In response to suggestions by a lunatic in the US Oval Office, Green Party Canada’s leader Elizabeth May suggested Canada should invite western states Washington, Oregon and California join B.C and split from Canada to form the ‘Cascadia’ eco-state.
(Note this article is from Jan 8, 2025 and Elizabeth May has since become co-leader of the party alongside Jonathan Pedneault).
I personally support all of Canada amd the US breaking into smaller countries but with an EU style freedom of movement and trade deal.
I like this because it’s closer to “articles of confederation” version of the proto United States which imo is closer to anarchism although still far from it.
So, this was pushed for a while and was later discovered to be Chinese propaganda. But it holds water is the thing.
Breaking into smaller counties isn’t the solution because you lose economies of scale and inefficient trade. Which was why China pushed it, to leave themselves and the EU as the largest single economies in the world.
The real solution is to regionalize block of states and instead of having one head of state as President, a council of state like Switzerland with a rotating chair that functions as the ceremonial head of state.
But that would take a new constitution…
Ironic when you consider that the people who would cry foul and act all offended the most if you ever were to suggest thinking about changing the entire constitution, have no issue with blatantly ignoring it entirely when it suits them.
Almost like the people who follow and believe in it the most are the only ones about to get mega dicked.
Texas immediately invades smallest Southern states
New Mexico turns off the Pecos and Rio Grande
Fuck off.
I don’t think that’s quite how it would play out.
Texas has long been aching to leave the US. They’ve setup all sorts of their infrastructure and economy to not be dependent on the rest of the US.
Many southern states, particularly Oklahoma, fantasize that they’re part of that. When Texas leaves, they will expect to join. But Texas views them as freeloaders.
It’s possible Texas invades to steal resources, but they don’t want the land or the people. More likely it’s the reverse - The poor states (now extremely poor, since they won’t be getting all that juicy federal money) will be envious of Texas’s wealth, and may invade to claim some of it for themselves.
Interesting considering the tech oligarchs have been relocating their business structure (incorporation, etc) to Texas.
Very few companies are making business decisions on the possibility of the US collapsing. Those are all decisions made on the current state of affairs.
The tech oligarchs are orchestrating the collapse
I just wish they would stop threatening to leave, and just don’t finally, so we can wall them off.
A d Texas won’t, because their “giant economy” is all federal funded aerospace and defense.
I remember how much they whined when Fort Cavazos was considering shutting down. Three cities would have died almost overnight if it happened.
You reached the right conclusion, but muddied your own waters.
Texas would invade to steal and subjugate. Texan “leaders” wants slaves and resources and New Mexico, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana are right on the doorstep.
Best things to come out of Texas? I25. They’re welcome to try.
I don’t think invasion is the first step after the dissolution of the US. I think Texas becomes the new center of a southern entity for the reasons mentioned, but the other southern territories becomes vassal states to Texas. Many of the southern states rely heavily on federal aid to exist. Texas will leverage this to use Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, maybe South Carolina (plus those you mention) as near slave labor to feed its wealth and influence. As a new constitution is negotiated Texas will emerge as the center of a christofascist nation. Florida maintains a tenuous parity with Texas until rising seas make it uninhabitable. They then plead with the great Texas union to provide aid at which point they become subjugated the same as the others.
On thing is for sure, they’d fix immigration overnight. No one would be trying to escape TO The Holy Christian Union of Texas.
Come to think of it, the first post US armed conflict will likely be the HCUT pushing into Mexico as it grabs for the Panama canal and eventually the natural resources of South America.
I wish I was more creative. I’d love to write a post-American fictional novel.
As USSR’s breakup shows, withdrawal syndrome will be harsher than imagined for all sides of the events. In 1991, as you might know, the universal understanding was that now, when inefficient Soviet planned economy will finally die, life will start, because we have all these universities, all these chemical and electronic industries, all that in our republic, not like some cotton harvesters in Middle Asia, right? Except those all existed in the context of the Soviet economy, with that just being abruptly killed the only things that really survived were Soviet elites and crime. Since that’s who were leading the transition, that was a sacrifice they were willing to make.
So, in comparison, the idea of anschlussing Canada and Mexico and what not may not be worse.
