Fantasy time: Let’s say red states get so delusional they think they’re better off going their own way. Blue states say good riddance. Can this divorce be amicable – or at least non-violent? Can either or both sides survive?
Considerations:
Does “red states” include Texas, Ohio, Florida and North Carolina, who narrowly went for Trump in 2020? Or just deep red states like Alabama, Idaho, etc.?
Do states that went for Biden but have GOP-majority legislatures – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, others – join the splitters?
Will the new non-contiguous nations allow travel across their territories – say, from blue Colorado to blue Illinois?
You’re forgetting that we’ve seen this movie and it didn’t turn out well for the seceders. You can’t just divvy up the country based on recent voting patterns. If you did the so-called red states would be mostly rural interior states while the so-called blue states would have the heavily populated coasts. California could probably go it alone, but Oregon would be in trouble as part of a 2 state, west coast contingent, separated from its national capital by 2000 miles of hostile territory. Instead of seceding, we should be trying to find a middle ground that everyone can live with. Swinging the political pendulum back and forth every 4 years doesn’t make anyone happy. There used to be a middle ground that everyone was pretty comfortable with. I just hope we can find it again.
That there are no red states or blue states. When you look at voting maps by county there are blue voting areas surrounded by red voting areas. but mostly it is a purple combination of both red and blue. More of an urban/rural divide.
You are believing that there are clear philosophical divisions, by area, where none exists.
Rather than look at the state voting maps look by county.
@Akaj you raise excellent questions, especially points #1, #2, and #4 which I genuinely do not have a good answer to, and I await the input of Dopers who are more knowledgeable on those areas. What I can say is that a peaceful dissolution is not impossible, just look at the example of Czechoslovakia. If Republicans are firmly behind secession and Democrats recognize that their political survival hinges on letting the crazies split off, the political will can exist for amending the Constitution to allow the red states to do just that.
I presume trade will still be carried out between the two (or more) newly formed countries, so cars and planes should still be able to go through. I can’t imagine that a country would be so vindictive as to restrict their airspace and highways just to be douchey, I mean, the red states already got what they wanted by leaving the big bad blue states right?
As this is one of the topics I am more interested in, I have collected some Dope posts that discuss the multitude of issues that can crop up during and after such a secession. (1, 2, 3)
That’s because the North wanted the South to remain in the Union. If both Democrats and Republicans are in agreement that red states need to go, this isn’t a problem.
My stance is that if enough people across both parties agree to amend the Constitution to allow for a peaceful dissolution, take the deal and run! We can always hash out the issues later. Perhaps let adults choose which country they want to be citizens of, but that could run into the problem of a country refusing to allow high net-worth individuals leave for the other country.
Unilateral secession is a non-starter, and would certainly lead to war. We have seen this before.
Now suppose a section of the country banded together and attempted a negotiated withdrawal from the Union. There are a few such sections that are plausible: the Deep South (AK, LA, AL, MS, KY, and TN for example) or the Big Sky/Great Plains (ID, MT, WY, UT, ND, SD, NE, KS). Perhaps one of those regions could attempt to negotiate a withdrawal. That would take many years to work out, and I would imagine that once the costs became clear those states would change their mind.
As to how the military gets divvied up - it doesn’t. All military assets are property of the US Government. If a group of states wants to leave then they can build their own military. Perhaps the new country could buy some of the military property from the US if it wants to, but I highly doubt anything particularly high-tech would be allowed to transfer. All soldiers that renounce their US citizenship would obviously be removed from service.
A big one you are forgetting has to do with the national debt and other entitlement programs. Are all past Social Security contributions now null and void? What portion of the national debt do the breakaway states have to bear?
There are also trade and border issues. You mentioned right of passage, but what sort of border are we talking about? Something like the Schengen zone or more of a hard border like US/Mexico?
The easiest thing would be some sort of “home rule” situation where the breakaway states negotiate some level of freedom from federal laws (or ability to create their own regional laws) in exchange for no or limited representation in the federal government. Sort of a return to “territorial” status.
There is no such thing as “secession.” Membership in the U.S. is permanent and irrevocable and anyone who claims otherwise is in a state of sedition. If they attempt to set up an alternate government or military they are in treasonous rebellion.
Anyone who “negotiates” with, acquiesces to, or “says good riddance” to people in treasonous rebellion is equally guilty of the same crime.
I recall this being definitively settled at a certain point.
The voting population is less important than the military population. I don’t believe all soldiers serving in a Texas base are from Texas. The military is a federal employer and I imagine this is deliberate. Inevitably there will be someone there who would not join in the treason and call someone higher up, because every Texas base will have blue people, and every California base will have red people.
It would be easier for them to declare independence if there’s a fig leaf (eg if Biden’s election win wasn’t certified). But it would end in disaster. Just look at Kashmir in India. That state has a Muslim majority but ended up part of India when India was partitioned between India and Pakistan. That happened in 1947, and the area is split into two by the Line of Control ( LoC ) and here we are, generations later, with both nations always on the edge of war with each other. I’ve read that the LOC has the itchiest trigger fingers, and it only got worse since both nations have nukes, which both Blue and Red America would end up with.
When Pakistan was split into two (between West and East Pakistan, now Bangladesh), did India allow travel across it? (I don’t know how to look this up.)
