In 1998, Russian academic Igor Panarin predicted that the U.S. would break up into six parts by 2010. Many Americans now think he was onto something. There are a dozen or so secessionist movements in the U.S.—including an ultra-right wing California group.
And it’s not just the tinfoil brigade who are for it. In 2018 in The Week, Bonnie Kristian said, “We should chop America into seven different countries. Seriously.” A week later New York magazine mused, “Maybe it’s time for America to split up.” 538, Newsweek, the New York Times and Salon have suggested it. And earlier this year left wing blogger turned right wing provocateur Candace Owens Tweeted, “I wonder if we’re past the point of reconciliation with the Left. Maybe we’d all be happier letting them pick a few states they can turn into their own country with no guns, no police, no states, no guns, no flags, no men and no electricity.”
The problem is Neil Sedaka was right. “Breaking up is hard to do.”
It turns out there are an infinite number ways to divide up America, but it really doesn’t matter much. Giacomo Eisler of Indiana University, Luz Dunn of Databayou and I modeled seven different split-up scenarios using a MASSIVE database of demographic and voting data at the county level. Under every scenario, the new countries still had roughly a 50-50 mix of red and blue voters. And every alternative left some areas stranded, like blue Chicago surrounded by red states. It wouldn’t have mattered we’d broken the U.S. into six or seven or even fifty new countries. Any split ends up with the Raisin Bran problem. America is a well-mixed combination of two very different things.
The red-blue split is rural-urban. That doesn’t lend itself to division. Even the bluest state is red in some suburbs and rural areas, and every red state has blue urban areas and college towns. The proposed new mini-countries have the same issues as the one big one—there are too many liberals in the red region, and too many conservatives in the blue regions. If divided, the U.S. would go from being a big country that’s hopelessly divided to several smaller countries that were hopelessly divided.
That may seem counterintuitive, but look at California, one of the bluest states in the union. Almost a third of California voters, 32%, voted for Donald Trump in 2016. And even in redder-than-red Oklahoma, a similar percentage voted for Senator Clinton.
Of course, even if it could be done geographically, there is another reason the idea is a non-starter. Perhaps the split would be amicable, but it’s unlikely—just look at the current acrimony and gridlock in the U.S. legislature. Nor would it likely to peaceful. Both sides would be nervous after the split. Each would be sharing a two thousand-mile border with a hostile country. At best, that would lead to nervous coexistence as exists with Pakistan and India. It could even result in catastrophe. Those who suggest splitting assume their side would keep the nukes. But it’s unlikely either side would agree to that.
Frustration makes it easy to float ideas like secession or splitting the country up. The reality is there’s no good way to do it. Perhaps it would be a better use of time and energy trying to figure out how to keep it together.
Now, because it’s Thanksgiving, let’s have some thankful Numeroids. “You’ve got to admit it’s getting better, a little better all the time.” No really, it is.
Numeroids:
3 ½. That’s the number of hours an unskilled worker must work to pay for Thanksgiving dinner, according to Marian L. Tupy and Gale L. Pooley from the Simon Project. That compares to 5 ½ in 1986.
Oxford Economics’ Recovery Tracker is at 79.2. That is, the economy is now 21% below where it was on January 31 of this year. But that’s well up from where it was at the beginning of April (49%) and it’s ticking upward.
56%. And most of us are feeling better about things according to Pew. That’s up from 47% in June. Perhaps even more importantly, the percentage that are angry has dropped from 73% to 57%.
$504 million. That’s the amount raised online for Covid relief in May by Giving Tuesday. The next Giving Tuesday is December 1, and with no stimulus Christmas coming up, now’s a good time to be generous.
Well said!
“We are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture and hypothesis. The difficulty is to separate the framework of fact—of absolute undeniable fact—from the embellishments of theorists and reporters.” Sherlock Holmes in “Silver Blaze” by Arthur Conan Doyle.
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November 24, 2020 at 01:00PM
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