Divided States Of America - Television Tropes & Idioms

The United States of America is very large and even more diverse. Californians don't think like Texans don't think like New Yorkers don't think like Virginians and let's not even get into Vermont. Take New Jersey — please! Indeed, the relationship between states can border on hostile, especially with regards to issues like water rights.

America began its existence as 13 colonies united only by their dislike of taxes, and over two centuries later, that hasn't changed much. So it's a small miracle that the nation has remained in one piece all these years (and even then, there have been close calls).

So now you're writing a story Twenty Minutes Into The Future, or perhaps in an Alternate Universe. How do you show that things have irrevocably but believably changed? If your audience is American, your best bet is to disunite the Union. Just say that America was suffering through some sort of crisis, and then It Got Worse.

As a bonus, your Hollywood Atlas will seem a lot more authentic. The new and smaller nations, without the tempering influence of what voters on the opposite side of the continent think, will be able to run free with their own agendas, resulting in a bit of cultural Flanderization, or even Days Of Future Past, that might actually seem justified (well, almost). Thus you may see:

The MegaCorporate Enclave of Big Applesauce. In the case of a European writer, the Dutch might take it back.
A Mormon theocracy in the Holy State of ~~Utah~~ Deseret.
A Freestate Amsterdam clone in the San Francisco Federation or the Coalition of Las Vegas.
The loud, proud, rather jingoist Republic of Texas.
The South has risen again to form the New Confederacy.
The Midwest or Southwest reclaimed by the Reformed Tribal Territories.
Some of the provinces of Canada becoming U.S. States (Québec often ends up an independent nation).
Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and sometimes northern California form the independent nation of Cascadia, which is more strongly environmentalist than the former US and often legalizes marijuana smoking and growing. Oftentimes social justice is a big part of it as well. There actually exists a Cascadian Independence Party that wants to do this, although it's mostly theoretical.
Frequently, the New England States are also off on their own, something that both New Englanders and non-New Englanders find very appealing. Sometimes, New England is combined with the Mid-Atlantic to form a Northeast country.
Alaska is often fused with the Canadian territories to form an inuit state, or the Russians take it back.
The states along the southern border will usually end up annexed by or in conflict with Mexico.

...and so on.

After The End settings usually have this on a grander scale, with a bunch of city-states that barely have any contact outside the random trade route. Odds are, most of them won't resemble the smoking husks they were built on at all, unless it was a Cosy Catastrophe.

Often combines with some form of Punk Punk. The polar opposite of this is having America turn into The Empire and grow larger. If there's still an "official" U.S. government, but its control over the country is massively weakened, this can overlap with Vestigial Empire.

It is worth keeping in mind that in many cases writers will have a bias toward a certain region. Some of it is forgivable, but in many cases it can degenerate into an Author Tract.

A subtrope of Balkanize Me.

Examples:

Anime

In Ghost In The Shell, America has split in three: the Russo-American Federation, the United States of America, and the American Empire. Only the last one actually does anything, having allied with Japan, attacked South America, and ended up on the brink of economic collapse. (Though possibly not in that order.)
In Appleseed by the same mangaka America is also divided. Probably the same way, but it is not elaborated upon. American Empire is mentioned.

Comic Books

In Frank Miller's Give Me Liberty, we get to see the U.S. balkanize throughout the series. The biggest split occurs when the Big Bad Takes Over The Presidency and discovers he's not capable of keeping the various blocs from leaving.
Judge Dredd of 2000AD has Mega-Cities One and Two on the east and west coasts, and Mega-City Three (Texas City).
In DMZ, a second American Civil War has the Midwest fighting against both coasts, to the point where New Jersey and New York are on opposite sides and the title location (the Demilitarized Zone) is Manhattan Island, where an uneasy cease-fire has formed. DMZ says the free state movement was more of an idea than a territorial location, making it more in line with modern 4th generation warfare.
In Aaron McGruder and Reginald Hudlin's Birth of a Nation, after election fraud causes a George Bush look-alike to be elected president, the city of East St. Louis declares its independence from the United States to become Black Land.
In Kurt Busiek's Alternate History comic Arrowsmith what would be the USA and Canada in our reality is (as of 1914) divided into the United States of Columbia, Acadia-Canada, Tejas, Deseret, California, Dakota, Newfoundland (Northern Canada and Alaska) and Grand Florida.

