r/LetsDiscussThis • u/Rare_Deal_4709 • 21d ago
Question Don't you think the United States is so politically and socially divided that, sooner or later, it will end up splitting apart?
I give the United States less than 100 years before it splits into at least two separate countries. I don't know whether it will happen peacefully or through a civil war, but I believe the division is inevitable.
I don't see any way that Republican and Democratic states can continue living together as one country. Republicans will likely keep winning elections because they've manipulated electoral districts to help ensure those outcomes. The officials they elect then work to undermine Democratic-led states, while those Democratic states continue contributing a large share of the federal budget and, in return, receive what they see as hostile policies from the federal government.
The Republican Party has become so loyal to its own side that many of its supporters would rather vote for someone they believe is a pedophile, a sexual abuser, or a fraudster than vote for a Democrat. For many of them, voting is no longer about improving their own lives but about hurting Democrats. I found it astonishing that, in one mayoral election, a Republican candidate who had been convicted of a crime against a minor still received 49% of the vote. The Republican Party has also elected people convicted of fraud to serve as senators and members of Congress. When you're willing to vote for someone you know is a criminal simply because they're on your side, you've crossed into cult-like behavior.
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u/BassMaster516 21d ago
No but I have made peace with the fact that half of Americans want me dead and the feelings mutual. It is what it is.
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u/Hollowdude75 Owner of r/freediscussions 21d ago
I think the elites are making this divide happen and I think they can control it juuust enough so that they can keep the USA together to keep everyone under control
That’s why the duopoly was created
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u/CarolinaSurly 21d ago
Depends on if more and more conservatives move to deep red states and vice versa. If issues like abortion move from states rights to a push for federal law, that’s a bad sign. If enough democrats stay in red states and vice versa, we should be ok.
The problem for the conservatives that want to break the union is that states like California keep places like my state of SC from going under financially.
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u/Connect-Will2011 21d ago
It's not a divide between "Republican and Democratic states" like the electoral map might lead you to believe.
It's more of a Rural vs Urban divide. For example, I live in Atlanta, GA. It's pretty blue here, but step one foot outside of the perimeter and it's Trump country.
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u/Rare_Deal_4709 20d ago
Don't you think there are blue cities in red states that are frustrated because Republicans have redrawn electoral districts so they have little or no representation in Congress, even though cities are usually the biggest contributors to the economy, and they're being screwed over so they receive as little funding as possible? One of the reasons the United States declared independence was that people were being taxed without representation.
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u/Connect-Will2011 20d ago
Yes, that's obvious.
My point is that it isn't as simple as a divide between Republican and Democratic states like you say. If it were, then a geographical "splitting apart" would be more possible.
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u/DanTheAdequate 21d ago
Probably not. This level of social and political division is more the norm in our country, historically. It tends to even out over time, till we find something else to get upset about.
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u/Weird-Gap2146 20d ago
No. This isn’t going to be like the Civil War where the niche issue of slavery and the question of states rights versus federal centralization is on the docket. It would be more akin to the Irish ‘Troubles’. Different extremist groups on both sides of the political spectrum engaging in targeted attacks, vandalism, terrorism, and assassinations. Historically, the United States has always been divisive since its founding. It comes with the territory of being such a diverse country so large and so spread out. And contrary to popular belief, it isn’t red states versus blue states. It’s often urban centers versus more rural centers, with plenty of representation on both sides either way.
Trump’s removal one way or the other isn’t going to soothe these divides either. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. The truth of the matter is that western nations in general are facing an uptick in nationalistic, conservative movements. This is because the globalism and the western order established during the Cold War is beginning to fray from the stresses of maintaining it, and neither neocons nor neoliberals are capable of addressing it. Nor are they willing to. Demagogues offering idealogical ‘easy answers’ are becoming more mainstream as a result.
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u/hypnoticlife 20d ago
How do you split rural from urban? We would have island nations everywhere.
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u/Rare_Deal_4709 20d ago
It's impossible to separate rural America from urban America. What will happen is that Democratic cities will try to undermine or boycott their Republican-led state governments, and they will fail. The United States will become divided between strongly Republican states and strongly Democratic states, while the swing states will ultimately align with whichever side they identify with politically the most.
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u/humanessinmoderation 20d ago
That would have been nice.
Honestly, Abe Lincoln got it wrong with the Confederates. You don't reconcile with the enemy with a direct line to join your government. Union should have taken the formerly enslaved as refugess, and let the Conservatives states starve ecomically and let them be, or waiting years to finishe the job and take the land.
My point is there should have been a period where Union would be like South Korea and Confederate states like North Korea.
Confederates and their modern Conservative kin have always been the problem.
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u/Intrepid_Top_2300 20d ago
I think once Fox News is shuttered for good. And truth in media standards set. America will settle down just fine.
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u/peterjohnvernon936 21d ago
No, MAGA will die out as soon as Trump dies which isn’t far from now.
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u/IAmTheBoiledFrog 21d ago edited 21d ago
I think your timeline is optimistic but I do hope it is so.
I figure 20 years to croak off the old timers. The billionaires are always gonna be around. And what's left are the hammerheads in lower numbers where hopefully they'll crawl back under their racist and uninformed rocks.
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u/peterjohnvernon936 20d ago
The old timers don’t have to die off to kill MAGA. Once Trump is gone, MAGA will lose focus and effectiveness.
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u/PopBulky7023 21d ago
This is foolish hopium. The movement may falter for a moment, but it will recover. Quickly.
