Great counter to the "4-Part America" article of the Atlantic!
I put the people behind The Atlantic into their "Smart America". While I thought their analysis was worthy of further discussion, I thought the essay was written at a high level such that only Smart America would be able to understand it. That's a bit of a paradox.
I've always been amazed at the world's insistence that borders created generations ago cannot be changed. I recall a recent attempted plebiscite where California was to be split into three separate states: Coastal North, Coastal South, and Interior. The advocates of this attempted plebiscite believe that the state had become ungovernable because of its size and demographic diversity. Anyways, some judge ruled that California was "indivisible," so that plebiscite could not be put on the ballot. Case closed. That shows how ingrained this "indivisible" has become in American psyche.
Using the Pacific States as an example, I would say that these states have effectively adopted a communist approach: one party controls the government process, which isn't going to be changed any time soon. So the real elections are actually the internal Democratic elections, to which maybe 15% of the people vote. The general election has become only a democratic illusion.
And giving the names "Red" and "Blue" is not helpful. In any Red State, 30% to 40% of its population is actually blue (and vice-versa). If the nation does fracture around its Red/Blue divisions, what happens the significant minority that won't be welcome in their home state? What about the states where a clear majority cannot be attained in a Red/Blue way?
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I am open to borders changing. We have too many wonky jurisdictions around the world created by power-grabbing men generations ago. Some of these borders didn't really make sense back then, and they don't now.
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Time to get to my ulterior motive. Because we seemingly can't change borders, maybe something is wrong with our current democracy.
Maybe it is time for a new democracy. I am advocating for a total elimination of all political parties--and reducing the size of basic electoral districts to about 200 people. In that way, voters will know something about the people they are voting for.
Maybe with my "TDG" is fully implemented, we can have reasonable discussions on changing borders.
http://www.tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/tdg.php
BTW, I can see all four of the groups (Free, Smart, Real, and Just) working on this TDG. They can all learn from each other, which is not happening now.
