reality we could be facing very soon.

It might be a short-term pain in the ass but I'm not sure a separation would be bad in the long term.

The South and the Midwest want to live according to theocratic and Libertarian principles respectively. Neither of these are workable with the coastal states. And there's some major resentment going on that can't be fixed. The South hates Washington for the Civil War. The Rust Belt is pissed about NAFTA and are staking everything on the idea that if they flatout dismantle the government, the factories will return.

And the Coastal states are also getting resentful. We're tired of having to carry the water for states that want to live like the 18th century. Most of the states who interpret the 10th Amendment to mean "The Federal Government should not exist" IE red states, would be nonfunctioning entities if blue states decided to give them the finger. We're tired of the Electoral College making it so that their votes count more than ours. We're tired of having to watch our regions be dragged into Third World status because flyover country is scared of conspiracy theories that make no sense.

I think we're going to be seeing a split before 2030. Either the gun nuts won't accept the pendulum swinging our way, or a bunch of blue states will get tired of the nutcases.

At that point, the red states can try their grand experiment of living without a big government. They'll get everything they want.

And deserve.

The Tenthers can experience why the Articles of Confederation failed. They'll figure out that Libertarianism is bullshit and they'll eventually evolve since they can't blame "Washington."

Then we can get together occasionally. But I don't think we'll be one nation again.

and kleptocrats took over those areas of the former United States that abandoning seems so attractive now? They would, of course. Vast numbers of former US citizens would be attempting to migrate north as wellbeing declined drastically, and many would be invading prosperous areas as criminals. A permanent, big problem.

(Puerto Rico, anyone? Isn't it "fortunate" that PR is very small and especially that any angry, desperate people among the 4+ million Americans there are 1000 water miles away and can't come over the border and take what they need? Because we've largely failed them?)

And how about outright war? War for water, for just one instance among many. The Great Lakes are one of the planet's great supplies. The southwest has virtually none and will have less. The south also, if less dire. Almost all our rivers flow south, meaning northern nations would deplete before they ran into the new "nations," like the trickle that the Colorado River becomes in Mexico. War.

Right now we're a strong, geographically advantaged nation, with friendly nations on both sides united with us in interdependent relationships, and with oceans on the other borders. In this broken-up picture, we're more like the Balkans or Middle East. Politically and economically hostile and competing states sharing big borders, some more third-worldish.

Let's also toss in the tremendous betrayal of duty to all those millions of fellow American citizens who need support in their fight for democracy but would be abandoned to the "mercies" of the evil allowed to swamp them.

Abandoning our problems is a pleasant fantasy. I've had it myself more than once, but I think we should really, really hope our great nation never declines into what it would have to be for this to happen. We're not really talking about friendly divorces here, after all, but the kind that could only result from dreadful failures.

Maybe some Russian's wet dream, but that is not what will happen except in their dreams....

"hemorrhaging wastes of money'

Melania spent $665,000. in three months of travel alone...private Air Force jet just for her DC...NYC...Palm Beach. We're paying scads of money for his family to travel for business. Melania's stays in NYC...1 mil each day. So on and so forth.

What a dumb prediction.

We will simply sink lower and lower into collective poverty and ignorance.

The Soviet Union was long already suffering from economic "set backs" due to its system. For example, the government set quotas on chandelier production by weight...did the factories increase output? Nope, they created chandeliers that weighed so much, they couldn't even be installed without crashing from the ceiling or pulling the roof down....but they met their quota. But that type of gaming was systemic.

It's why Gorbachev went forward with reforms...only, he didn't realize the opportunists would take obscene advantage and die hards were more than uncooperative. The die hards staged a coup...and sealed the Soviet Unions fate...albeit, opposite of what they intended. Gorbachev was the guy who held balance...and kept their part in power, they bit the hand that fed them.

SDI is a Repub talking point...all it did was advance nuclear missile technology for the Soviet Union, the opposite of what was intended by the US...but was hardly the only reason why it fell apart. Those resources were going to be spent either way, via advanced missile tech or shoring up its navy... the navy obviously lost out.

But to your other point...yeah, we are falling for our own scam. Well, not really, all global empires eventually fall...for much of the same reasons we see today.

a long term committment to military occupation of Afghanistan, where empires go to die.

