r/politics • u/sweatycat New York • 1d ago

California to Negotiate Trade With Other Countries to Bypass Trump Tariffs

https://www.newsweek.com/california-newsom-trade-trump-tariffs-2055414
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187

u/Thac0isWhac0 1d ago

During his first term I started seeing balkanization chatter floating around a lot more, curious to see if that's what comes of all this shit.

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u/Level21DungeonMaster 1d ago

I hope so. These red states have been ruining everything for a long time, it’s long past time to cut them off.

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u/distortedsymbol 1d ago

yeah but each and every red state all have very blue urban centers, and even california has deep red areas in the middle.

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u/pagerussell Washington 1d ago

If America broke up there would be a huge sorting out. Conservatives would move to red areas and liberals to blue areas. Not everyone, of course, but there would be massive migrations. Millions of people moving this way and that.

Which on the net of it would be very bad for red states. Most educated people are liberal. Red states would be witnessing a massive brain drain that would ensure a slow death spiral into a third world country.

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u/BatManatee 1d ago edited 1d ago

It would take less than 20 years for "Jesusland" to attack the "United Coasts of America".

When Red states stopped having Blue state money to prop them up, social programs would fail quickly. Texas and Florida aren't enough to carry the albatross of the South and Midwest economically. With no farm subsidies, social security collapsing, roads falling into disrepair, brain drain killing their hospitals, and gutting veterans' services, things would fall apart in no time.

Rather than introspection and improving themselves, they'd say the Blue states are responsible by coming up with some imagined slight just like they've been doing to Canada. And pretty soon we'd have Civil War 2.

Balkanization is starting to feel inevitable, but it won't be pretty either.

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u/ActOdd8937 1d ago

Perhaps you've noticed the very large range of mountains walling off the west coast, and how very few roads lead over them? West coast is pretty damned defensible and we do have a quite large stock of military things 'n stuff quartered here. The biggest ports, too.

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u/Stonegrown12 1d ago

"Where these bombs are going, they don't need any roads.."

  • future movie quote from Trump (played by Kevin Sorbo) in a highly fictionalized propaganda film to rationalize the fact that half the country is radioactive.

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u/BikingThroughCanada 1d ago

> It would take less than 20 years for "Jesusland" to attack the "United Coasts of America".

Yeah, not in a world where nukes exist.

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u/BatManatee 1d ago

You vastly overestimate MAGA's capability to understand MAD

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u/staunch_character 1d ago

The problem with Christians running things is too many of them WANT to see the world destroyed.

They don’t care about the planet or the environment. They’re just waiting for the Rapture.

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u/Stonegrown12 1d ago

Yes because this administration is rational and our top military command isn't being bleed out with a alcoholic ex-Fox News DOD heading it.

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u/SCViper 1d ago

Have you seen Western Tennessee and Northern Mississippi? They're already there.

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u/dedicated-pedestrian Wisconsin 1d ago

Conversely, agriculture work correlates loosely with conservative thought, at least as things stand. So blue areas would have to figure out their food situation, and fast, because those areas are typically immensely more populous than the land that gets red votes.

Still, this type of trade is on the side of the other country - specifically exempting tariffs from Cali.

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u/Dihedralman 1d ago

Food is low margin and California produces a ton. Red states lose ports and would quickly have production collapse. 

Real interesting bit is if the military stays loyal to the state. 

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u/energetic_buttfucker 1d ago

You're assuming that farmers sell food into urban areas out of the goodness of their hearts... It's not charity, they need buyers or else they'll starve. Farmers don't decide who eats. They are sellers in a cash economy whose survival depends on continuous sale into urban markets. They either sell into blue areas or go bankrupt.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/staunch_character 1d ago

They’re not stupid. Farming is incredibly hard work & requires tons of problem solving skills.

The problem is they don’t feel represented by government. Most of our laws are designed for & by city people.

Which makes sense since that’s where most people live - but also means farmers in isolated communities end up vulnerable to divisive propaganda.

I have family on FB every night being fed pro gun bullshit - which they agree with because for a farmer, a gun is a tool. Gun use on a farm is a totally different world than someone carrying in a city.

Since Covid they’ve been getting a ton of racist stuff from South Africa about how black people are bad farmers & how tragic for the poor white families who had their land stolen.

Then the meat packing plants brings in hundreds of Somali refugees to break the Union & you get a bunch of angry farmers with only one party pulling their strings.

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u/McFlyParadox Massachusetts 1d ago

Which on the net of it would be very bad for red states. Most educated people are liberal. Red states would be witnessing a massive brain drain that would ensure a slow death spiral into a third world country.

Rock long term would also be very bad for "blue areas", as it would set the continent up for decades, if not centuries of tensions, violence, and war.

We either all hang together, or alone.

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u/IKetoth 1d ago

Would it though? Sure red states would be governed by the usual morons, but are they dumb enough to try and declare war on these imaginary blue coalition states that have 5-10x their economy and 3 times their population?

Being dumb and angry only carries you so far in war and I rather doubt the big defense contractors are gonna decide to stick with the clear losing side. Tensions? Yes, but there's tensions already. Open warfare? I don't know, but I doubt it.

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u/McFlyParadox Massachusetts 1d ago

Would it though? Sure red states would be governed by the usual morons, but are they dumb enough to try and declare war on these imaginary blue coalition states that have 5-10x their economy and 3 times their population?

Afghanistan and Iraq have populations a little larger than 1/10th of America, and much smaller economies. And they gave America a run for their money.

Asymmetrical warfare is pretty much impossible to counteract with an organized force. Usually you only see it against occupying forces, but that's not a requirement - just a common catalyst to create it. You only beat asymmetrical warfare by convincing the local population to stop engaging in it, and that has always taken the cooperation of the local government to make happen.

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u/IKetoth 1d ago

Yeah but... they didn't chose to be invaded by the americans, that's my point, they'd be going into that war knowing they'd end up like iraq and afghanistan. You try asking a conservative what they think of those places?

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u/McFlyParadox Massachusetts 1d ago

You try asking a conservative what they think of those places?

You try asking them what they think of California and New York?

If OAN spends enough air time going "someone should teach those blue states not to mess with Red states", eventually some of them will start to actually do something.