Do states even have a legal way to secede?
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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Define "legal".
Absolutely
- Sincerely, someone from the EU
No. We'd be overrun by federal troops and decimated within a week. If we could secede peacefully? We (Wisconsin) would probably need an alliance with Minnesota and Michigan to survive.
Sure? Balkanization seems like a good way to speed up the process of the Empire collapsing.
If just my state left, and I could leave to another state, that would be pretty good. Two Republican senators gone, roughly 15 net house reps gone, and an influx of dem refugees like me into neighboring states.
Texas could legit try to make a go of it as an independent nation. It would be a disaster for my family though.
If the Union completely dissolved and each state had to function as nation, it would be a massive boom for the oligarchs. They already have more money than most states.
I imagine they'd form blocs, on centred on California obviously, one on the other coast, and a few in between
No. There is no mechanism to allow this. The union is perpetual, and cannot be brought to an end. A state can no more leave than US than a city or a house.
As a US citizen and Oregon resident, absolutely.
But I don't honestly foresee it being possible or happening.
My tinfoil hat says they'd try and probably succeed at triggering "The Big One"
Yes. In fact, I've decided to take a leap of faith and join the California National Party, which you can all check out here: CNP website. I am sick of the usual Republicans vs Democrats. Everytime one party is in power, we are constantly worrying about the loss of civil and human rights. Lets start with a clean slate. If you are a California resident, at least check out their party platform. Also, in 2026, there will be a gubernatorial candidate for CNP. His name is Sean Forbes.
If having human rights is dependent upon who's in power at the moment, you don't have human rights.
A single party like Mexicoβs PRI party isnβt the answer eitherβ¦
There are Nations with more than 2 parties
No.
I don't support it, only because my state wouldn't be seperating to join the "good" side
Washingtonian here, I've been saying this should happen for like 8 years now lmao
The marriage isn't working. Let it go.
We have had a name for it for awhile, my fellow Washingtonians call the Washington/Oregon/California union 'Cascadia'. Wouldn't be such a bad idea.
If you donβt take AZ and NV with you, you will get your Colorado River water cut off and lose a lot of farming power. That might even require UT. Unless itβs only Northern California included, in which case you still lose that agriculture, and possible land based trade lines to Mexico. Itβs not a clean and pretty separation.
Fuck yeah! Cascadia! Let us stop funding this awful government and actually put our taxes towards improving people's lives
Absolutely, and I'm about ready to start identifying as that over American π« .
I usually think of BC being part of it, too, cause we're so similar culturally, and we hang out on each other's side of the made up invisible line all the time.
One can dream!
It would have a hell of a lot of economic power, and natural resources.
Sounds like the kind of place the US would invade
I support balkanizing the US
Californian. No.
It wouldn't solve any problems that can't be solved by other means, and it would create new problems that we haven't had to worry about before. It'd be a net loss for everyone involved.
We'd have to spend a fortune on defense.
We'd suffer massive losses from being cut off from interstate trade agreements.
We'd have to deal with massive immigration issues.
We'd probably get our shit pushed in from all the federal military bases within the state.
I think it's waaaay easier to just oust the current leadership and remove all the Congress members that aided and abetted.
Coloradan. Only if a neighboring State does, because if not, we are neighboring other borders and we would be landlocked without food or water imports. Its either all Pacific and Front Range States agree we have to split, or none of us can.
Our most populous cities, Denver and CO Springs, are below the mountains, and are screwed in a combat scenario.
I don't see Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, or Kansas doing so willingly.
In American balkanization I imagine yall would be a battleground of the literal variety. Colorado and new Mexico would want to join Pacifica and Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, and Montana likely won't. But also you're valuable enough to justify putting up a stink for
I think Colorado could force AZ to do what they want just by threatening to turn off the water.
New Mexico went Kamala. Border state.
Wouldn't work out. World's too complicated for simple answers like that.
Leaving, even if it would produce a viable nation, would involve leaving a lot of people in the lurch. There's people in conservative states who need the counter balance of blue states to slow down their government's trend to self destruction and fascism.
Even though it's increasingly frustrating with how feeble that resistance is, it does keep things like banning gay marriage in the "difficult to pass" territory and not the "a few compromises" one.
Counterpoint, thatβs actually not the blues states jobs, our job is to take care of our state(s) just like others states job is to take care of themselves.
As a Washingtonian I would be thrilled if the west coast became independent but thereβs no movement towards it and of course the road getting there is unknowable, but as an abstract concept itβs lovely.
Red states have done nothing but hold places like where I live back, theyβre actively dragging us down with them and itβs wildly unfair to ask me and my people to subsidize states that relish in our destruction and aim to drown us along side themselves. Red states donβt deserve to be subsidized, let them live with the consequences of their actions without the comfort blue states afford them and see how long those red state governments last.
Rest of the states would need to agree sadly, and that's not happening.
Californian here, bye Felicia. I'm fucking done with my hard earned money going towards ungrateful backwoods idiots that actively hate me, my state, and my neighbors because they're told to by thuh teevee, yet don't realize it. I'm done subsiding hatred for the sake of it, because "it's the right thing to do." I'm done being at the political whim of people that can't spell potato. I have a lot of heart for my countrymen, but considering far too many of them hate us for reasons they don't even understand, I don't see the point anymore.
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Indiana. We'd fail so hard and so fast that I literally cannot imagine it. People are nuts. It'd be instant MAGA-flavored Mad Max if they felt like they had an excuse to preemptively defend themselves with their guns across the countryside.
Alabama. Not enough federal money in the world to keep that state afloat.
If they split from the Union, everyone starves.
A bulkanized US would certainly be good for the planet, assuming it survived the preliminary civil wars as nation state boundaries are created and alliances made with Canada and Mexico. Who gains control of all the nukes would be a big question.
Its part of why I moved out west. That and fear of persecution in the Midwest.
This throws under the bus the many many non republicans in places gerrymandered such that the minority can continue it's rule. My life would probably get better, but only at their expense as more and more solvent states leave the union. I'm not willing to 'punish' those people for the crime of being born in a impossibly corrupt district.
I'm not so sure. Once the Republicans no longer have the democrats to fight against, they will fight against each other. This might happen as well in the leaving blue states, but I feel like the democrates don't hold as big of a majority in most of them. So they are already used to it. And they aren't so much the party of fire and brimstone. So more likely they would try to do all the social reforms and just fall on thier faces.
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No, not really. While I am not white, I am American through and through. I don't really prefer to be something else. I just think we should fix what we can. Preferably while we can.
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I don't think the population is as hopelessly divided as the social media spaces make it out to be, but at the same time, the federal government looks more and more unrecoverable from corporate interests and back to the people every single day. It's probably past the point of return, excepting major societal shakeup.
It feels like there may come a point where the states that are large enough to be countries on their own start looking into any mechanisms that would allow them separation, just to be able to run themselves without federal interference and incompetence.
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