They really liked The Band.
Levon Helm, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and stuff.
The newly-formed state of Bluecoastia would end up with some rather peculiar geography: most of the Northeast, a large region around the Great Lakes, and a big strip running along the west coast. Trying to connect those three regions together by road or rail would be all but impossible without having to travel through Redistan. (Kind of the way you have to drive through Canada if you want to get from the lower 48 to Alaska by car today.)
Hmmm… where would Florida wind up? Technically it’s Southern, but it doesn’t have a truly Southern culture. A high percentage of the population consists of migrants from the northeast, and another high percentage hail from Cuba. Seems to me Florida could wind up going either way (although I suspect it would end up joining Redistan).
Probably not; the far right is disproportionately old. Time will take care of most of them.
That would be Alberta and Saskatchewan. And maybe the Yukon Territories and British Columbia as well. But certainly the city of Vancouver would want to join with the rest of the West Coast, so maybe British Columbia would need to be partitioned into a coastal blue province and an inland red one, which would each join with their respective US partners.
The bleating about impending civil conflict from both the right and left is more or less indistinguishable and IMHO more often than not sounds like equally disingenous, self-serving rhetoric. One side threatens to run off and join the circus and the other side pretends to take it seriously. The first guy can’t actually do acrobatics, and the second guy would like to watch him break his neck trying.
It’s a political spin on the zombie/nuclear/whatever apocalypse scenario. We appear to be wired, culturally or just as humans, to speculate on what would happen if the shit really hit the fan. And we typically imagine that personally, we’ll do OK. Cause, y’know, I’ve got my shit way more together than those other dudes who can’t even see what total jerks they are.
The Band was 4/5th Canadian.
I disagree that this is standard operating procedure. There has been a fundamental shift in the degree to which extreme values are represented by the right. This is demonstrable in a number of ways if that would be remotely productive to the discussion.
Additionally, an orientation to problem solving that is not only dismissive of empiricism, but is outright antagonistic towards science itself, represents another fundamental change on the political right. ETA: While one might counter that there has always been an element of this among the populace, the real problem is that this element now has the primary control of the political reins on the right. They continue to drive out conservatives in favor of extremists in a way that harms everyone.
It is beyond a simple matter of disagreement with our neighbors about the best way to solve particular problems. In the US, we now vehemently disagree about how, or perhaps even whether, to measure problems and evaluate possible solutions. This is a severe impediment to positive change.
Or have 50 states that do that.
Please demonstrate. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I’m not convinced that there is a willingness to kill and die behind it. The only people from whom I see is an increase in extremist statements are political entertainers, who are presumably being deliberately provocative for ratings, and certain blowhard republican-voting guys, who sound to me like they are really just trying to get a rise out of the “libtards” in the room. Real life trolling, in other words.
My Canadian geography sucks. Would this be enough to get us a contiguous Redistan which reaches up to Alaska?
We already don’t live side by side with each other. Communities are becoming increasing segregated by politics. The Big Sort
Yes, it would, actually. (Oh, and I forgot, Redistan would also probably pick up the Northwest Territories as well. Redistan might end up geographically quite a bit larger than Bluecoastia, but not as heavily populated.)
I love whimsical threads like this one and feel a little constrained by its transfer to GD.
Assuming Pacifikstan is comprised of the three coastal states (and Alaska and Hawaii, I guess), which of the three bordering states would be likely to join? Those all (Idaho, Nevada, Arizona) seem like they would be more comfortable in a conservative union.
It is a fun thread when you try to consider all the details which would be involved in splitting the US into two or more independent nations.
I don’t think Alaska would want to join Pacifikstan, as it’s a fairly conservative state. And I wonder if Hawaii wouldn’t take the opportunity to become an independent nation of its own (as many native Hawaiians weren’t all that enthusiastic about joining the US in the first place). So if we ended up wit the independent Island Kingdom of New Hawaii and Alaska stayed red, then Pacifikstan would have to be composed of just California, Oregon, and Washington. Which would make a perfectly respectable nation, just a long, skinny one.
Yes, but they got Levon Helm and played a lot of Southern stuff.
Here’s the problem - California is very politically diverse. There are areas that do not even think in the same hemisphere as, say, the Bay Area or LA. Modoc County in NE CA is closer to Idaho politically and geographically than SF.
I would think CA, as well as OR and WA would end up looking more like a patchwork, like they were talking about for the West Bank in Israel a few years ago. Not really workable. I think the west coast cities are generally blue, but the hinterlands are bright red. The split may be more coastal/inland. How would we handle that in this hypothetical situation? Would Pacifikstan be an even thinner ribbon, like Chile, leaving a hulking, landlocked red neighbor to the east?
Split it up by county.
Lots of portions of the US have that problem (which is one reason why I don’t think the US will be splitting up any time soon). I think you’re Chili-like Pacifikstan would be what we ended up with, along with such oddities as the Free City of Austin (Austin’s thoroughly blue, while most of Texas currently isn’t), and big states like New York State and Illinois dividing into blue and red regions which would belong to different countries.
I also wonder what would happen to “purple” places like Iowa, which don’t fit neatly into either category.
[Paraphrasing Idiocracy]
Nevada and Arizona are in Texas, dumbass!
[Paraphrasing Idiocracy]
Idaho would be part of Flyoveria. Basically every state between California and NYC that isn’t part of the South or Texas. (Maybe an East West Flyoveria split might be better)
Alaska would probably be it’s own country.
I think it always has been.