As a federal institution that has a hard time keeping out both left and right wingers, I don’t think we’ll see Air Force Division 1 going red and Air Force Division 2 going blue. Organizing a military coup is a lot harder than in the medieval period considering the military is not split up into totally separate and relatively small “silos”. Any unit going rogue would probably be swiftly targeted by several other units that have not gone rogue, and only the smallest units could keep out the red or blue soldiers who would alert other units and eliminate the coup’s secrecy.
Even the National Guard of most states aren’t going to be entirely red or blue. There will be blue Texas National Guard members and red California National Guard members.
States cannot legally separate, and I’m not sure if the Constitution could be amended to allow this. We have seen some nations successfully and peacefully split, generally along ethnic lines (most such separations go the way of Yugoslavia, I believe, which is to say groups attack groups). I don’t see the Quebec independence model working in the US.
Texas has been flirting with secession for as long as I can remember; there’s currently an effort to get a nonbinding referendum on the November ballot. This will likely go nowhere, but if Texas really did attempt to negotiate a peaceful secession, the “hash out the issues” part would probably kill it.
I grew up in Texas, and I can imagine Texans voting for a secession referendum in a paroxysm of state pride. The morning after the vote, when people really start thinking through the implications of leaving, they’d be saying, “Holy shit, what did we just do? Can we get a do-over?” I can see a lot of older, Trumpy types eagerly supporting secession and then realizing that they just blew up their own Medicare coverage.
If Texas miraculously managed to sort out all the logistical problems and achieve a peaceful exit from the USA, within a year they’d be clamoring to rejoin.
You’re looking at this in an interesting way. When it comes to a federal asset - the military - you’re declaring unequivocally that it doesn’t get divided up and remains the property of the non-seceders. But in the case of the national debt, you assume as a matter of course that the seceders bear some portion of it, and the only question is how much. This seems inconsistent. Federal assets and national debt are two sides of the same coin.
Of course, it would depend on the terms negotiated by the two sides.
Not that this is going to happen any time soon, of course. Key problem - besides for the weight of history - is that it’s really more of an urban/rural divide than a geographic one, and it would be hard to split up a country on that basis.
A lot of that has to do with the national debt question raised by Jas09.
Most federal programs are funded on a pay-as-you-go basis. If the seceders stopped paying federal taxes to the current US government and started funding their own social programs via taxes to their new government, then they would possibly come out ahead.
No, we don’t have the same stomach for civil war like we did 160 years ago. If the red states secede, the blue states will most likely just let them go their way peaceably.
That, and also the fact that the red states could inflict a LOT of pain on the blue states if there were a shooting war, and the blues would know that. Nuke-tipped SLBM submarines are based in Georgia, nuke-tipped ICBMs are in North Dakota, nuke-bomb armed B-2s are in Missouri. Wouldn’t be wise to mess with that. The blues would be prudent to just let the reds go.
Did you all miss the part where I said “fantasy time?” I’m not asking, Would the US let Idaho secede? I’m stipulating that we would. I’m asking, Would it lead to war anyway, or could it actually be an amicable breakup?
Internationally, most countries will not like the idea of either a diminished US [do they suddenly halve their NATO contribution, need to deflect forward forces into arming the internal border etc?] or the destabilisation of international policy.
Apart from Russia and China, who would support the Republican secessionists to sow discord, the international community would side with remnant US. If it came to war, then there would not be much support - financial, diplomatic or material - for the secessionists. So, very much like last time. For all the romantic renegade vibe, blockade runners and sporadic allies did not make up for the essential political failure of their position.
The improbability of it aside, it is an interesting thought exercise to ponder what kinds of government structures each new nation would set up. I think it’s very possible that the blue country would junk a federalist approach in favor of a more modern and representative democracy.
OTOH, I’ve read the proposed constitution of the old line Texas secessionists and it leaves no doubt that minority, white, rural electoral power will be permanently implemented. Conservatives don’t believe in fairly representative government the way we do.
One of the reasons I cited Texas is the state’s aversion to anything that is perceived as a handout. Texas rejected the Medicaid expansion and is suing to overturn the Affordable Care Act. It’s hard for me to imagine Texas setting up their own versions of the many federal social assistance programs, particularly if more taxes are required to do it. Texas presently has no state income tax, and attempting to implement one after a secession would likely get huge resistance.
FWIW, IMO if the Red States lined up enough committed states and support, I don’t believe there would be war over secession. The Civil War was a long time ago, and people’s attitudes towards war and the attendant loss of life have changed a lot over that time. I can’t see the modern public accepting the potential loss of millions of lives over a political issue with the option of just accepting a peaceful separation available.
OTOH, there is obviously not enough in terms of committed states and support at this time. Though things are trending that way. Question is if it will ever reach that point or if the trend will change before that time.
We are – if the details prove unworkable or Idaho discovers it can’t make it without us. Or if Idaho, Montana and Wyoming think they’re going to be a happy trouple but things go sideways.
If Texas’ social safety net programs after secession reflected the state’s dominant political philosophy, then it’s not likely there would be substantial resistance to it, and whatever income taxes were required would likely be a lot lower than the current federal income tax, and much more palatable. There’s a big difference between having a state income tax on top of the federal one, and having a state income tax instead of the federal one.