...and why Gorbachev knew he couldn't rely on his military. Those who were loyal, were dead. And a new and distrusting military was in force. It's one of the major reasons why the coup failed, the military wasn't fully on board. The cost of the war didn't help...but again, it was one line item of the balance sheet out of many that brought it down.

But it is ironic, in our smarting to give the Soviets there own version of Vietnam...we may have created our second.

And yes, Afghanistan is where empires die...because Afghanistan has only been a country for a brief period of time....it doesn't go by the typical rules. In most nations, villages, cities, etc. follow the centralized government. Not the case here, two villages on opposite sides of the mountain will gladly implicate the other in acts against the occupying power...or legitimate government.

In my opinion, Afghanistan isn't a country...but an area where time and human progress forgot. It's a place still stuck in the mideviel times.

Europeans drew borders based on their conquests/influence, not on local tribal boundaries, which were pretty fluid anyway.

Sub-saharan Africa, the Middle East, south Asia, all have traditional cultures where a centralized government is generally not what they want to follow, because they don't relate to it. Even Iraq has always been a country with three major sub-groups, influenced by neighboring states. Kurds that desperately want an independent homeland, Shias dominated by Iran, Sunnis that align with the rest of the Muslim world, all held in thrall by Hussein. Taking him out just motivated the disparate parts of the country to start vying for power.

While we are a Republic made up of 50 quasi-independent states, all of those states came into being as members of the whole.

The Soviet Union was made up from an amalgam of many different states that had histories of their own, with nationalistic urges that were suppressed by the Communist party. It broke up because it was never really a "union" other than in an empirical sense as conquered states with a political philosophy slathered over the top to glue it together.

the Cold War is more brutal than we acknowledge. Both countries spent tons of money on it and tested weapons that sickened their citizens. The US is the supposed winner but both countries actually lost.

The US is on track for bankruptcy now with the tax cuts and more money put into Defense. If we get into another war - where will the money come from? I doubt the country will split but with cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, cancelling CHIP, and other social programs money can be diverted to Defense and the "costly" people will be gone.

for posting these. He tried to tell us.

drove down prices and cut off a source of revenue for the USSR and starved their economy.

All you have to understand is the dekulakization famine.

They were bankrupt from the beginning.

There's some shit we just ain't gonna agree on.

We're tired of paying their way because they refuse to tax themselves to such a degree that their states are falling down around them. They're tired of us talking about how having guns everywhere is a bad thing. We want a government that works for the people. They want to demolish the government because they're pathologically afraid of it and think that the country would be better off in a state of total anarchism.

I'm starting to think trying to force us to stay together is just going to cause an armed and potentially nuclear war within our own borders.

To avert this we should get a divorce.

Give the nutters what they want. Just break off. Let the crybaby antigovernment states and people in them run their country right into the ground as they scream "NO REGULATION!" They can let "Sovereign Citizens" running around gunning down their cops every time they're marginally inconvenienced, be shocked that churches and charities are basically useless in the event of an economic crisis, wonder why they can't go outside without getting asthma, and so on. Hell, fuck it. They can live tax free. No mean old "coastal elites" telling them that they have to pay for civilization.

They think the bad parts of the Gilded Age and Great Depression never actually happened and anyone who says otherwise is in on a grand conspiracy.

I hate to be doom and gloom but there is no reasoning with that. There's no reasoning with people and elected officials who want to govern based on conspiracy politics.

Maybe it's time for the sane states to just break off and we can get stuff like a functional universal healthcare system going without having to fight with nutjobs who think that the government is out to send them to torture camps for being Christians or something.

We can have elections where the winner is decided based on who wins the most votes instead of giving people who live in the middle of nowhere six times as much power so their feelings aren't hurt.

They can have their ultra-Libertarian dream country where there are no taxes, no social services, no accountability for corporate crime, no regulations whatsoever.

And when the South and Midwest's experiment with anarchism inevitably fails, we can get together and form a North American Union or some shit. They can still keep their guns or whatever and maybe we can get together in times of outside crisis but we can't work together during peacetime under one banner.