Film

The V For Vendetta movie, set in Britain Twenty Minutes Into The Future, refers to "the former United States", presumably by analogy with "the former Soviet Union". There was no nuclear war in the movie, but from what little is shown (on the propaganda-heavy television of the fascist British government), it looks like they have fallen into anarchy and internal strife and are plagued by disease to no end.
The Second Civil War depicts the break-up of the USA, starting with the secession of Idaho and snowballing from there.
In the Wild Wild West film, Loveless proposes to do this to the burgeoning United States, though they aren't their own governments, but someone else's. This has roots in the original series in which Dr. Loveless believed that California was rightfully his due to a Spanish land grant to his family before the Mexican Revolution.
"Great Britain gets back the thirteen original colonies, minus Manhattan. Florida and the Fountain of Youth go back to Spain. Texas, New Mexico, California, Arizona revolve a México. (points to most of the northwest, labeled "Loveless Land") And a little piece for me to retire on."

Literature

The Choose Your Own Adventure books Escape! and Beyond Escape! and the series Trio: Rebels in the New World took place in an America that had been split into the "nice" Turtalia, the evil Dorado, and Rebellium. This setting was explored in far greater detail in the TRIO series of books (by the same author), which elaborated on the somewhat simplistic descriptions (and presented a more realistic view) by pointing out that Turtalia was a deliberate attempt to maintain the democratic ideals of the collapsed United States, while Dorado was a military dictatorship set up by a former crusading lawyer and the remains of the New Mexican National Guard, while "Rebellium" was simply a nickname given to the collection of warring city-states that made up much of the East Coast. There was a fair amount of corruption in Turtalia, as well as a number of soldiers in Dorado who sincerely believed that the only way to preserve civilization was to enforce totalitarian rule until things stablized, and had no doubt that they were in the right and that the Turtalians were deluded idealists whose society would eventually collapse on itself.
Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash takes place in a future where America has broken up into millions of "micronations", where a given McDonald's store, for example, would be on the sovereign soil of the McDonald's nation. The US government is still around, but they just mainly run the post office.
Max Barry (of Nation States fame) explored a similar setting in the novel Jennifer Government. Nearly all society and law is individually administered by corporations (right down to corporate sponsored schools and security firms), while what's left of the government is relatively weak and looked down upon.
Orson Scott Card's Alvin Maker series is set in a United States that never became one country to begin with. It features a New England still ruled from England by the Puritan Lord Protectorate, the hard-working United States, and the slave-owning southern Crown Colonies (home of the exiled House of Stuart), each a country unto itself. None of these reach further west than the Mississippi River, where the Native American nations stopped the colonial expansion.
Robert Ferrigno's novel Prayers for the Assassin and its sequel, Sins of the Assassin, take place in a future where the United States is split into four pieces following the nuking of New York and D.C., with the northern states becoming an Islamic Republic and the southern states becoming "The Bible Belt". The inside cover has a handy map.
In Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka's novel Warday, following a (relatively) limited nuclear exchange with the USSR, Washington DC has been destroyed and the US is slowly splintering into a collection of Balkanized nations, with California aggressively leading the pack.
The setting for the Robert A Heinlein novel Friday balkanized the States in just this fashion, with Vicksburg being a center of a laissez-faire economy where the nation of Texas, for example, could go to hire mercenaries for use in battles along the Mississippi River. Meanwhile out on the west coast there is the California Confederacy, headed by a "Chief Confederate". Another Heinlein setting ("If This Goes On...") had an oppressive theocracy as one part of a divided US. In "If This Goes On..." ruled pretty much the whole U.S., with the exception of Hawaii (mentioned as an independent republic). His novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls had this as well.
In His Dark Materials, Lee Scoresby is from the country of Texas. It doesn't go into it any further than that. It may have been that he was from the past, when Texas was a country. The main HDM universe is not quite the one we know.
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five shows Billy Pilgrim wandering into the future, where the US has been balkanised for its own good. So it goes.
The Wingman Series by Mack Maloney takes place in such a setting. However, by the end of the series, the country has reunited (primarily due to the heroes' efforts).
A Canticle For Leibowitz is set in a postapocalyptic North America and spans several hundred years. In the opening chapters, North America is divided into feudal kingdoms with names reminiscent of the States, such as "Texarc" (Texas+Arkansas).
Robert Silverberg's short story "The Palace at Midnight" is set in The Empire of San Francisco, in a really balkanised USA. One of the characters is the ambassador from the Republic of Monterey; also mentioned are the Holy Carolina Confederation, the Three Kingdoms of New York, the Realm of Wicca in Oregon, and The Grand Duchy of Chicago.
