Thank you Laura and Jeanne ?
I think Jeanne has it right - "the biggest political divide in this country is not among states. It's between rural and urban." A lot of it, I think, has to do with ignorance, fear, and lack of experience. If you live in an urban area, you see people of different cultures/religions/backgrounds and it's normal. If you live in a more rural area, there's a good chance you know most of your neighbors, everyone is from a similar background/culture and outsiders are scary to them. A lot of this is about fear and ignorance- gullible people that will believe anything because they have not experienced anything else.
Also I want to say to Natalie, the Trump supporter is everywhere. The east side of the country is full of hate groups, there's quite a few in California, they are sparse in states like Nevada and Utah but that doesn't mean that there aren't racist people or a Trump mentality. There are also red states that have blue cities, like Phoenix, our mayor is Democrat even though the state is red...going purple though. Most of my friends here are Republican and I know lots of Mormons and I don't hate them because they don't spew hate. Actually the Mormons are some of the nicest people I have ever met or known. My point is, it's not as easy as saying this area or that area because even though you might live in a mostly blue area, it doesn't mean that you don't live next door to a hateful person, not matter their political leanings. At the end of the day, we can agree to disagree and we are more than our political parties - at least I hope people see themselves that way. Believe it or not I've had several civil and calm conversations with Trump supporters about Trump and we have agreed on some things and disagreed on others but it didn't get heated and no one was being hateful. Personally, I am tired of the hate - which I mostly see online because people are much bolder behind a keyboard - and for me it starts with me. If I want to see less hate in my life then I need to stop hating and do more loving.
The "disunion" is coming, I think it's inevitable but maybe it has more to do with climate and necessity than politics necessarily. If Washington gets severely dysfunctional as predicted then cities and states will have to unite and do things on their own and that's where I think it's going. We already saw some of that when cities signed up to participate in the Paris accord since Trump won't. Just my feeling...and it might be a good thing.
At the risk of sounding like a nerd I feel the need to say the following. What exactly is a nation state and how do we define it? Is it defined by ethnic identity, shared values and purpose or some other denominator. I think history needs to be studied to understand the tensions of today. Here's my understanding of the United States. It is a multi ethnic country that makes much of the idea of the melting pot, however from the beginning there were different ideas regarding governance, rights etc... in different regions. In a way different folkways have shaped different areas and right now those folkways are at war. Is this something that can be fixed, can the country unite again. I'm not sure it can or should. In order to unite every side has to be a bit more humble and willing to listen to their opponents. Hell hasn't frozen over yet, so we can assume that's not going to happen. So then the alternative really is division. In regards to being a superpower, I think Americans will be relieved once that burden is taken from them. What good does being a superpower do for the average citizen? There can be great pride in creating a society fit for everyone to thrive in, egotism creates empire. Letting go of empire can make it easier create a better domestic life.
I've read quite a lot over the years on this subject - a few books I'd recommend to any poli sci and history nerds like myself are:
Albion's Seed - by David Hackett Fischer
Blood and Belonging - by Michael Ignatieff
American Character - by Colin Woodard
Another excellent Colin Woodard book is American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.
Period between 2027-2029 surely looks like to be a start point of a new socio-political cycle for USA. Although the restructuring will take more time than that. Like the transitional changes effecting middle east, indian subcontinent, china, europe the crisis impacting america will last a full generation.
As zoron said the forces are already are at play. Anti-establishment feeling will be high in the coming decade, the people who elected donald trump thinking him as a anti-establishment figure will be left feeling quite disappointed at the end of his term. And those disappointments and angers from unfulfilled promises will take shapes of various movements. Both from the people who voted him and who voted hillary clinton. The administration no matter who will be at power at that time will take repressive measures and all of that comes head after 2026. President's power by that time looks quite curtailed. Like UK, this social instability will heavily damage america's power projection ability. America will retain no.1 nation in technologicaly and military in 2020's but it will become stagnant and in 30's lose the edge to others.
In short we can say twenties are the america's decade of fall from superpower status. The frenzy in america will subside in thirties compared to the last deacde and then americans will be able to look outward and come to terms with their position in the world order.
