# Might the US break up before this is over? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [March 29, 2020, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558 "2020-03-29T02:28:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/101 "2020-04-02T12:40:25Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Blue state America without red state America is western Europe. Red state America without blue state America is a third world shithole. BTW, this is also radically incorrect - Blue State America is radically different from Western Europe. Notably, California has an incarcertaion rate of 581 per 100,000 while New York has 443. In comparison, the highest two in Western Europe are England/Wales at 148 and Spain at 144 (rest are even lower). Neither of those states has a UHC plan in place. Both are ‘at will’ employment states where a person can be fired for any reason as long as its not a specifically prohibited one. While there are a good number of tiny countries in Western Europe, the larger countries that are the size of a US state or several states (like Germany, France, or Spain) are capable of meeting their basic functional needs without relying on the good graces of a region they hate. ‘Blue State America’ can’t do this - one big example is that California (especially the densely populated deep blue areas) is dependent on other states for its water supply, and that’s currently handled by an interstate compact. If California arrogantly flips off the nasty red states nearby (or the many ‘red state regions’ that water flows through), those states can cut off the water supply and cause virtually instant disaster for California’s largest population centers. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/102 "2020-04-02T12:47:07Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > _ **I agree with your basic point** _, but will still offer a Nitpick. 🙂 Five of the 51 “states” gave Trump less than 33.3% of the 2016 vote: I’m including Johnson in the “Red State” vote. I should be saying “Red State” instead of “Trump”, but I’m not going to count libertarians as Blue State voters. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/103 "2020-04-02T15:17:00Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > _ **I agree with your basic point** _, but will still offer a Nitpick. 🙂 Five of the 51 “states” gave Trump less than 33.3% of the 2016 vote: > Dist\_Columbia 4.1% > Hawaii 30.0% > Vermont 30.3% > California 31.6% > Massachusetts 32.8% > You can rephrase “more than 1/3 … voted for Trump” to be “more than 1/3 of those _who didn’t vote for Johnson or Stein_ … voted for Trump.” Then, only Dist\_Columbia and Hawaii would be exceptions. I don’t think 30% is significantly less than 33.3% (all right, 3.3% less). That’s still 3 in every 10 people. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/104 "2020-04-02T18:53:06Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I don’t think 30% is significantly less than 33.3% (all right, 3.3% less). That’s still 3 in every 10 people. It’s not, in casual conversation most people will approximate 30% as 1/3 for simplicity, and no one has explained how what the huge difference is between having a country with 30% ‘red staters’ (a ‘blue state’ that secedes) vs 40% ‘red staters’ (how they’re describing the US pre split). Also I meant to point out before, DC isn’t a state at all. Dragging in a city that is explicitly not a state state as a counterexample to something that I said about states is just absurd. It’s especially so in a post that’s focusing on the difference between 30% and 33%. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/105 "2020-04-02T19:19:27Z")
I thought there was a possibility the US might break up BEFORE the coronavirus. I don’t think it’s likely, but possible. The level of division is not sustainable, and I don’t think a different president is going to make much of a difference. ---
**Author:** ![Akaj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/akaj/32/145_2.png) [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/106 "2020-04-02T20:19:53Z")
Has there ever been a revolution or civil war where 100% of the people on one side or another supported the split? Of course not. There were plenty of Tories in colonial America who stayed loyal to England, for instance. And if they didn’t like the idea of independence, well tough shit – they were going along for the ride anyway. When one party has painted the other as evil for the better part of a generation, it’s only a matter of time before the other party follows suit. We’re there now. If the schism is so severe it can’t survive a challenge like we’re facing now, it could very well be permanent. And how long before one side feels it’s getting screwed and just won’t take it anymore? Will it break out along state lines? We should be so lucky. Otherwise it blows up neighborhood by neighborhood or house by house like Rwanda. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/107 "2020-04-02T20:47:42Z")
I’m not even convinced we’re going to have a legitimate presidential election this year. It’s clear that the republican party is making a case for one-party rule, and it’s willing to go to extremes to ensure that this happens. This is not going to be the last wave of COVID-19; there will in all likelihood be a second wave, which may hit right before the elections. Voters will be scared of going to the polls. And if Democrats win, it just gives Republicans an excuse to refuse to accept the legitimacy of the outcome. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/108 "2020-04-02T20:53:19Z")
