Last update: November 5th, 2013

New Colorado: the 51st state?

Rural Coloradans feel marginalized by urban voters. So 11 counties will soon vote on a proposal to secede from Colorado. Keep reading at Al-Jazeera America.

*

The US government shutdown is over, but the divide between the “two America’s” continues, as the New York Times points out:

“… the continued support for Mr. Cruz among Texas Republicans illustrates something larger: the cultural and political divide that continues to widen between a red state that President Obama lost by nearly 16 points in the 2012 election and the blue or even purple parts of the country where Mr. Cruz’s tone and tactics have caused outrage and consternation.

‘Texas is not America,’said Matt Mackowiak, a Republican political consultant in Austin and the former spokesman for Mr. Cruz’s Republican predecessor in the Senate, Kay Bailey Hutchison. ‘It’s in America, but it’s not America. National polls don’t mean anything. Democrats haven’t won a statewide office in Texas since 1994. There are no Peter Kings in Texas.'”

*

Prominent Blogger Nate Silver predicts Obama has a 78% chance of winning the forthcoming presidential election.  270towin.com also forecasts a likely Obama victory.  So what could happen to the state of the Union if Obama indeed defeats Romney?

Prediction: there will be more calls for secession.  ‘More’ means that calls for secession already exist.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has said he wouldn’t rule out secession.  The state legislature in Missouri has also pondered seceding from the Union (South Dakota has also dealt with secession).

In Arizona, members of the state legislature recently adopted a bill that would allow the state to secede from the Union without having to do so ‘officially‘.  Even in fairly liberal New Hampshire, a representative in 2009 drew up a resolution calling for secession.  These are only some of the contemporary examples of secessionist movements in the US.

How likely is it that states actually secede?  Who knows, really.  But is it a ridiculous question/thought considering how polarized the nation is at this point in time?  If Obama wins, could the state of the Union be heading for something disastrous?

The Wall Street Journal touched upon this issue in ‘Divided We Stand‘.  It wonders, ‘What would California look like broken in three? Or a Republic of New England? With the federal government reaching for ever more power, redrawing the map is enticing’, says Paul Starobin.

What do you think?  Is the idea of a breakup of the US a bunch of baloney?

The new American Civil War is not unfathomable. Professor Robert Reich suggests that the 2012 presidential election has essentially drawn the lines of two nations within one.  Reich wonders, how are we to rediscover the public good in this turbulent times?