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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf All Those State Secession Movements Got Their Way, America Would Look Like This Map
BY NATE COHN
The electoral map divides the country neatly into blue states and red states. But blue states include vast conservative stretches; and most red states harbor liberal enclaves, too. In recent years, as partisan polarization has grown, some political minorities in these disaffected areas have proposed a radical solution: state partition.
It has happened before. Maine, for instance, was once part of Massachusetts. And while none of the current movements really has a shot, the eleven instances mapped here (including that to grant the District of Columbia statehood) have at least attracted the support of elected officials.
What would happen if all of them succeeded? Each new state would get two senators and its share of electoral college votes. We ran the numbers and recalculated the 2012 presidential race.
In this bizarro United States, the GOP would have a structural advantage in the expanded Senate, and Barack Obama would have had a tighter fight against Mitt Romney in the electoral college (which he won, in reality, 332206).
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115001/state-secession-61-states-america
Except! I can pretty much guarantee you that if this happened, you would see blue areas in red states do the same. I can't see Atlanta or Savannah staying in Georgia, nor Research Triangle in NC, nor Austin-San Antonio, Houston, Or Dallas in Texas.....
kentauros
(29,414 posts)Because a breakup of the Union like that would cause such economic upheaval, that I don't think there's anyone on the planet that could imagine the world we would reap.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)Because, frankly, outside the union they can't stop the reconquista.
Better start brushing up on that Spanish...
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)Those states wouldn't vote in OUR election.
matt819
(10,749 posts)That article made no sense. If the red states seceded, or if portions of blue states that were red seceded, or, for that matter, portions of blue states remained in the blue US while the rest of their red state seceded, the countries - plural - might indeed look like that map, but the red "states" would be their own country. How they chose to govern would be their decision. Cruz could be their fascist dictator, for all I care. Or they could pledge allegiance to the president romney, but since they would have no role in blue America - the America they left - calculating their percentages of representation makes no sense.
Maybe it is a purely academic exercise. But the reality is that until red state voters start voting their own best interests, instead of blindly following Cruz, et al or fox or limbaugh, we will effectively have two nations populating what is now the United States. And who's to say that governance under these conditions is better or less disruptive than an outright division into two (or more) additional nations?