[![](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BoilingSizzlingBabirusa-small.gif) ](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BoilingSizzlingBabirusa-small.gif) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/109 "2020-04-02T20:59:43Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > [https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BoilingSizzlingBabirusa-small.gif](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BoilingSizzlingBabirusa-small.gif) Roll your virtual eyes all you like. It doesn’t matter whether the prediction of illegitimate elections is true or not: it matters whether people _believe_ it’s true. Say Biden wins, but in a climate where millions of voters are voting by mail for the first time. All you need is a small collection of Trump supporters with guns who genuinely believe that the election is stolen, and are willing to do something about it. I would put the chances of that at way under 1% now, but by November we could well see a decent number of people who are (a) gun owners and (b) Trump supports who have (c) recently lost a family member to COVID-19. I’d argue that (b) suggests your critical thinking faculties aren’t too heavily exercised at the best of times. I don’t think it’s likely for a bunch of reasons, many covered in this thread. Mainly that people who are hungry aren’t angry and the people who are angry aren’t hungry. But to roll your eyes and dismiss it ignores an awful lot of history, and a couple of truly awful months just ahead of us. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/110 "2020-04-02T21:33:19Z")
BTW, the Georgia Secretary of State is apparently making a concerted effort to ready the state for voting by mail by mailing ballots to all seven million registered voters. [Georgia House Speaker David Ralston is appalled.](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/490879-georgias-gop-house-speaker-says-vote-by-mail-system-would-be-devastating) ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/111 "2020-04-02T21:37:09Z")
So, our west coast friends, what kind of government is your new California Republic going to have? Gonna emulate the current US structure – which kinda doesn’t make sense without a bunch of different states in the republic – or will you try out some exciting new thangs? Parliament? Single house legislature? No executive branch? Multi-member districts and proportional voting? C’mon, this is your chance to design a new government from scratch. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/112 "2020-04-02T22:09:35Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > But to roll your eyes and dismiss it ignores an awful lot of history I’ll take any bets that there will not be a dissolution of the U.S government before the end of this pandemic. No odds, just straight up even money. Totally serious. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/113 "2020-04-02T22:13:45Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I’ll take any bets that there will not be a dissolution of the U.S government before the end of this pandemic. No odds, just straight up even money. Totally serious. Well, I don’t think it will happen either, so I wouldn’t take that bet—I just think it’s a possibility, albeit a very small one, as opposed to completely impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2020, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/114 "2020-04-02T22:16:59Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Well, I don’t think it will happen either, [https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BoilingSizzlingBabirusa-small.gif](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/BoilingSizzlingBabirusa-small.gif) ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/115 "2020-04-03T12:28:46Z")
Florida is unable to provide unemployment benefits to its people because > [@](#): > > Privately, Republicans admit that the $77.9 million system that is now failing Florida workers is doing exactly what Scott designed it to do — lower the state’s reported number of jobless claims after the great recession. [https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/04/03/its-a-sh-sandwich-republicans-rage-as-florida-becomes-a-nightmare-for-trump-1271172](https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/04/03/its-a-sh-sandwich-republicans-rage-as-florida-becomes-a-nightmare-for-trump-1271172) The governor of Georgia said two days ago that he just found out that people who aren’t showing symptoms can spread the virus. A fact that has been publicly known for at least two months. There is a cost to the Republican antigovernment, anti-blue state rhetoric. They’ve dismantled the institutions that protected them and constantly shit on the people paying the bills. How long are we going to be carrying these states? There is going to be a point where we just can’t. When climate change and the natural disasters mean that we won’t be able to subsidize anti-science racists to not grow corn. