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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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.

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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.

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u/dimcarcosa 1d ago

This. People keep acting like each state is fully homogenized along political lines. Red and blue states done truly exist in such a blatant dichotomy, only red and blue regions within states exist on anything resembling that granular of a divide.

Sure there's a tendency for states to lean one way or the other due to political influence and results, but with the exception of the states with sparse populations most states are big blue cities, purple metro areas and red rural regions.

How do you balkanize that? I'm not even sure it's possible to divide up our country along those political lines. We're too blended politically as a people in terms so where we live even if within those political stances were the most polarized we've possibly ever been due to the efforts of those who benefit from that division.

That's the paradox of our country as it stands right now and I don't know how we deal with much less how any kind of dividing the country up into new countries/leaving the US to join whomever would even remotely look like.

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u/bdone2012 1d ago

Im not saying this would be pleasant but you’d split the states up red vs blue. Let purple states vote on it. Then you make it as easy for people to move as possible.

Blue states can pay to help people move from red states to blue states. And maybe blue states could even help people move to red states as a way of saying if you don’t want to be part of the new American experiment buh-bye.

I have a feeling not as many conservatives would move from blue states to red states as vice versa. I have a suspicion that a fair amount of them like the higher standard of living and generally better economies and will want to stay and keep complaining.

They can use the money to help people relocate from what they save by not propping up red states with tax money

Maybe you could even take a few blue cities from red states if they’re near the border. We would be ceding some places that I’d be quite sad to see go like Nola, but at this point it doesn’t seem like the worst option.

I think id still prefer we fix this, but I really don’t want to go back to the status quo. Because that’s what got us in this mess. Our democracy is fucked because of 2 senators per state, gerrymandering, voter suppression, propaganda and the electoral college. Among other things.

You could ban all that in a new American Experiment. For propaganda it’d be less straight forward but with proper laws you could make it a lot better.

I’d like to think that conservatives have overplayed their hand. They think that because we’ve allowed them to keep a system that favors them that we should do whatever they want. I’d like to think we can put an end to it.