I disagree that we as a country need a divorce, aka split in half.

[Zalatix]

It would not be very liberal of us to set loose 56 million bigots (see: voters who went for McCain and Palin despite all their craziness) and leave them to fend for themselves. It is sheer insanity that we would separate ourselves from so many wrong-headed people.

Think of it like having a violent husband who beats the living tar out of you and every time you call the cops he has a vote in whether justice is served. Oh and he pays the cops more than you can so the cops keep siding with him. Think of it as the co-tenant of the apartment building who keeps setting your shit on fire every time you have an argument, or who bashes in your car's windows because you're black. Would you have these menaces removed? No, because that's insensitive and uncharitable, you'd be abandoning them to the elements. Even as they're breaking your legs and spiking your food, you must keep them around and try to convince them of what's right!

Truly charitable Americans would much rather keep trying to convince these people to see the light even when every effort we make intensifies their outbursts of rage. It's downright uncharitable for us to choose to move on without them when we could take the noble route. That route, of course, has the right wing crazies engaging in rampant obstructionism, holding the nation ransom, at a bloody standstill, until it is simply too late to avoid a total collapse from global warming or an economic meltdown, aka "Starve the Blue Beast". We must work with them no matter how many schools they privatize, no matter how many jobs they move overseas, no matter how much money gets hidden in the Cayman Islands, no matter how many states allow rapists to seek joint custody of the children they sired through violence, no matter how much welfare gets cut, no matter how many roads or whole cities get privatized (see: Governor Rick Snyder's city managers).

We must keep America together, even if it means we all get brought down by the political rioters and ruffians they call the Conservative movement. If the Republicans must take America to hell with their madness then by God we're obligated to go with them!



Okay, now this is sarcasm, of course. But the fact is, even if we do take Congress and retain the Presidency, you do not stop 56 million crazy hard-headed nutbags without doing additional, phenomenal damage to the country. These people will severely poison the political well for decades beyond today. We will have to fight them in countless statehouse elections, and they will bombard us on all fronts with corporate money.

Do you see how tough the GOP is at the ballot box now, after all this madness? Wait'll they change up their strategy with a Marc Rubio approach. Romney's an overt nutjob, Rubio knows how to hide it much better. Rubio will charm people with his superior (to Romney) public relations skills and when he gets into office... we'll take a full 50 year step backward. He is a classic Stealth corporate statist.

I know tons of people will throw a fit of absolute RAGE at the idea of America splitting in half but this much is absolutely certain and undeniable: as much as you hate what America will look like split in half, you will hate it even worse when we go to hell-on-earth together, with the GOP dragging us screaming into the abyss. And even with a population of 300 million, no country can survives the disastrous effects of 56 million people trying their damnedest to pull America down.

It is completely, hopelessly, no, laughably impossible, for America to survive another half-century as one nation.

[gollygee]

1. I disagree too

We'd have a constant war along the very long border.

[Zalatix]

2. Actually, no we wouldn't.

Nobody would trade with them. They would be quickly starved of resources in such a war. Who WOULDN'T have an embargo against them?

We would have allies. Many allies. And much more equitable trade agreements than we have now.

[quinnox]

3. that is my fear as well

We would have savages at our borders constantly, wanting to take over our side. The South would not survive long on its own in my humble opinion. They would go the military and wage warfare route very quickly

[Zalatix]

7. What you fear will happen anyway.

If we take Washington DC, which we most likely will, and we beat them stateside as well, they'll be backed into a corner. What do you think these 56 million nutjobs - that's 56 million people of voting age and older - will do when they see themselves being wiped out politically? I think everyone here thinks they'll just sulk and post racist shit online. We've had one civil war before, you know. Instead of freeing slaves we've gone one step further with these Right Wing bastards - we've put what they see as slave material in the Oval Office, and we may well put a woman in office, too.

You're worried about fighting them across the border... but as it stands, when these people finally lose their last gourd, they'll be next door to you, and you won't even know who it is or where they're coming from.

But then backing these animals in a corner won't ever result in rebellion. Nah, can't ever happen.

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. Sure because none of those 56 million McCain voters lived in "blue" states, did they?

This is just stupid.