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/116 "2020-04-03T13:15:07Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > BTW, the Georgia Secretary of State is apparently making a concerted effort to ready the state for voting by mail by mailing ballots to all seven million registered voters. [Georgia House Speaker David Ralston is appalled.](https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/490879-georgias-gop-house-speaker-says-vote-by-mail-system-would-be-devastating) You don’t even need to go as low as Georgia House Speaker. President Trump himself just said (about the Coronavirus stimulus bill): “The things they had in there were crazy. They had things — levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.” When you have a system where one side honestly believes that more voting is bad for them, and are willing to work in the direction of limiting voting, it is a sign of an unhealthy system. I actually think this crisis may help on that front by forcing many more states to go to a vote-by-mail system. I don’t think residents of those states will stand by and allow their government to force them to polls in a pandemic just because they are worried more people would vote. But I could be wrong… ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/117 "2020-04-03T13:27:03Z")
> [@](#): > > States led by Republican governors and with a significant share of Trump supporters were an average of nearly three days later than other states to enact social distancing measures related to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to a new study… > > …But the response to and attitude toward the virus have been mixed among political leaders. For several weeks at the beginning of the outbreak, President Trump and some right-leaning media outlets did not characterize the virus as a threat or dismissed it outright as a hoax. [Republican governors delayed key COVID-19 social distancing measures | UW News](https://www.washington.edu/news/2020/03/31/republican-governors-delayed-key-covid-19-social-distancing-measures/) We’re simply not countrymen. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/119 "2020-04-03T13:47:09Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > New York on it’s own is still over 1/3 Red State, it’s not monolithically blue - over 1/3 of New York State’s voters (36%) voted for Trump in 2016 even though it was obviously not a swing state. The idea that the ‘Blue State’ of New York can cleanly separate from all those ‘Red State’ voters when their own ‘blue’ state has a lot of ‘red’ in it doesn’t stand up to reality. And, again, that Red State support tends to be in law enforcement, military, agricultural producers, and large land owners, which makes any sort of split really messy, since the ‘reds’ have the advantage in violence, food, and land. > > I don’t think it’s impossible for the US to break up, but the ‘blue state’ ‘red state’ split doesn’t actually work like people seem to think it does. Exactly, do you think the well armed “red state” presence is going to LET you secede and have control of the State? It is more likely that the 36% well armed populace, kicks YOU out or takes what you think you own. And all the others saying we will just import more food (all from overseas clearly) because there won’t be Interstate travel for your food, without a hefty price tag for it. And then what? Then you are in the same boat you already were ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/120 "2020-04-03T14:35:57Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > I’ll take any bets that there will not be a dissolution of the U.S government before the end of this pandemic. No odds, just straight up even money. Totally serious. Before the end of this pandemic? You’re right, probably not, so technically, the thread would be less than prophetic since it literally asks whether we might break up _before_ the pandemic is over. But I think what we’re really interested in is whether or not the pandemic becomes a shock event, a trigger point that hurls the country head first into a political crisis. There’s a very real chance that this is what results. We’re dealing with two major crises concurrently: an existential health crisis, with a virus that might actually be more lethal than the 1918 influenza, and a global economic crisis. These are going to shake people to their core. It’s going to create perceptions of danger to person, and the economic crisis will create perceptions of scarcity. This is not something that just fades away. This causes palpable fear. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558/121 "2020-04-03T14:39:41Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > You do realize that the attitudes and opinions you quote are only represented by about 10-15% of Americans, pretty much evenly divided along party lines. The majority of Americans don’t really give a shit about politics. The are more concerned about making a living, taking care of their kids, putting food on the table, finding ways to increase the standard of living, planning for that next vacation, hoping their kids are better off then they are, etc. These are common traits among most Americans regardless of which party they identify with. It only takes 10-15% of the country to start a civil conflict - shit, it probably doesn’t even take that many. A fraction of that, maybe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/might-the-us-break-up-before-this-is-over/850558.md?page=7)