
Absolutely, and I’m about ready to start identifying as that over American 🫠.
I usually think of BC being part of it, too, cause we’re so similar culturally, and we hang out on each other’s side of the made up invisible line all the time.
One can dream!
It would have a hell of a lot of economic power, and natural resources.
Sounds like the kind of place the US would invade
If you don’t take AZ and NV with you, you will get your Colorado River water cut off and lose a lot of farming power. That might even require UT. Unless it’s only Northern California included, in which case you still lose that agriculture, and possible land based trade lines to Mexico. It’s not a clean and pretty separation.
That is a problem, but not an intractable one. The first easy win would be to just stop wasting so much water. CA could be a lot more careful with water than it is by just leaning on industry and ag to cut wasteful water use harder than it leans on the suburbs. Don’t get me wrong, green lawns in our Mediterranean climate are a stupid waste too, but it pencils out to less than a percent of all water use, where ag and industry are both in the double digits.
I’m at the point where I think we should peacefully dissolve the Union entirely. Just grant all 50 states full independence. Let the states come back together in whatever new nation or combination of nations they want.
Look at the current state of our politics. Step back and really look at it. Every political system relies ultimately not on a constitution, but on the good faith of the people actually governing. Look at how the current president is wiping his ass with every check and balance built into the system. Words and laws don’t matter, there’s always a bad faith interpretation that can allow the president to seize more and more power. And the Supreme Court is openly giving broad sweeping authority to Republican presidents while severely curtailing the power of Democratic presidents. Bribery is legal, and both parties are completely captured by the wealthy. Oh, and every last scrap of freedom, privacy, and autonomy are being torn down in the path of an ever-expanding surveillance panopticon.
I’m sorry. But by the time your political culture decays so far to allow this level of dysfunction, there’s no saving it. Our constitution is a woefully out-of-date obsolete document that should have been scrapped generations ago. And it was made difficult to amend by people who had no idea how important amending it would later be. It was built for the compromises of the 1780s, not the compromises of the 2020s. We need to go through a new process of Constitution creation, potentially multiple such processes, and come back together based on new compromises that reflect the reality of the 21st century.
This nation cannot be saved. We need a peaceful national divorce. The alternative is likely something far worse, as we hurdle inexorably towards a second civil war.
Note: obviously there are practical difficulties with dissolving a nation. When this comes up, people love to hand wring about the national debt or how military assets will be dissolved in this kind of scenario. These are important but obvious concerns. But national myopia blinds us here. Nations have peacefully divided countless times through history. These matters are always handled through some negotiation process. American exceptionalism blinds us to our possible futures, simply because we are unwilling to look beyond our own borders for inspiration.
I think the only reason states have not truly waged war on each other is that we are part of a union. That’s just my opinion, but many states would simply begin to fail without the feds redistributing wages from states that have good industry and gdp.
Once they don’t get, they will start to try to take, and that fire would spread faster than it could be put out. Again all imo. But us Americans are “a bit shit” to eachother already, to borrow a British phrase.
I actually read this, unusual for me. I appreciate your take, and while your reasons are real concerns, I’m not in agreement with your solution.
Sure? Balkanization seems like a good way to speed up the process of the Empire collapsing.
plus there is the bonus of schadenfreunde, since they always want to balkanize countries that happen to stand in their path.
Balkan are the greatest thing ever.
I support balkanizing the US
It worked wonderfully for the actual Balkans and the Caucasus region
I live in Oregon, I’d prefer it if Oregon joined Canada as a province, or like Washington and Oregon together. I don’t think it’s realistic. There’s a lot of unanswered questions of how things would work but I have daydreamed about it.
Yes. In fact, I’ve decided to take a leap of faith and join the California National Party, which you can all check out here: CNP website. I am sick of the usual Republicans vs Democrats. Everytime one party is in power, we are constantly worrying about the loss of civil and human rights. Lets start with a clean slate. If you are a California resident, at least check out their party platform. Also, in 2026, there will be a gubernatorial candidate for CNP. His name is Sean Forbes.
A single party like Mexico’s PRI party isn’t the answer either…
There are Nations with more than 2 parties
but mexico has got way more parties than pri, so much that most candidates winning elections do so with a broad alliance. in fact since 2000 pri only had a single term.
I’m not sure where you got that we only want one party in an independent California? Once CNP successfully fights for independence, then other parties can spring up. For example, in South Africa, the African National Congress were the big fighters against apartheid. No they are just another (corrupt) political party. Another example is the Indian National Congress. Members of that party fought for independence from the UK. Now, its just another political party, and they have not had any sort of power since 2014. CNP would have a place in an independent California. But the future after that, up in the air.
If having human rights is dependent upon who’s in power at the moment, you don’t have human rights.
Right. Which is why I want to break free from the usual bullshit.
California could pull this off, given its industry, agriculture, and Pacific seaports. New York, where I live, has lost too much industry and agriculture to be self-sufficient. Joining Canada, though, could help assuage some of those deficits.
New York has quite a bit going for it. I think we can stand up for ourselves. I think Jersey, Connecticut, and Vermont would join us right out of the gate. I’d certainly support secession.
Additionally, NY plus CA seceding would put way too much pressure on the remainder for the rest of the states to manage the federal government. If Texas secedes for the opposite reasons, that’s the end of it.
I speak for all NJ and say “sure fuck it let’s go ny” and then I get into the concerns of “who is now in control of the port authority”
We have a lot of fucking idiots though
There’s one big fatal flaw to that though. Water. California doesn’t have enough.
Eh, California is mostly water independent. Most of the water that is “imported” comes from the Colorado River and is used for the least productive and least necessary agriculture in the state. Yeah, figuring out how to handle however much water would be lost if California were to secede would be an issue, but it wouldn’t be an impossible situation.
It really does come down to this. They would be outright screwed.
Sorry but Cali is rich as fuck, they’d figure out water if need be.
Californian. No.
It wouldn’t solve any problems that can’t be solved by other means, and it would create new problems that we haven’t had to worry about before. It’d be a net loss for everyone involved.
We’d have to spend a fortune on defense.
We’d suffer massive losses from being cut off from interstate trade agreements.
We’d have to deal with massive immigration issues.
We’d probably get our shit pushed in from all the federal military bases within the state.
I think it’s waaaay easier to just oust the current leadership and remove all the Congress members that aided and abetted.