Zoron is very impressed by the response to this new thread, about America. The standard of debate and comment is excellent. If you were a college class, I would love to teach you!. But to clarify, in no particular order, what I am seeing:
Firstly, internal separation is already happening, as has been said in the comments. This continues, but there are forces of commonality, and shared culture, that transcend this. The common media, social, and economic culture is still there. So the two forces oppose each other. I have a long article that I never completed, (Academic type) which was entitled: "The American Techno-Barbaric State & its discontents." Title says it all. My view of this was that "Techno-Barbarism" (Copyright, proprietor is Zoron) is not limited to the USA. it also infected Russia, much of Europe, (Main cause of the first world war, and the second one) and China is now carrying the Virus, but is restrained by its deep classical traditions. Western Techno-Barbarism has infected the whole planet. The planet is being devastated by this "Disease of civilisation" as I call it. It is the main driving force of Climate disaster, and the destruction of the Eco-Sphere. As a race, we are committing mass suicide, and the "Kool-Aide" is our Techno-Barbaric global culture. America is well on its way to becoming AMERIKA, and the process goes way beyond politics. The real drivers of this are deeper, and are not easily turned around, or changed. It is going to be Hell. America is merely the most visible, loud, and aggressive example of what is going on. But the political system, which sits atop all this, is itself infected. The Military industrial complex is endemic, in all large states. The massive changes going on, socially and culturally, are driven by this process. So all my ideas on "The Fate of America" have to be seen in the context of these comments i am posting. Which brings me to where we are, here, online, and what this Group is now, almost instinctively, moving towards, and is what it is for. We have been very fortunate on who has joined, those who post the core of things, and we are sort of evolving into a "Faculty". The standards of critical comment are excellent. But, we have something others do not. we are "Majority Report". We see, we hear, we think, and are not limited by time, or distance. We are unique. The thing is, we are NOT a sort of "The usual, Hollywood, glitter and gossip type forum". We are serious. Some of our readers are very serious, and of like mind. We are becoming a resource. We are also a new type of Web phenomenon, using the WEB, and intellect, to do what the sixties new age'rs could only dream about. Well, it has arrived. The general culture has also changed. people are also much more open to new ideas, and Psychic stuff. the more fanatical extremist Christian elements, are losing credibility. But society is polarising.
So what is our role, as we evolve, on this site, and what are our goals?. Well, for a start, to do what used to be an actual job, in the past, when all kings had soothsayers, seers, and the like, at their side. Their job was to act as advisers, to see, to hear, to warn, to alert. So we are in a long tradition. We might do some good. But I think we are sitting on a treasure chest of predictions, visions, etc. it is, interestingly, beginning to structure itself, into a sort of resource. This has all happened, in a very naturalistic way, not really planned, but we are on the right track. so i am sort of raising these issues, for thought. In the meantime, we are "Time Navigators", predicting the rocks and storms, ahead, for us all, and urging warnings, of things to come. Fascinating!.
What Zoron is describing as a pre-revolutionary disunion provides a new context for understanding what I have felt across my life in Missouri as another civil war. Like others have mentioned, there already are distinct divides between rural and urban in Missouri. I have already moved within the state based on economic, familial, and social considerations. I chose to commute an hour and a half every day based on access to educational opportunity and familial supports but also because my child and I could not thrive in a toxic environment governed by the physical brutality of angry white men. They are well characterized in their pre-Civil War depiction in Celia, A Slave, which isn’t much different from what we see in the characters of Todd Akin of “legitimate rape” fame, the toadish personality of Roy Blunt, and the thugs who appear in Winter’s Bone. In rural Missouri divorce is an economic death sentence for women, meth corrupts the landscape, racism abounds, and many churches constrict the ability of people to respect women and to understand and make sense of diverse others and impress the absolute authority of men in a hierarchical construction of white family and society. I can see economic scarcity as a driver of racism here, but there is something more elemental and Neanderthal to it all … the brute physical force of entitled, white, male domination. I just can’t get passed thinking that this is the essential engine of division across the country.
Grace, You express this so well! Zoron!
Zoron has been slightly surprised, as just two days after he posted on here, re "The fate of America", the respected sunday paper the Observer, in london, published a major article that has amazing resonances with what I have been saying. So we are sort of going mainstream, but ahead of the pack.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/28/donald-trump-republicans-flake-corker-bannon