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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
California and New York are a lot less culturally distinct from the rest of the United States than the South was from the North at the time. More than two hundred years as a single country with massive waves of internal migration will do that.
Also, I still find it weird than when stuff like this gets brought up "The North" still gets talked about as if it were a single unified entity, now or then. But especially now, when it also apparently includes all the Western and Midwestern states.
edited 2nd May '17 5:29:51 PM by LSBK
I never mentioned the North as a distinct unit in modern times.
Nowadays the distinction is mostly between urban and rural culture. California and New York just represent the densest population centers in the country (and surprise surprise represent like a third of the nation's economy on their own).
edited 2nd May '17 5:35:29 PM by Clarste
I didn't mean you specifically, just in general.
Even then apply that to either California or New York as a whole is pretty misleading. Not sure what point you think you're making with that "surprise, surprise". No one has ever denied that a lot of money is made there.
edited 2nd May '17 5:37:23 PM by LSBK
States can't leave the Union unilaterally the same way nations can leave the EU because the EU isn't a country, it's a bunch of little countries in a big organization. The United States is a country, created when the original thirteen states gave up their sovereignty to form a single political entity, which grew as more states were created from United States territory. Most of these states were never sovereign entities, they were created by the United States for the United States. A handful of them were independent entities for a time, but when they applied for statehood they sign on the dotted line agreeing, like the original thirteen, to give up that independence.
According to the Supreme Court a state can leave the Union, so long as the state and the Union agree on terms for the separation. Which last I checked, seems to be how most countries deal with things like that. For a state to unilaterally leave the Union is rebellion, and a threat to the existence of the United States. For better or for worse all nation-state have a right to protect their own existence.
Yeah, both states have their own little conservative pockets as well. They just get drowned out by the votes of the cities.
I'm just cynical about the Electoral College and all these little tiny states that think they matter. There's nothing wrong with everyone working together for the greater good, but I'm pretty sure a lot of the voters who live there don't realize that on their own they're barely better off than a developing third world nation, and are just clinging to the coattails of their richer neighbors. Show some appreciation for the goodwill and generosity of mankind, I guess? Instead of spitting in their faces.
edited 2nd May '17 5:45:29 PM by Clarste
Neither of those is "little". It's a huge part of state politics. A lot of states like that; what happens in national politics doesn't necessarily reflect how state politics goes.
I'm still not sure what point you're trying to make. Most of the United States isn't even "hyper-conservative", Congress skews much farther to the right than the populace as a whole.
Edit:
Well, getting that I agree with you about the Electoral College first, the rest of that post just makes you sound like the pretentious liberal stereotype those same people hate. For good reason.
edited 2nd May '17 5:47:52 PM by LSBK
In my opinion the states can't secede because they're not actual nations. They're just administrative divisions of a greater country called the United States. It's like Manhattan trying to become a separate city from the rest of New York City. It just doesn't make sense. That's on top of the fact that very few states could survive on their own least of all the tiny red states. Frankly they need the US more than it needs them.
I'll admit it's not the most PR friendly, but when the people who hate welfare the most are also the people who rely on it the most, I reserve the right to think of those particular people as stupid.
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And that doesn't necessarily equal "hyper conservative". Not really sure ''what' Trump is but that label seems just as badly fitting as anything else that implies a coherent or definitive political platform.
That's assuming they're the ones in the states taking welfare the most. Things are more complicated than that. In places like Alabama stuff like Section 8 housing and food stamps tend to congregate in Democratic areas. It's not as simple as "Democrat rich, Republican poor" and you're not doing any favors by acting as if it is. Just looking at the Electoral College doesn't give your nearly enough information.
edited 2nd May '17 5:53:19 PM by LSBK
He ran on a platform of irrational xenophobia. "Build a wall" and all that. It doesn't really matter if he has coherent policy ideas, what matters is that 47% of the country agreed with his vague feelings on things.
And that too, is also more complicated than you're making it out to be. Many people didn't "agree" with Trump, they just hated Hilary Clinton more, for various reasons.
Many of which I disagree with, and I'd assume you would too, but "everyone who voted for Trump is racist" was and continues to be a gross oversimplification of things.
Edit: This entire thing barely relates to secession, there's not a serious movement for that anywhere except for maybe Alaska and Hawaii.
edited 2nd May '17 5:56:16 PM by LSBK
Okay, that's fair enough.
The fact that they were willing to overlook those things about him also speaks to their priorities though.
edited 2nd May '17 5:57:42 PM by Clarste
Then we get into the tricky situation of whether there's an appreciable difference between being racist and enabling racism. Frankly I think it's irrelevant. If you voted for the racist you're tacitly admitting that their beliefs aren't a dealbreaker. That has to make you at least marginally racist.
edit: @Dems in red states use welfare: That may be true but the key thing here is that they need it more because the red state economies generally aren't as good. That can be linked to the fact that they're red states.
edited 2nd May '17 5:57:19 PM by Kostya
Personally, I wouldn't mind if the US turned into more of a collection of autonomous communities within the US. Not entirely autonomous though. We still have to protect people.
Not 50 autonomous communities but more like a mish-mash of states that share ideals and culture together.
Pacific States(Cali, Oregon, and Washington) + Nevada + Hawaii
The Sunbelt (Texas, New Mexico and Arizona)
South East Coast states
The Midwest
The Rust Belt
The rest of the South
edited 2nd May '17 6:03:31 PM by MadSkillz
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I would agree, and those are issues that deeply need to be fixed, but I think understanding the difference between the statistical observation that Republicans and hardcore Trump voters tend to have much higher negative views on racial minorities is different from black listing them all as unsalvageable racists.
Plus, part of stuff like this is that a lot of them just don't think the people in question will actually do what they do. I talked to a Trump voter who bet a lot on the people around him being able to reign him in. That seems to be a lot of them.
edited 2nd May '17 6:02:14 PM by LSBK
That sounds like a terrible idea. What you're suggesting is halfway to a Divided States of America.
I mean, not really? Democrats using welfare more is just a consistent thing for various reasons, blue or red state.
Red states also tend to have more military bases and personnel and land owned by the federal government like national parks.
My point here isn't that red state economics is better, we've already established that. It's just that things like looking at money received from the federal government and just going "Ha!" without looking at where in the states that money is actually going and why, has always struck me as somewhat disingenuous.
edited 2nd May '17 6:08:13 PM by LSBK

What? That's the first I've heard of this, but admittedly I only have a very basic understanding of the motivations behind the civil war and I don't really know anything else about it.