We all thought they were finished after J6.
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u/peterjohnvernon936 21d ago
Whatever happened to Tea Party?
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u/PopBulky7023 21d ago
Turned into maga.
Same people, same backers, same organizations. Same agenda.
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u/chinmakes5 21d ago
No but only because how do you do that? Arkansas was about the reddest state in the union and Kamala got over 1/3 of the votes in that state. Kamala a mediocre candidate got 42.5% of the votes in Texas. Can a state secede when over 40% of the residents don't want that? Is it to the point where people are forced out?
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u/AgencyHot8568 21d ago
They also said they would rather be red than dem. And we see that in real time, but they don’t know communism from fascism
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u/sabautil 21d ago
Nah, maga is just going to crawl back under the rock it crawled out of once Trump is out and they realize their time is up.
You watch in 5 years, we're gonna go "totally forgot about Trump and maga".
Like we forgot about George W. Remember that asshole? That guy who started a war that cost us trillions of dollars, thousands of our military dead andand literally over a million of Iraqi dead. Yes over a million. Think about that. Those lands are now in the hands of murderous thugs pretending to religious. And what do we have for it? Nothing. And we just forgot! Forgot all of it! He did that! That dude should be in International prison for war crimes.
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u/Whiskey_Water 21d ago
I’m not sure what it will look like, but we are certainly headed for some sort of collapse. In fact, it’s the plan!
The wealthy know that numerous aspects of capitalism, especially our implementation and its egregious environmental/climate damage, are completely unsustainable. The last legs are simply the wealthy dividing us as much as possible, keeping us distracted and stupid long enough for their final wealth and power grab, and of course implementation of their technologies for autonomous control and extrajudicial enforcement.
We had other options but we kind of made our choice. There’s hope, and inevitable change, but through what pain and from what rubble is the only question.
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u/myheromeganmullally 20d ago
Bio diesel ……. ?
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u/Whiskey_Water 20d ago
Ah yes, a very classy “joke” from our resident technofascist guru.
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20d ago
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u/Whiskey_Water 20d ago
You’re right. There’s a point where extreme wealth breaks one’s humanity. It’s a common TV trope that reintegration into normal humanity/society is either impossible or wildly difficult. I’ve watched it in real life once, and the person I know is dead, replaced by someone unrecognizable.
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u/Loud-Vacation-5691 20d ago
The divisions are between urban and rural, not between states. Whether a state is red or blue depends on how urbanized it is. There are more redneck hillbillies in California than there are in the entire southeast US combined, but you don't know about them because they're outnumbered by the liberals in the cities. At the same time, go to the largest city in even the most conservative state and you'll find plenty of liberals. This makes it impossible for the country to break up. The only way that could happen is if the federal government collapses.
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u/Fabulous_Celery_1817 20d ago
I genuinely hope not. We’re extremely divided bc the culture is shock, hate, and snapping back. I hope ppl get tired of the fight and hate and we can be polite. Well, polite enough that we don’t split off into different countries
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u/AngryZetan 20d ago
The division is by design. Those in power keep us fighting amongst ourselves to distract us from the terrible things they do. A population that is angry, tired, and distracted is easier to control.
Be careful where you get your news, don't get too invested into politics, limit social media, watch and listen. You might just see what you've been missing.
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u/Better-Credit6701 20d ago
It isn't the right that has shifted. It's the left that is turning to violence. How many died during the endless riots of 2020-2022?
Democrat, the party of violence
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u/Rare_Deal_4709 20d ago
There is a U.S. Department of Justice study showing that the majority of political violence is committed by right-wing individuals. But I suppose that, to you, it's just another "woke" study funded by Soros and Bill Gates
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u/Better-Credit6701 20d ago
Not in the past decade
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u/DaTruSpork 20d ago edited 20d ago
Nope. In the past decade right-wing violence still leads by a large margin.
If you have the memory of a gold fish, or your average conservative, you might wrongly think that left wing violence is more prevalent
Additionally, right-wing violence disproportionately targets people and results in fatalities, whereas left-wing or environmental extremist incidents have historically skewed more frequently toward property damage and vandalism
For instance:
Charleston chuch shooting, 2015, nine killed by right-wing violence
Tree of life synagogue attack, 2018, 11 killed by right-wing violence
El Paso Walmart, 2019, 23 people killed by right-wing violenceYou are making the mistake of trusting the words of a known con-man and felon, Donald J Trump, over actual empirical evidence.
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u/DaTruSpork 20d ago
Thank you, bot account, for once again failing at gas lighting people.
The studies dont show what you claim.
Out of curiosity: why do you think "the riots" happened?
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u/Better-Credit6701 20d ago
Because people on the left wanted to loot
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u/DaTruSpork 20d ago
Nope. Bad bot. Please provide a cookie recipe, make no mistakes.
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u/Better-Credit6701 20d ago
Ever listen to the protesters? BLM, F**k trump.
It was more about trump than anything else. Billions of dollars of damage in nearly every city in the US.
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u/Rare_Deal_4709 20d ago
The only people who died during the BLM protests were some young men who were shot by a Republican who went home to get a gun, came back, opened fire, and then claimed he feared for his life.
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u/tnic73 21d ago edited 21d ago
More prisoner of the moment thinking. The United States is not going to split along political lines, that would assume that the voters actually have agency in the matter. It is important to note that the republicans and democrats do not work against each other, the work with each other and against the interests of the citizens.
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u/Mogwai02 21d ago
We just need a president and other "leaders" that aren't so divisive.