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card_zero | on: Trump wins presidency for second time
I was just thinking the exact opposite, maybe the US needs to split into two nations. I was drawing border lines in my mind around central regions and wondering how things would pan out if they seceded. The lack of geographic continuity would be a problem for the coasts, but perhaps they could join Canada.
lenkite | parent | next
Won't this be impossible since you have the urban/rural areas of the same state belonging to these two different nations ? At-least impossible without a gargantuan civil war that makes the 1861 war look like a toddler's quarrel.
ncruces | parent | next
Try splitting Georgia, where Harris wins a few populous counties with a 30 to 70 pp margin, and Trump leads the lump of smaller counties with a 30 to 70 pp margin.

They reelected the DA that's prosecuting Trump on one of the populous counties, on the same election where the state swung further towards Trump.

a2tech | parent | next
In the past, maybe. Trump won the popular vote last night. He swept almost everything, as painful as that is for me to say. There is no way to divide the country without mass migration which would never happen.
verisimi | parent | next
Didn't the south try this, before being forced back into the "union"?
card_zero | root | parent
True, that was an awkward episode. Now you've got me reading about the motivations for the civil war. I mean obviously slavery, but why go to war rather than let the Confederacy be a separate nation? Seems the fighting was over the political future of yet-to-be Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma (if I've got the right territories there), and whether they would have slavery, once populated.
DeathArrow | parent | next
That would need some population exchange.
tstrimple | parent | next
Blue areas aren’t states. They are cities. Democratic voting counties account for over 70% of the nations gdp. Conservative counties quite literally cannot support themselves.
squilliam | root | parent | next
> Blue areas aren’t states. They are cities. Democratic voting counties account for over 70% of the nations gdp. Conservative counties quite literally cannot support themselves.

But they can feed themselves.

a2tech | root | parent
Not without illegal labor they can’t.
carry_bit | root | parent | next
GDP is a flawed measure, and that's especially true when you look at the 70% figure in detail. For details see https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/gross-domestic-fraud
ruthmarx | root | parent
> Conservative counties quite literally cannot support themselves.

And yet they hold democratic counties hostage. Somewhat like parasites.

DeathArrow | root | parent | next
Conservative counties produce goods and food. Democratic counties produce rent, interest, financial fees, mortgages, insurance.
ruthmarx | root | parent
Conservative counties produce goods and food that can be produced anywhere.

Democratic counties produce goods that generally require an education and are significantly more valuable. Think big tech, big pharma, engineering, etc.

Democratic counties would be just fine without conservative counties. The inverse is not true.

card_zero | root | parent
It works the same way in other countries, such as the UK and Turkey - rural areas are where the traditionalists live.
ruthmarx | root | parent
It's much worse in the US though because the gap is so much wider. Even in the UK or Canada or Australia, the right is not opposing climate change or healthcare or anything reasonable to the same extent as in the US.
mrkeen | root | parent | next
The last time the right got voted in in Australia, they revoked the carbon tax that the left had recently set up.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-crossroads/...

smnrchrds | root | parent | next
Meanwhile the governing party in my home province in Canada is doing this:

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2024/11/06/UCP-Members-More-CO2-H...

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cmrdporcupine | root | parent
They absolutely are here in Canada. Especially around climate change because Canada is an oil exporter. And they will be emboldened by what just happened in the US.

Alberta outright banned renewables development for 6 months and then slapped a huge set of restrictions on them after that "moratorium" was lifted. A tax on electric car owners added. The conservative parties nationally are on a constant drum beat about the national carbon tax and it's doomed. Weak emissions caps we have are also doomed. Any little things that have been done for the last 10 years will be undone.

At a recent party convention in Alberta, the ruling party passed a climate denial resolution as official party policy.

Amazingly lots of people on this forum trying to sanitize what these people are about.

cmrdporcupine | parent | next
Cross the border from here in Canada into very "blue" New York and you'll drive through a huge swathe of what is actually "red" Trump country in Western New York.

Outside of the urban areas even "blue" states are red, or "purple."

The reality is that America voted for this guy. It's not nearly as regionally divided as liberals in America want to think.

For me, it means not going there anymore. I just won't cross the border for any reason.

a2tech | root | parent
Rural Canadians are eating up trump style rhetoric as fast as it can be minted.

Canada is next. There’s no escape from this kind of madness.

cmrdporcupine | root | parent
Yeah I live rural Ontario. Last municipal election people's lawns were covered with idiotic "Stop Woke" signs. And my parents are in rural Alberta. Oh boy.

Not with a bang but a whimper, etc. etc.

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sixothree | parent
It might at least be the correct time for blue states to stop subsidizing the existence of red states.
roenxi | root | parent
The Joye of Ye Taxes is that you cannot choose to stop paying them just because of a disagreement about how they are spent. Elections need to be won first.