The book Th13teen splits the US into three such countries, The racist, extremely religious and poor Confederated Republic of America (AKA Jesusland), The more civilized and educated North Atlantic Union (New York + New England) and the rich, sex soaked and amoral Pacific RimSec states (Washington, Oregon and California). Basically, the author took an electoral map of the 2004 election and split it into "Red State" and "Blue State" countries.
Many Russian science fiction writers include in their novels a mention that the US has been split into several nation-states due to ideological differences and/or corruption. One notable exception is Mikhail Akhmanov's novel Invasion, in which the US actually merges with Canada to form United States and Canada (USC) and is as strong as ever (with Russia by its side).
The Deathlands action/adventure novels (by Jack Adrian et al) has a post-nuclear United States consisting entirely of feudal baronies, as no-one has the technology to control anything larger.
In The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman, the main character visits a future in which the northeastern part of the United States has become a theocracy and closed itself off from the rest of the country.
In Broken Angel by Sigmund Brouwer, Appalachia is a dystopian theocracy independent from the United States.
Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia details the titular country, composed of several northwestern states. A forerunner of "Cascadia", discussed elsewhere on this page.
The historical background of The Vorkosigan Saga involves the United States falling apart due to internal conflict. The borderline utopian Beta Colony in the series was an attempt to preserve the best of America and is a rather "Blue State" kind of place.
Stoney Compton's Russian Amerika features an alternate universe where North America is made up of The United States, The Confederate States, The First People's Nation, New France (Quebec), British Canada, The Republic of California, Deseret, The Republic of Texas, New Spain (Mexico), and the titular Russian Amerika (Alaska).
By the end of William R. Forstchen's One Second After China has taken over the West Coast, Mexico has grabbed a large chunk of the South West, the US Government controls the East Coast and the rest of the country is more or less up for grabs and in chaos.
In L.E. Modesitt's Ghosts series, history is different due to the presence of actual, scientifically-verifiable ghosts that appear after a violent death in which the person knows he or she is dying. North America is split into Columbia (A United States analogue where the Dutch are one of the prominent people), the Mormon Theocracy of Deseret, New France, and Quebec, among other things.
Daniel da Cruz's Republic of Texas trilogy. The title says it all.
Neil Cross' Christendom has this as part of its backstory - America collapsed into anarchy, but eventually the fundamentalist Christian nation of New Jerusalem arose on the east coast and took back the rest of the country. After a series of wars, it went on to 'reclaim' parts of Australia, India, China, and northern Europe, as well as all of Egypt and Japan.
Octavia Butler's Parable of the Talents takes place during the "Al-Can War", when Alaska successfully secedes from the United States. The rest of the country is in shambles and is being run by a fundamentalist Christian leader.
Although an Alternate History/sci-fi work, Harry Turtledove's Disunited States of America shows that every state becomes its own country after United States cease to exist because they kept the Articles of Confederation. The social and economic structure of each state fits accurately to our America and history. For example, California is an economic and technological superpower in the region and is one of the most liberal societies; while many former slave-owning states in the South have a racial caste/hierarchy/apartheid system where the white people are the top of the ladder while the blacks are treated as trash (with the exception of Mississippi where the racial oppression is reversed). Since every state is its own country, there are many conflicts in North America, such as Florida was split into three where Cuba owns a small part of it; and most of the plot centers around Virginia, where Ohio decided to piss off that state and start a war by spreading a genetically modified measles virus and supplying weapons to the oppressed black population in Virginia.

Live Action TV

Jericho has two federal governments by Season 2 in the wake of a Cosy Catastrophe; the larger of the two's flag is at the top of this article. It is the Allied States of America, a corporate dictatorship which rules the states west of the Mississippi (except Texas) and has its capital in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The other is what's left of the federal government, with its capital in Columbus, Ohio. Off on its own, able to tip the balance, is the fully independent Republic of Texas. Season 1 makes a mention of six federal governments, and briefly shows a map with Sacramento, California; Cheyenne, Wyoming; San Antonio, Texas; Cleveland, Ohio; Albany, New York; and Montgomery, Alabama marked as capitals. There is also mention of a senator from Oregon making a claim to the presidency. By season 2, though, this has been narrowed down to the above two governments.
The town of Concord, Massachusetts tried to secede from the United States in a episode of Boston Legal, citing reasons involving disagreement with the government's current policy. Judge Brown threw it out as ridiculous.