[Zalatix]

10. Your map doesn't change a thing about the reality that we cannot stay united.

All you did was prove that you stand a good chance of living next to a violent right wing crazeball who might come after you when you least expect it.

I fully expect this to start happening as we drive them out of Washington, DC and corner them in statehouse elections.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. An average of four in ten voters in "red states" vote Democratic.

An average of four in ten voters in "blue states" vote Republican.

Based on this alone I don't find the idea that the country is going to split on broadly partisan lines to be at all convincing.

[leftstreet]

13. Not to mention that half the eligible people don't vote

So where are they on this mythical political battleground?

[Zalatix]

14. Which means the other consequence I believe I mentioned in the OP

We will kick their asses out of Washington, DC, this is absolutely certain. What is also certain is that the RWers will move trillions more dollars out of the country as well as privatize as much statewide infrastructure and public services as they can. Think Rick Snyder but all over every Red-controlled state in the union. In short, as I said in the OP, they'll find other ways to bring America down, hard.

There is no scenario that has any nation on Earth surviving the nonviolent economic and political rebellion of 56 million people. If it gets violent, the odds become more remote.

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. "kick their asses out of Washington DC"

how? Are you planning to suddenly somehow wave a magic wand and alter the composition of the Congress so as to totally eliminate Republicans?

And talk about overblown hyperbole. "any nation on earth surviving the nonviolent economic and political rebellion of 56 million people"...China? India? With populations of over a billion the nonviolent rebellion of five percent of their population would have...what effect? Far less than in a country of 320 million. You're also presuming that all of those 56 million 2008 McCain voters are right-wing extremists who are prepared to turn violent. Which is as stupid and foolish as presuming that every Obama voter is a Marxist, quite honestly.

[Zalatix]

17. Not totally eliminate, but create a veto-proof Dem majority. Same thing.

We can and will remove them from power in DC.

China and India don't have 56 million people who have completely repudiated the system. If they did then it would be disastrous. 5 percent is a HELL of a lot of people. 56 million is 5 percent in China and a far larger percentage in America.

McCain voters don't have to turn violent. They just have to turn uncooperative. Look at the non-violent damage they've already done.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

18. Do you have any idea how bizarre you sound?

We're going to remove them from power? By what means? Taking away the voting rights of those we don't agree with?

This is beyond crazy.

[Zalatix]

19. Okay. I sound bizarre to you. I don't care.

I don't know how to put it more simply - we can remove them from power by voting in a veto-proof Democratic Presidency and White House. Once that is done, they have no power in Capitol Hill. We are on the verge of doing just that. We could in fact achieve this within the next week, and if not, then in the next 4 years. Where you got "taking away their voting rights" I don't know, and frankly I am not inclined to ask what dark corner of your imagination that you got that from.

My point, though, is even if we achieve that, the RWers will drag us as a nation down with their statewide elections, shock doctrines and Plutocrats moving billions overseas. They can still devastate the country without having control of anything in Washington, DC.

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. You really need to look up "veto-proof"

Overriding a veto requires a two-thirds majority in both houses. Veto-proof majorities have existed rarely in American history; the Republican majority after the Civil War was veto-proof (1865-1869 and 1873-1875); FDR had a veto-proof majority from 1935-1939; LBJ had a veto-proof majority from 1965-1967. And that's it.

[Zalatix]

27. The GOP is dying. Its supporting demographic is dwindling.

America is becoming more racially diverse, with whites set to no longer be the majority by the middle of the century. The GOP is LOSING GROUND with all non-white voter groups. The GOP lost terribly in 2010 with the non-white vote. This is a fact of statistics, not race-baiting.

The GOP will never regain good standing with non-white voters. Ever. It is set to lose chunks of its white voter base as well. This will take about 30-40 years before it reduces the GOP to the status of a joke party. But long before that they'll show big losses, such as already blue states turning perma-blue, and purple states turning blue.

We'll get to 2/3 majorities. The only credible point of contention among those who know the demographic trajectory of the GOP is when it will happen in the next 40 years.

If your argument is that we will not get there, then the second scenario of my OP is certain: the GOP will hang on to just enough power to ruin America. How do you see that NOT happening?

