I usually don’t combine Basics and Politics but a book just came out surveying empires across the world and suggesting the collaps of the Roman worked out well for Europe as it resulted in a whole lot of conflicting and conniving states that allowed more freedom to experiment than the big kingdoms in places like Persia, China, and India.
It made me wonder if the brief life of the U.S. may end so soon because it is just so big: 320 million people spread across 3,796,742 square miles. The vaunted diversity will be a factor for some – just all those languages and people of different shapes and cultures……!
How much would it take for big, powerful states like California, Texas, Florida, New York and others that are economically strong to begin crafting a kind of independence from which would spin off regional coalitions, say Texas, Oklahoma, etc. or the Northwest (I read a couple of books positing a northwest secession) and certainly New England along with the old Confederacy. The Midwest would split off in a fit of niceness. The West? Half of my state, Arizona, would go with Texas, the other half with California.
Since I qualify for Italian citizenship, I may secede by myself. When my wife asked, “What about me?”, I replied, “Arrivederci”.