A Joneser's rants and riffs, ideas and trends, musings and innovations - all for your perusal and reuse. Steal it. Use it. Tell others.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

2017: is civil war even a possibility?

Two articles in the last 24 hours have made me wonder about this. First there was the long one in Politico by Nick Hanauer about how inequality is the real enemy of our republic, not Trump and his fellow whackos in the whitehouse. Next up a story in the NYTimes about a bathroom bill in Texas that would force transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificates, rather than their chosen gender identity.

Previous articles this week mentioned California's legislature banning state-funded trips to Texas, as well as an exodus of conservatives from California who were heading to Texas. So there would appear to be a pretty clear political line between these two states, Austin and perhaps the Central Valley notwithstanding. 

Last there is the CalExit movement, which is popping up now and again - basically a group of people who would like to see California secede from the US, taking its 40+million residents and its sixth-largest-in-the-world economy with it. What we'd do about water I don't know exactly, but directionally it would otherwise appear to have a little merit, perhaps. 

Which brings me back to Hanauer and his positing the potential for civil war - actual war - here. Suddenly I found myself feeling better about living in Cali. Like racing, wars and who wins them generally end up being a function of manpower and money. Mostly money. And guess what? We have more of both than any other state in the union. 

Where things get interesting is when you think about an actual conflict, rather than a political movement, being the driver for reorganizing our country. If push came to shove, who would land where? 

Texas and much of the South would logically band together, being more similar than not. Although I imagine Texas oil billionaires wouldn't much like the idea of "carrying" a bunch of poor southerners from the country's most impoverished states. And what would Florida do? The sunny outlier in an otherwise fairly homogenous southern swath of the country - it'd be interesting to see where they sided in this. 

California would be the liberal anchor, and might well attract joiners up the West Coast to Washington, and possibly even to the east with Nevada and its Sin City (why not?), and New Mexico (nearly broke. Ok. Sure). Arizona? Hmmm - they like the idea of a wall, and increasing police powers to stop and frisk for no apparent reason at all. So they'd go in with Texas, I imagine. 

Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and Idaho - they'd all be in it together, as the last of the Wild West frontier. Colorado? Island in the middle, I'm guessing. 

Plains states would join up with Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota to form the "real" Midwest; and cut Indiana loose in the process. 

They'd join forces with Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and maybe mainland New York (which would be left behind by NYC after it declared independence). 

New York City would be the East Coast version of California, attracting hangers on states because of its economic and political might. Geographically the bloc would include all of New England; although that may not fly among many of the original 13 colonies. This isn't their first rodeo, having  already gone through this independence thing once.

So not exactly sure how that would shake out. Maybe it'd follow similar lines to how fans stack up behind the Jets or the Patriots. 

So there you have it - a civil war that results in the fragmentation of the US into five or six mega states: The West; The South; The Frontier; The Midwest; Colorado (really?); The Ozarks; Gotham; and New England. 

Each would be econcomically independent, and would be free to set it's own "national" laws and regulations to cover social policy and things like marijuana and assisted end-of-life. There would be shared military, although I imagine a significant redistribution of contracts would end up taking place. People would move to the state where they felt like their tribe was, and the work they do would be available. And each state would be free to set up policies to tax and care for their people however they felt was best. 

We are a diverse nation, for sure. I wonder how long we will be able to keep it together. 

No comments: