Great news! When all the “heritage Americans” congregate in their sanctuary cities, all we normal folk will know where these dangerous nutjobs are and can rest easy, safe from their extremist lifestyles.
I have reached the sad conclusion that Red and Blue America are like a couple stuck in a bad, rapidly becoming abusive, marriage that’s ruptured beyond repair. We’ve reached the point where the best solution is a (amicable, I hope—but doubt) divorce.
Think of it—Blue America can set up a modern country, with a modern economy based on technology and information. There will be equal rights and representation in a democratic (small d) government. Everyone will have the final say in controlling their own bodies except where endangering others is involved (so we will have immunization mandates). There will be a strong social safety net so nobody goes hungry, un-housed or without health insurance. Nobody will impose their religious beliefs on anyone else, and everyone will be free to follow whatever religion they want, or no religion if they so desire.
And the bumpkins, morons, Yahoos, misogynists, bigots, racists, rubes and boobs of Red America can have their hearts’ delight setting up their very own Third World country, right here on the North American continent! The government will be authoritarian, with no free elections and with few rights. Women will be considered the property of their fathers (or oldest male blood relative if dad is dead) until they marry, and then they will be property of their husband. It will have a Third World economy, based on extraction (agriculture, mining, timber, heavy manufacturing) with a very few ultra-rich people who live apart from society and feel no responsibility toward it. They won’t be in the government because they don’t have to be—the government will be at their beck and call. There will be a small middle class, running ever faster on the economic treadmill just to stay even. There will be a good-sized working class, working several jobs, none of which has benefits, just to make ends meet. And there will be a large underclass, living in shantytowns, just trying to survive. There will be epidemics of (and deaths from) measles, German Measles (with its attendant lethal birth defects), Hepatitis A and B, and many other vaccine-preventable diseases so the morons can have their freedom to spread disease.
I don’t pretend that the divorce will be easy. First, all of us have been living high on the hog from other people’s borrowed money so we’ll need to split up the national debt. We’ll also need to divvy up Federal property. Harder still will be the fact that even in deep Blue states, rural areas are solidly red—like the Eastern Shore and Appalachia in Maryland. Similarly, in ruby-Red Texas, the big cities (Houston, Austin, San Antonio) are solidly Blue and even Dallas is competitive. The disruption will be akin to setting up India and Pakistan when British South Asia was partitioned in 1947. But we’ll work it out.
The idea that we are hopelessly divided into major population blocks is mostly a right-wing idea, or at any rate is helpful mostly to the extreme right. To be sure, there is a nucleus on the far right, as you note, with extremely antisocial democratic, anti-American views. But we should not assume that all Republican voters are on the limb out there with them. The goal of the pro-democracy coalition really should be to help the relatively apolitical, the uninformed, or poorly informed, who represent the largest part of America, to separate their identities from the grips of this extreme reactionary vanguard and send the kooks back to the far end of the bar, where they are free to crank out their theories into a bottle of whiskey.
Your description is so interesting. But what struck me reading through it is that when we talk about the blue cities in deep red states, what is the commonality there? It is that in cities people have to get along and find commonality. And they find in that scenario that they care about their neighbors and they work for the common good. It’s the world people who think in terms of the old “independent, strong, freedom loving frontiersman” who lives without the need to consider others. And which is weird because back in the day ranchers in the west would get their money together and hire some young person, a woman, to come and teach out in the western territories at the time. And they would require their kids, sons, to go to school after doing their early morning chores and to get good grades. Because they saw the value of education.
It would literally require something approaching a third of the population of the United States to move, costing huge amounts of money to those people and placing a huge burden on those who can least afford it.
This is an idea that needs to be buried in the corn field.
Most wouldn’t have to. Blue voters are heavily concentrated in larger cities and their suburbs. Red voters are mostly clustered in smaller communities and rural areas. Getting to a point where the country is significantly decentralized and divided up by metropolitan statistical areas keeps everyone happy.
You might want to look into the work of Christopher Armitage—who coined the term “soft secession” last year. He’s got his own Substack. He’s written a lot on the concept of “oppositional federalism” which basically translates to a much looser union with red and blue states more or less doing their own things.
Problem is, those in Red America will see how good things are in Blue America and will want to move there. When they do, then our current problems will start all over again.
Been there, done that: the Confederacy. Maybe the US should have let that play out, and eventually the Conferate states, or most of them, would have begged to come back to the US.
We are looking at a small and decreasing minority here. If we use evangelicals as a marker we can trace their decline. Around 2000 evangelicals were around 23% of the country and were mainly social conservative white, Christian Boomers. This according a series of surveys the Pew group has been conducting over the years.
Currently they are less than 15% of the country with an average age around 60. Among people born since 1980 they are less than 10%. Since not all evangelicals are MAGAs actual numbers are probably even less but they are LOUD.
As the country becomes less conservative, less white, and less Christian they are getting desperate. Starting with the Tea Party we have a series of backlashes to this decline. They need major changes to our social compact to get their way. Democracy has to go. The Constitution must be shredded and a white, Christian, quasi-theocracy installed to govern us in its place.
That is why this mid-term and the 2028 presidential election are so important. If sanity can prevail in those elections demographics will favor the multi-cultural, multi-racial, democratic society most people here desire.
These right wing dystopian-utopian cities are just cults. Like polygamous settlements and other extreme groups, these cults with their Stepford families will fail. Remember David Koresh? Jim Jones? How did those end? Cryptocurrency would fund these hellscapes, and that type of money is not based on anything tangible.
This is really not surprising, but when they start to lean into trying to change something in our laws, schools, communities and organizations or democracy they will meet resistance. A culture war that gets bad enough can become a civil war.
We’ve been able to stop them twice now, most recently at the end of August when Newsom was backing their shipyard project and putting the screws to the Board of Supervisors. They’ll be back though. They’ve found a weak link in Suisun City and are trying to break things open there.
Great news! When all the “heritage Americans” congregate in their sanctuary cities, all we normal folk will know where these dangerous nutjobs are and can rest easy, safe from their extremist lifestyles.
We don’t need the Taliban to impose sharia law on the US - these so-called Americans will do it themselves.
But who will tend their lawns and clean their houses? Not too many Heritage Americans do those jobs today.
It's time for these manly men to learn how to do manual labor, I think
I have reached the sad conclusion that Red and Blue America are like a couple stuck in a bad, rapidly becoming abusive, marriage that’s ruptured beyond repair. We’ve reached the point where the best solution is a (amicable, I hope—but doubt) divorce.
Think of it—Blue America can set up a modern country, with a modern economy based on technology and information. There will be equal rights and representation in a democratic (small d) government. Everyone will have the final say in controlling their own bodies except where endangering others is involved (so we will have immunization mandates). There will be a strong social safety net so nobody goes hungry, un-housed or without health insurance. Nobody will impose their religious beliefs on anyone else, and everyone will be free to follow whatever religion they want, or no religion if they so desire.
And the bumpkins, morons, Yahoos, misogynists, bigots, racists, rubes and boobs of Red America can have their hearts’ delight setting up their very own Third World country, right here on the North American continent! The government will be authoritarian, with no free elections and with few rights. Women will be considered the property of their fathers (or oldest male blood relative if dad is dead) until they marry, and then they will be property of their husband. It will have a Third World economy, based on extraction (agriculture, mining, timber, heavy manufacturing) with a very few ultra-rich people who live apart from society and feel no responsibility toward it. They won’t be in the government because they don’t have to be—the government will be at their beck and call. There will be a small middle class, running ever faster on the economic treadmill just to stay even. There will be a good-sized working class, working several jobs, none of which has benefits, just to make ends meet. And there will be a large underclass, living in shantytowns, just trying to survive. There will be epidemics of (and deaths from) measles, German Measles (with its attendant lethal birth defects), Hepatitis A and B, and many other vaccine-preventable diseases so the morons can have their freedom to spread disease.
I don’t pretend that the divorce will be easy. First, all of us have been living high on the hog from other people’s borrowed money so we’ll need to split up the national debt. We’ll also need to divvy up Federal property. Harder still will be the fact that even in deep Blue states, rural areas are solidly red—like the Eastern Shore and Appalachia in Maryland. Similarly, in ruby-Red Texas, the big cities (Houston, Austin, San Antonio) are solidly Blue and even Dallas is competitive. The disruption will be akin to setting up India and Pakistan when British South Asia was partitioned in 1947. But we’ll work it out.
The idea that we are hopelessly divided into major population blocks is mostly a right-wing idea, or at any rate is helpful mostly to the extreme right. To be sure, there is a nucleus on the far right, as you note, with extremely antisocial democratic, anti-American views. But we should not assume that all Republican voters are on the limb out there with them. The goal of the pro-democracy coalition really should be to help the relatively apolitical, the uninformed, or poorly informed, who represent the largest part of America, to separate their identities from the grips of this extreme reactionary vanguard and send the kooks back to the far end of the bar, where they are free to crank out their theories into a bottle of whiskey.
