The Balkanization of America

A dozen or so years ago, I pissed off a lot of people.

These days, that anger has tempered and turned into something more like a broken-hearted melancholy mixed with frustration.

The topic that brought on the anger—sometimes laughter—back in the day was my prediction that America was lurching toward a big split. That states’ secession would be back on the agenda and that the 50 states would begin cleaving apart and going their own way.

I predicted this would happen—probably before 2030.

No one wanted to hear that. No one wanted to see that—though the signs were obvious. No one wanted to believe that America—the country that helped win two global wars, the country that gave rise to the most important currency in the world—was on track to become the next Yugoslavia, a nation of disparate cultures and religions that had no business hooking up in the first place.

Today, that Balkanization of America is mainstream news.

Just consider this story from USA Today from a couple weeks back:“Red states are redder. Blue states are bluer. And our politics? Hotter.”

As the newspaper noted:

An exclusive USA TODAY analysis of the nation’s 3,113 counties shows a striking realignment since 2012 that has intensified the partisan leanings in states across the country, leaving only a handful where the outcome of the Nov. 5 presidential election remains in doubt.

Sadly, that is the precursor to exactly what I predicted. (And note the timeline: “since 2012”—right when I began talking about all of this beginning to take shape.)

Americans are increasingly cocooning with their own kind.

Red wants nothing to do with Blue. Blue would be absolutely ecstatic if Red fell off the face of the Earth.

Just consider where the divides currently split Americans:

• Should the Constitution be rewritten so that American laws are guided by the Bible?
• Should America be open to more immigrants?
• Should government totally ban abortion?
• What kind of healthcare system should America have—who gets access and at what cost?
• Are all Americans created equal, regardless of heritage, skin color, or sexual identity? Or are some Americans more “American” than others?
• Second amendment supporters vs. gun-control advocates…

These are not family squabbles that will pass in time. These are belief systems fundamental to the DNA of Red and Blue voters, and they’re slamming into one another in ways that are destroying the country.

As USA Today rightly noted:

The hardening of the country’s political lines has contributed to other consequences, too, including one-party control of the governorship and state legislature in 40 of the 50 states. That has led to a patchwork of sharply divergent laws across the country—even between neighboring states—on abortion rights, transgender care, the public-health response to the pandemic and other controversial issues.

When the state you live in diminishes your rights and your beliefs, as you see them, then the natural response is to leave that state and find one where politicians and society value the same things that you value.

Which is precisely why red states are redder and blue states are bluer.

Americans are finding their tribe and, thus, America is increasingly more tribal. Individual American counties and states are becoming increasingly more homogenous and less tolerant of the other side.

What comes next?

Secession.

Not a doubt in my mind.

I worked in The Wall Street Journal’s Seattle bureau for several years, and I traveled all over the state for my job. Washington is a great example of tribalism in action.

Seattle has a reputation as one of the most progressive cities in America. Much of the rest of the state is deeply conservative and insular. Here’s what that looks like politically…

That’s the map of voting results for the House of Representatives. Pretty clear divide.

Now, let’s take that map to its logical conclusion: At some point, the folks living in the less-populated red counties are going to grow so incensed by the power that the more-populated blue counties have to control the state’s social and economic agenda, that they’re going to break away.

In fact, several eastern Washington and eastern Oregon counties are already pushing to secede and join Idaho, a state with which they’re far more aligned politically and socially.

I am not sharing all of this in an effort to sway your vote in the presidential election. Vote your conscience after understanding what each candidate means to America’s social fabric and its economic direction.

I share all of this because there is a bigger takeaway: This kind of secession movement is going to gather steam after the upcoming presidential election, and that will ultimately have ramifications for the US dollar and for your life.

No matter who wins on Nov. 5, the other side is going to be furious.

They’re going to rage against the policies the new administration pursues.

A Red victory means Blue states are going to openly defy whatever social laws they feel violate basic human rights and the need to take care of society’s most frail. If Blue wins, Red states are going to openly defy whatever immigration, abortion, and social-safety net policies they feel undermine their vision of America.

Go back to that map of Washington state and you can see exactly how that plays out. Blue politicians in the state capital of Olympia will either amplify the policies of a Blue presidency, or they well rebel against the policies of a Red presidency… either of which will lead Washington’s Red counties to rebel against the Blue leadership.

Red secedes in some fashion.

Or Blue secedes to get out from under a Red cultural and economic belief system it disavows. (In that scenario, western Washington very likely teams up with western Oregon and all of the California coast—except for uber-Red Orange County—to form a new country. Let’s call it Cascadia.)

Now, apply that same thinking to those 40 states that are ruled by single-party politics. Each of those states has huge pockets populated by the opposing team, which will want nothing to do with political adversaries they view as traitorous and worthy of extinction.

In short: We are moving rapidly toward secession season in America.

I share this so that you can prepare yourself for what’s to come.

The end result is the death of the US dollar as a reserve currency, because a country in the throes of dividing itself into new countries or new territories is not a country that controls the world’s most important currency.

Just simple facts.

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We’re already seeing the dollar’s dominion decline for various other reasons. America’s unbridgeable divide only hastens the downfall.

What’s to come in the wake of Nov. 5 will take time to play out. But it will play out.

And the dollar is going to be the ultimate victim. That’s going to hurt all Americans—regardless of political color.