Just say no to balkanisation
Balkanisation - except Yugoslavia becomes bigger than ever
Genuinely curious: What do you see as the significant differences under such a scenario? What are the pros and cons of these differences?
Gets rid of the borders which are honestly just traffic jams.
And I think more regional nationalism will be healthier for everyone. Lot of frustration seems to come with seeing someone on the other side of the country behaving in a way that you think doesn’t fit in with the idea of your nationality.
I think the biggest pro for me would be that sane policies at the federal level that are broadly popular in my region could stop getting blocked by yokels representing states that sometimes barely even have the population of the semi-rural county I grew up in in the Northeast. Ditto for not having to worry about corporate interests from those same states filing frivolous lawsuits that manage to block the implementation of the odd policy that does make it through, like student loan forgiveness.
Also, I’m not above admitting that there’s a great deal of appeal in the potential schadenfreude of all the “But I don’t want my taxes paying for the trans, minority welfare queens getting bottom surgery! Down with any social safety net!” Republicans from the South and Midwest being forced to reckon with the fact that they have actually been the welfare queens this whole time, and it’s only been by the grace of those dang liberal states paying in disproportionately high shares of taxes that get funneled towards red states that their shithole states haven’t yet collapsed entirely. Let’s see how Alabama fares with its whooping 1.1% of the national GDP when they no longer have federal funding to prop them up. Their top 5 employers are all public institutions that likely depend on federal funding to remain operational, and 2/5 of them are military bases. Good luck, guys, the South will fall again.
For cons, obviously it’ll suck for the people who still live in those states until they finally move, but that’s been the case for a long time. If the decent regions help finance the move for those who are willing to leave, but unable to for lack of money, I’m kind of fine with it. Same goes for overlooking criminal charges when people are unable to leave their state due to some BS non-violent crimes landing them on parole and being refused travel permissions. If Mississippi wants to lock you down as exploitable labor because you got pulled over with some weed, or loaned a kid a book that said gay people actually aren’t the spawn of Satan sent to destroy US civilization, come on over. They can keep their sex offenders and violent criminals, though. For the folks that don’t move because “Oh, but my family is here and I love them too much to move away,” or similar reasons, good luck with living through the second feudal age, but that’s your own choice.
Likewise, it’ll be sad to see them destroy national and state parks in the name of business, as well as visiting those places while they still exist being a much riskier proposition.
Honestly, I think most red states severely underestimate how poorly things would go for them if they were to be cut loose, while overestimating the popular support they would enjoy and their international appeal as trade partners. Even for the ones who are in a relatively favorable economic opinion, like Texas, would probably see absolutely insane levels of brain drain from industry and higher education that would leave them dead in the water, barring state-sanctioned violence to prevent people from leaving.
That said, their economies would be devastated. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky would all see between 20.7%-30.7% of their overall revenues for state and local governments vanish overnight if they stopped receiving federal funding. States like New York and Texas could probably come away at a net profit just by retaining the taxes they’d previously passed on to the federal government, even factoring in how many new services would have to be provided for at the state/regional level that were previously financed by the federal government. For the states like New Mexico, Mississippi, and Alabama that manage to claw back almost all of what they contribute in federal taxes, if not get more back in federal funding, good luck. Somehow, I suspect their new, libertarian overlords in Texas aren’t going to be so keen on subsidizing their impoverished neighbors to any real extent.
Stops federal government from…existing and strong arming states miles away. I know a lot of Europeans are looking at the u.s. right now and asking why we aren’t pulling out guillotines, it’s because 200 million Americans live west of the Mississippi. At the very best that’s a 900mile journey, with the largest population center being 3k miles away. All that versus most states having their capitals centrally located, or at least within a days drive.
The other pro is that if every state just sent a representative, we wouldn’t have a figurehead for massive swaths of vastly different people, we’d have a straight Congress/parliamentto represent each states interest and thats it. (My personal hot take is that having a figurehead hasn’t been very beneficial to the u.s. since Washington. Like I’d even say Lincoln is debatable, not that freeing the slaves wasn’t cool as shit, but that him being a figure head at that time didn’t have much benifit)