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
92.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

6.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

258

u/Snow_source District Of Columbia 1d ago

I was thinking the endgame here from the current regime is to balkanize the US between Blue and Red states.

I really don't want to be right.

184

u/CanadianTrashInspect 1d ago

It doesn't even make sense because the divide is very much rural vs urban. Even California and New York - which are held as examples of big Blue States - are 38% and 43% Republican.

Both those states have extremely red regions outside of the cities. So it's unlikely that those people would side with the Democratic state government over the Republican feds.

30

u/SCViper 1d ago

They would join. It really wouldn't take much for New York and California to seize the farms from said Republican farmers if it came down to it. And there are PLENTY of urban Democrats in those states who would love to get their hands on some land.

13

u/Miserable_Law_6514 1d ago

I think you'd be surprised how few people even in big cities are okay with a government forcibly stealing land from its lawful owners for political reasons. Plus a lot of those owners have guns, and would burn/poison their own land out of spite.

15

u/BlueSkyBreezy 1d ago

If the political reason is "the leader of the country is intentionally plunging your state/county/city into a recession", they might be amenable. It's also highly unlikely that they would "steal" it, and would likely buy out/subsidize the farm to adopt government contracts.

3

u/Miserable_Law_6514 1d ago edited 1d ago

I doubt they will; but if they don't buy out, what do you propose? Forcing them via gunpoint? With cops who tend to be just as right-leaning if not more than the farmers? That's theft. And it tells everyone else that the state will gladly tread on you and your livelihood for anything it deems important enough.

All it takes is one farm not complying, and some trigger-happy official signing off on something harsh to galvanize people to not sell.

6

u/BlueSkyBreezy 1d ago

I can't speak to it in that level of detail being neither a farmer nor agriculture shipping expert myself, but I suspect if the state in which your farm exists decides not to allow produce to flow in/out of certain borders (unconstitutional on it's face but here we are), you can stamp your feet in the dust all you want but it's not going to move the oranges already in your orchard. California grows way more food than what they consume, so eventually farmers will have to choose between selling what they've already planted/grown, or going under.

I don't like it, but that's where I see it going.

-1

u/Miserable_Law_6514 1d ago

Definitely possible. I just don't see how fighting authoritarianism with more authoritarianism is a good thing. Once elected officials get a taste of that emergency power they have a hard time giving it up in the future. We saw that with the Patriot Act.

2

u/BlueSkyBreezy 1d ago

I may have sided with NCR in Fallout New Vegas, but the current circumstances in the US are not quite the same. Let's hope we find a Courier before a Caesar.

2

u/rubyspicer 1d ago

I mean, don't we sort of already have a Caesar...

1

u/The-Magic-Sword Connecticut 1d ago

The correct way to fight authoritarianism is the B-26.

7

u/DumboWumbo073 1d ago

I think you forgot the part about everything collapsing

1

u/Miserable_Law_6514 1d ago

Yeah, that's not a good enough reason for everyone. People tend to bunker down when things go to hell.

4

u/DumboWumbo073 1d ago

Bunker down for what at that point it’s all over. It’s either you do something or get wiped out if you’re not part of the accepted group. That’s how these scenarios objectively have played out everytime.