Tabletop Games

The Cattle Punk Tabletop RPG Aces and Eights takes place in an Alternate Universe, where the Divided States Of America include the U.S., the Confederate States of America, Deseret, and a Tribal confederacy. This editor curses his responsibilities that keep him from spending $50 on a 300-page rulebook bound in faux leather.
Similarly, in the Tabletop RPG Deadlands: Weird West, set in the 1800s in America, the discovery of ghostrock has fostered the continued division of the Union and the Confederate States. The various states' focus on managing their own territories has kept them from expanding into areas of what would otherwise become U.S. territory. Four nations pop up instead: Mormon-run Deseret, the native Coyote Confederation, the theocratic Free and Holy City of Angels in California, and Sioux territories.
Steve Jackson's Tabletop RPG Car Wars features something like this in an After The End of easy oil scenario. Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma fall away to become a spirited republic (convenient for the Austin-based Jackson), a theocracy, and a corporate plutocracy. Utah tries breaking away as well. Quebec makes a run for it from Canada, too.
The Tabletop RPG Dogs in the Vineyard never specifically mentions any real-world locations or dates, but it takes place in an area similar to the pre-Civil War American west, in the lands of the Faith (analogous to the Mormon nation of Deseret). The Terrestrial Authority of the East is analogous to the US government and the east coast states. Though in this setting, the lands of the Faith are technically still part of the Terrestrial Authority, they give little regard to it.
Shadowrun's back history includes the secession and/or annexation of parts of the US (and other nations) as corporations and mystic elements cause social upheaval. The map in the back of the Fourth Edition book splits what used to be the United States into eight separate nations, with three more in what was Canada. Mexico has absorbed much of the South into the new nation of Aztlan.
Rifts has rebuilt portions of the US and Canada into an alliance called the Coalition States. The rest of the continent is made up of independent cities and towns separated by wilderness.
In Castle Falkenstein, America consists of the United States of America (from the east coast to the Mississippi), the Republic of Texas, the Bear Flag Empire of California (ruled by Emperor Norton!), the Twenty Nations Confederation and the Unorganized Territories.
The GURPS Infinite Worlds setting includes no less than six "Dixies" and one "Gallatin", where the States didn't really Unite in the first place.
Diana: Warrior Princess and Elvis: The Legendary Journeys have this. But that's because their 31st century writers are about as accurate as 21st century writers of Xena and Hercules.

Video Games

The Crimson Skies series takes place in an Alternate Universe where the United States broke up in the early 20s.
In the strategy game Shattered Union, the United States breaks into seven factions: the New England Alliance, the traditionalist Confederacy, the freedom-loving Republic of Texas, the Great Plains Federation, the environmentalist Pacifica, the California Commonwealth, and the grievously unpopular European Union Occupation zone in and around the ruins of DC. Hawaii goes off on its own (rejoining after America is reunited), and Alaska gets invaded by the Russians.
The leader of the Believers faction in Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri is specified as coming from the "Christian States of America." She is identified in the background material as born in Athens, Georgia. It seems to be a mixture of Deep South and Christian Fundamentalists. These "Christian States" obviously do not reach far north, for the Pirates' leader, Ulrik Svensgaard, comes from Gloucester, MA, which is listed as being in the United States. And the background material actually gives Miriam's country of origin as the USA.
The upcoming game Fracture has America's East Coast joining with Europe to form the cybernetics-using Atlantic Alliance, while the West Coast joins with Asia in the genetics-focused Republic of Pacifica.
The Fallout games have the US split into thirteen commonwealths before the Great (nuclear) War. The United States also annexes Canada shortly before the Third World War. Roughly a century after the nukes fly, the US is broken into independent city-states — such as Shi Town, Necropolis, and New Reno (formerly San Francisco, Bakersfield, and... well, Reno) — and small nations such as the New California Republic, with the wilderness in between dominated by raider clans and native-styled tribes. Other major players include the Brotherhood of Steel, descendants of an army unit that rejected their illegal orders and holed up during the war, and the Enclave, the fascist remnants of the federal government, which still regards itself as a legitimate authority despite being in hiding almost the entire time.
Most Paradox Interactive games include ahistorical "revolter nations" in case you badly mismanage your empire. In Europa Universalis these include Quebec and Louisiana, and Hearts Of Iron includes California, Texas and a reinstated Confederacy. (their ideology is technically dependant on what ideology an eventual occupier who wishes to partition the USA has, but since the most likely occupier would be Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan the ministers are all fascists) other nations can be similarily divided (like Russia, China and large sections of the British Empire)
Victoria An Empire Under The Sun not only includes the Confederacy but also the nations of Texas and California, as well as nations for the Cherokee, the Sioux, Mormon Deseret, a possible New England secession and the Manhattan Commune. Canada gets in on it to, as it has both a Quebec and a Metis Confederation.

