this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 17 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Washingtonian here, I've been saying this should happen for like 8 years now lmao

The marriage isn't working. Let it go.

[–] wolfinthewoods@lemmy.ml 16 points 17 hours ago (5 children)

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.

[–] Star@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 15 hours ago

Fuck yeah! Cascadia! Let us stop funding this awful government and actually put our taxes towards improving people's lives

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 6 points 16 hours ago

Absolutely, and I'm about ready to start identifying as that over American 🫠.

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!

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

It would have a hell of a lot of economic power, and natural resources.

[–] BreakerSwitch@lemmy.world 5 points 13 hours ago

Sounds like the kind of place the US would invade

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[–] matdave@lemmy.ml 3 points 12 hours ago

I don't support it, only because my state wouldn't be seperating to join the "good" side

[–] charonn0@startrek.website 12 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 11 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

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

[–] echindod@programming.dev 4 points 14 hours ago

I think Colorado could force AZ to do what they want just by threatening to turn off the water.

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[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 16 hours ago

New Mexico went Kamala. Border state.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 2 points 11 hours ago
[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 54 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] CorruptCheesecake@lemmy.world 10 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

I just hope they automatically give former residents citizenship. I'm stranded out in the badlands for now.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

If honestly be curious how that would work out. CA tends to know the value of immigration, and i couldn't really see them holding a policy of closed borders, at least not in the long run.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

Any American balkanization would likely go very similarly to the partition of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The liberals would be given a period of permission to move to the coasts, and the conservatives to the red states, and in this process communities would shatter and a lot of people would die, but it's better than a civil war and/or white terror.

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[–] Zaleramancer@beehaw.org 8 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Zenith@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Counterpoint, that’s 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 there’s no movement towards it and of course the road getting there is unknowable, but as an abstract concept it’s lovely.

Red states have done nothing but hold places like where I live back, they’re actively dragging us down with them and it’s 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 don’t 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.

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[–] BlueCollarRockstar@sh.itjust.works 11 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 18 hours ago

Alabama. Not enough federal money in the world to keep that state afloat.

If they split from the Union, everyone starves.

[–] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

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.

[–] Eheran@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Why did democrats not stop the gerrymandering? Why are there so many laws that should not exist still there?

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

And that outdated electoral college, smells like the fourth republic in france IMO.

[–] nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Because democrats have found a way to benefit from their own misuses of the law as well, so you can see how this leaves the people trying to change this with impossible choices they have to suffer consequences of even if they make the best one. It takes a lot of fight to stand up and keep pushing through that, and those are exactly the folk I'm proud to call my country-kin

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

It was long and slow and by the time it was clear what was happening it was well underway.

I'm someone who grew up in ohio as it happened and it was subtle. But we eventually passed constitutional amendments banning gerrymandering, but congress ignored us. And as it happened bit by bit we left. I stayed until it was clearly about to get unsafe for folks like me (I left a few months ago), and democrats are still fighting there. But political polarization is strong and a lot of coastal Republicans have moved in because its nearly impossible for them to lose there at this point in anything except single issue votes on constitutional amendments

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[–] morgan_423@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago

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.

[–] profgrumpypants@midwest.social 26 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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.

[–] MisterOwl@lemmy.world 12 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, it's a little too late for that.

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[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

Its part of why I moved out west. That and fear of persecution in the Midwest.

[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 7 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

i want new england to join canada T_T

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 5 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

You will all be required to learn French

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 18 hours ago

Small enough price to pay

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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.

[–] qt0x40490FDB@lemmy.ml -3 points 9 hours ago

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.

[–] Lucky_777@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

Rest of the states would need to agree sadly, and that's not happening.

[–] urata@lemmy.world 12 points 23 hours ago

I live in Oregon, I'd prefer it if Oregon joined Canada as a province, or like Washington and Oregon together. I don't think it's realistic. There's a lot of unanswered questions of how things would work but I have daydreamed about it.

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 14 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm at the point where I think we should peacefully dissolve the Union entirely. Just grant all 50 states full independence. Let the states come back together in whatever new nation or combination of nations they want.

Look at the current state of our politics. Step back and really look at it. Every political system relies ultimately not on a constitution, but on the good faith of the people actually governing. Look at how the current president is wiping his ass with every check and balance built into the system. Words and laws don't matter, there's always a bad faith interpretation that can allow the president to seize more and more power. And the Supreme Court is openly giving broad sweeping authority to Republican presidents while severely curtailing the power of Democratic presidents. Bribery is legal, and both parties are completely captured by the wealthy. Oh, and every last scrap of freedom, privacy, and autonomy are being torn down in the path of an ever-expanding surveillance panopticon.

I'm sorry. But by the time your political culture decays so far to allow this level of dysfunction, there's no saving it. Our constitution is a woefully out-of-date obsolete document that should have been scrapped generations ago. And it was made difficult to amend by people who had no idea how important amending it would later be. It was built for the compromises of the 1780s, not the compromises of the 2020s. We need to go through a new process of Constitution creation, potentially multiple such processes, and come back together based on new compromises that reflect the reality of the 21st century.

This nation cannot be saved. We need a peaceful national divorce. The alternative is likely something far worse, as we hurdle inexorably towards a second civil war.

Note: obviously there are practical difficulties with dissolving a nation. When this comes up, people love to hand wring about the national debt or how military assets will be dissolved in this kind of scenario. These are important but obvious concerns. But national myopia blinds us here. Nations have peacefully divided countless times through history. These matters are always handled through some negotiation process. American exceptionalism blinds us to our possible futures, simply because we are unwilling to look beyond our own borders for inspiration.

[–] AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world 9 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

I think the only reason states have not truly waged war on each other is that we are part of a union. That's just my opinion, but many states would simply begin to fail without the feds redistributing wages from states that have good industry and gdp.

Once they don't get, they will start to try to take, and that fire would spread faster than it could be put out. Again all imo. But us Americans are "a bit shit" to eachother already, to borrow a British phrase.

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[–] TomMasz@lemmy.world 12 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

California could pull this off, given its industry, agriculture, and Pacific seaports. New York, where I live, has lost too much industry and agriculture to be self-sufficient. Joining Canada, though, could help assuage some of those deficits.

[–] Xaphanos@lemmy.world 8 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

New York has quite a bit going for it. I think we can stand up for ourselves. I think Jersey, Connecticut, and Vermont would join us right out of the gate. I'd certainly support secession.

Additionally, NY plus CA seceding would put way too much pressure on the remainder for the rest of the states to manage the federal government. If Texas secedes for the opposite reasons, that's the end of it.

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[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 7 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

There's one big fatal flaw to that though. Water. California doesn't have enough.

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[–] vfreire85@lemmy.ml 6 points 21 hours ago

trumpistan leaves, enters techbronia.

Fuck it why not. This country is proving to be a global liability due to its structure, size, and lack of codified protections for its own handling.

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