[SickOfTheOnePct]

26. In order to get a veto proof majority

You would have to take away the voting rights of Republicans, period. There is no other way.

And if you think we're on the verge of having a veto proof majority next week, well, I want some of what you're smoking.

[argiel1234]

24. what is crazy is apologizing

for profiting off of peoples lives.

10-1 we outnumber you.

the violent police state and hugely overbloated military will be cut in half if not more by budget cuts...Thankfully

No more drone murdering.. no more honduras right wing supporting coups

No more supporting right wing Pinochet's or Franco's

No more Haiti ignoring and poverty inducing programs




OH THE HORROR

[Spider Jerusalem]

22. how do you propose to do that?

When there aren't enough votes for a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate and the odds seem good that the House is going to have a Republican majority, again? And there's a big difference between "completely repudiated the system" and "have a different idea of what the system ought to be". The latter is supposedly their right as citizens of a democracy; to vote for candidates who represent the vision of government they'd like to see implemented. I personally disagree with that vision, and will continue to vote against it, as I have in every election since I registered to vote. But quite frankly "getting rid of people who disagree with me politically" is more of a repudiation of the system than "voted for things I don't like".

[Zalatix]

25. I think we can muster enough votes to win Congress this Nov 6 or the next 4 years.

The GOP has discredited themselves so badly that they're within striking range of losing all their gains. They can lose power in Washington DC, and they will.

The problem is that the RWers will retreat to their statewide elections and the Red States will become bastions we cannot hope to crack no matter how much we GOTV in those regions. They'll keep sending their people to Congress, though they won't have the majority in Congress because of the counterweights from the Blue states, but statewide, they'll rule their own roost. And within their states they will privatize themselves into abject poverty and the rest of us will suffer because they'll become economically depressed zones. Dragging the rest of America down, hard.

However... if you are right and we cannot take back Congress, then what I said in the OP is even more certain: the Right Wing will drag America down, even faster. We will all go to hell-on-earth together.

I'm not sure how you see a way out of ruin if we can't get a Democratic majority in Congress.

[leftstreet]

5. Maybe some day we'll even get a black President

My goodness. How did Obama ever get elected?

Meh. The GOP will go moderate for 2016

Reaganomics and the Religious Right R dead and the politicians know this

[mike_c]

6. some days, I think "Fuck 'em...."

If the GOP's base wants to turn their Jesusland states into shit holes then fuck it, let 'em do just that. Blockade their borders, too, so the contagion stays put. Let them have Mullah Billybob on the TeeVee all day long and let them pray away the gay and shout their exceptionalism until they're hoarse from it.

Other days I recognize that we'd have to bomb the shit out of them, if only for self protection. Damn.

[quinnox]

8. yep

[JoeyT]

20. If you'd be willing to let

the minorities in those states suffer at the hands of the crazy right wingers that would gain control as soon as they were cut loose, then you're not a whole lot better than they are. They wouldn't bother praying away the gay, they'd just kill them outright.

[Flatpicker]

9. I'd have to agree

Divorce isn't the answer in this situation.

The main reason is that economically, we don't have the functions on either side of the divide to support a 1st world quality of life.
So eventually, you would have 2 or more (don't think if we start to split, it wouldn't become a fracture) 3rd world governments on this land.

Another reason is that the poorer southern states would have no choice than to march north in a land grab. They would have to in order to grab resources to move out of the poverty they would have.

The last reason that I can see is that the very corporations that keep the divides alive don't want it to accelerate into a split.
Their resources are tied into this and unless they have their own armies, they would be parted out for their worth.
They have to keep a fine line, keep us fighting ourselves without it actually breaking into violence.

[Zalatix]

16. The consequences of staying together are just as bad.

Between the mass privatization and shock doctrine/disaster capitalism tactics, the ultra persistent anti-tax movements and the constant movement of money to various Cayman Islands-equivalents tax havens overseas, the RWers will turn America into a third world country anyway. Even after we remove them from power in Washington DC these problems will continue to metastasize like a cancer.

[trof]

12. Who gets the kids?

[argiel1234]

21. there are not 56 million bigots

we outnumber them 10-1 Zalatix

THAT is what they are afraid of being exposed