Your description is so interesting. But what struck me reading through it is that when we talk about the blue cities in deep red states, what is the commonality there? It is that in cities people have to get along and find commonality. And they find in that scenario that they care about their neighbors and they work for the common good. It’s the world people who think in terms of the old “independent, strong, freedom loving frontiersman” who lives without the need to consider others. And which is weird because back in the day ranchers in the west would get their money together and hire some young person, a woman, to come and teach out in the western territories at the time. And they would require their kids, sons, to go to school after doing their early morning chores and to get good grades. Because they saw the value of education.
That’s the real thing we have lost.
Nope. Divorce is an unworkable and bad idea.
It would literally require something approaching a third of the population of the United States to move, costing huge amounts of money to those people and placing a huge burden on those who can least afford it.
This is an idea that needs to be buried in the corn field.
It beats a shooting war- which seems to be what we’re slowly drifting toward.
Aside from the problem that I outlined, I seriously doubt that it would prevent a shooting war. 100 million people aren't going to willingly move.
Most wouldn’t have to. Blue voters are heavily concentrated in larger cities and their suburbs. Red voters are mostly clustered in smaller communities and rural areas. Getting to a point where the country is significantly decentralized and divided up by metropolitan statistical areas keeps everyone happy.
You might want to look into the work of Christopher Armitage—who coined the term “soft secession” last year. He’s got his own Substack. He’s written a lot on the concept of “oppositional federalism” which basically translates to a much looser union with red and blue states more or less doing their own things.
Basically we've been in a Civil Cold War ever since Newt entered Congress and instilled the attitude of "take no prisoners"
Problem is, those in Red America will see how good things are in Blue America and will want to move there. When they do, then our current problems will start all over again.
Been there, done that: the Confederacy. Maybe the US should have let that play out, and eventually the Conferate states, or most of them, would have begged to come back to the US.
What could go wrong? I'm reminded of the book, "A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear". Here's a synopsis by The New Republic: https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project
Thanks for alerting readers to this absorbing and instructive book.
We are looking at a small and decreasing minority here. If we use evangelicals as a marker we can trace their decline. Around 2000 evangelicals were around 23% of the country and were mainly social conservative white, Christian Boomers. This according a series of surveys the Pew group has been conducting over the years.
Currently they are less than 15% of the country with an average age around 60. Among people born since 1980 they are less than 10%. Since not all evangelicals are MAGAs actual numbers are probably even less but they are LOUD.
As the country becomes less conservative, less white, and less Christian they are getting desperate. Starting with the Tea Party we have a series of backlashes to this decline. They need major changes to our social compact to get their way. Democracy has to go. The Constitution must be shredded and a white, Christian, quasi-theocracy installed to govern us in its place.
That is why this mid-term and the 2028 presidential election are so important. If sanity can prevail in those elections demographics will favor the multi-cultural, multi-racial, democratic society most people here desire.
But sadly these reactionaries seem to be in areas rich with Electoral votes. Just look at the urban/rural divide in a state like Texas.
These right wing dystopian-utopian cities are just cults. Like polygamous settlements and other extreme groups, these cults with their Stepford families will fail. Remember David Koresh? Jim Jones? How did those end? Cryptocurrency would fund these hellscapes, and that type of money is not based on anything tangible.
“Remember David Koresh?" Yes. That’s why I’m calling the city the tech billionaires are trying to build here Branch Davidian West.
Hopefully their kids will rebel and move away.
Disturbing and dangerous
No kings no oligarchs and no
Pathological faux leaders. This is dangerously evil.
This is some scary shit. I'd rather they buy a remote island and live there.
"Aligned communities". What, "segregated" was too explicit?
Thank you for covering this. I had heard about it from other friends in TN who are DISGUSTED. Glad to know more of the gory details.
Omigod. Dark-minded people. Yuck.
This is really not surprising, but when they start to lean into trying to change something in our laws, schools, communities and organizations or democracy they will meet resistance. A culture war that gets bad enough can become a civil war.
Have you been to Ave Maria Florida? Look it up!!
Will they pay taxes?
There is already a white nationalist utopia in Northern Idaho--why don't these people just move there?
And we have kind of a clone planned here in the San Francisco Bay Area: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Forever
We’ve been able to stop them twice now, most recently at the end of August when Newsom was backing their shipyard project and putting the screws to the Board of Supervisors. They’ll be back though. They’ve found a weak link in Suisun City and are trying to break things open there.
There is already a shipyard at Mare Island if we have the will to restore it.
And if we can get contracts to use it. This is what happened earlier this year:
https://www.marinelog.com/news/garamendi-seeks-answers-on-why-mare-island-dry-dock-was-not-awarded-key-uscg-contract/
Here's a prize-winning essay on that subject by a Coastie:
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2026/august/reclaim-mare-island-nsc-center-excellence