- Joined
- Jul 8, 2020
Dont need a separatist group.I agree the size of the US will have a large effect and that the fighting won't be as ubiquitous in rural areas. That being said, moving away is a huge deal for most people and they won't do it unless they absolutely have to. Maybe it's different on the East Coast where the states are smaller, but at least in the West, an individual often needs to move hundreds of miles to be in a different one. It's not always a short car trip to get away, and if it was, you would want move farther out anyway because you would still be within or close to the conflict zone. Antifa members are going back and forth between Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis. Driving a town or two over is nothing for them. There is also the issue that people don't like leaving their friends and family behind to go live in a much smaller, more tightly knit town far away where they may have trouble fitting in. Country people are already weary of outsiders moving in from cities and the lack of trust towards strangers will only get worse as this conflict grows.
The US is big, but it's mostly empty. Most of the population is in or near cities, so most of the population will experience unrest. Even if there was a sudden, seamless population redistribution that resulted in every state being solid red or solid blue, people will go out of their way to participate in conflict happening in other areas (see the posts about Antifa moving operations into suburbs, Antifa traveling to other protests if nothing is going on near them, etc.).
I agree on the Democratic big tent strategy collapsing eventually when the party reaches a certain size.
Right now, I am not convinced that Balkanization will happen. There is not enough separatist sentiment from any of the groups involved in this conflict for something like that to happen. Generally, everyone living in the US wants to continue doing so, they just want it to be their ideal version governed by their people. This could change after the fighting gets more intense, but as of right now there are no serious separatist groups capable of swaying the conflict in that direction.
The ruin of the infrastructure will lead to the united states becoming a multi geopolitical enity.
Some cities have facilites used to service an entire state. Some places not everything in one place and require coordination with multiple municipalities to keep things going.
Without that unity then centralized services and infrastructure will cease existing. Which will then force people to create more localized services then this will cause America to fracture.