Web Comics

In SSDD, the "Tower Of Babel" storyline starts with an animated map of the states and their progressive division.
Roswell, Texas takes places in an independent Republic of Texas which also controls Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico. California is also an independent nation, run by President For Life, Walt Disney. (It takes place in an alternate 1948.) The space in between them is referred to as "the Deseret Corridor" indicating it's run by the Mormons.

Web Original

In Decades Of Darkness, New England secedes after the early death of president Thomas Jefferson at the most inopportune moment, and manages to stay independent.
The Onion article, Texas Constructs U.S. Border Wall To Keep Out Unwanted Americans.
The map that circulated after the 2004 elections, labeling the blue states and Canada as the "United States of Canada" and the red states as "Jesusland," and all its variations.

Real Life

The United States has fought already one Civil War over this issue, which resulted in 4 years of fighting and at least 700,000 deaths. This is still a sore subject in many places.
The Republic of Texas existed for about ten years before being peacefully annexed by the United States.
Vermont was also an independent nation from 1777 until it joined the Union in 1791. Much like Texas, a certain number of Vermonters still cling to the notion that they have the right to secede. Unlike Texas, Vermont has insufficient natural resources to support its' present population; however, also unlike Texas, Vermont pays more to the Federal government than it receives back. It's not in their Constitution that they may secede from the Union whereas Texas fully retains that right in ink. (Texas also may break into five smaller states if it so chooses, but that'll never happen.)
California, too, was briefly a sovereign nation before being conquered after several pitched battles. Interestingly, even Anglo-American settlers of California fought the invading American army.
Hawaii was an independent monarchy before America deposed Queen Liliuokalani in a coup d'état.
New Hampshire's state constitution would seem to suggest not the right to independence, but in fact the duty to revolt should the government become overly oppressive.
There are quite a few active organizations arguing for peaceful secession. Ironically, the main complaints cited are high taxes and an overbearing Federal government.
- The Republic of Lakotah which recently seceded from the United States. Currently, this declaration has been in name only.
- Cascadia is more of a thought experiment than an actual effort to secede, but this is a cession of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia (and sometimes Northern California as well) from their governments into a separate, socially liberal, environmentalist nation. There's a website for the Cascadian independence party here.
- The State of Jefferson from the 1940s and 1950s, covering the most out-there libertarian Redwoods counties of southern Oregon and Northern California.
The non-fiction book The Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau is about how this continent is divided geo-cuturally into "New England", "Dixie", "The Bread Basket" etc. There are also anomalies (Manhattan, Washington DC, Hawaii and Alaska) that are their own subcultures.
Russian academic Igor Panarin believes that the disintegration of the U.S.A. is imminent. The included map reeks of Did Not Do The Research into the U.S.'s cultural geography. It has been criticized as being politically motivated. Mainly, this is how Russia would prefer to carve up the United States.
Florida is only considered a "Southern" state by default. Many peninsular citizens have proposed secession, either as a state or as their own county. Some don't take this as seriously as others.
New England threatened to secede over the War of 1812.
In the 2002 edition of the Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations, the author defines a stateless nation as a group that self identifies as a distinctive group, displaying outward trappings of a national identity (especially, but not always, a flag) and the formation of political pressure groups for great autonomy. It has within the United States: New Englanders, Texans, Southerners, Californians, Mormons, at least five American Indian nations, Alaskans and Cajuns.