“No freaking way” Dave murmurs to himself. He’s too shocked to actually believe what he’s reading on his phone. He pulls up his contact list and calls his brother.
As the phone is ringing he flips over to Twitter. Is this real, he’s thinking?
Chris answers, “hey--”
Dave cut’s him off, “bro, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
“What?”
“Go on Twitter right now, what’s trending for you?”
“Um, ok. Hold on I’ll put you on speaker and check right now”
A brief pause and then Dave hears Chris quietly whisper, “what the helllll”
“Are you seeing this? Dude, Chris, is this real? Did California really secede?”
“I, I think so” stutters Chris.
For a moment they’re both quiet, furiously swiping, searching, pulling up more articles.
Chris breaks the silence, “bro, what happens next?”
Dave looks out the window of his home office. His office is on the second story and he has a small view of pacific. He thinks for a second and answers, “I’m not sure man. I mean I’m not sure it will hold legally, it’s just kinda crazy. I know we voted on it and it passed, but I didn’t think they’d actually try to make it happen. Like actually file to secede. This is just crazy.”
“I’m going to head over man, let’s have a drink and watch the news” Chris replies.
A couple whiskeys later, as the brothers are watching the news, and simultaneously scrolling twitter the next big story breaks. Texas officially declares they’ll secede too. They sit in shock watching the TV. This was one of those days they’ll never forget.
“Man, I always thought this might happen. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. With California and Texas both seceding on the same day I think more states are going to peel off. California and Texas are too big for the government to actually stop from pulling out without things getting really messy. But I can’t see a civil war” says Dave.
“Who’s going to fight it?” adds Chris
“Exactly!” Dave exclaims, “this thing will probably just cascade over the coming months. I’d put it over 50/50 that it’s a runaway train and the whole country fractures into 5-10, hell I don’t know, 20 parts.”
“Oh man, you think so?”
“Yeah”, Dave responds, “California will probably further split. There’s at least 3, maybe more, distinct regions of California alone. Maybe the fractures just keep happening.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time an empire fell” Chris quips.
“No, wouldn’t be the first”
~
The fracture of the United States: An Introduction
I'm fairly confident that in the next 20 years the United States will fracture into multiple countries. By far this is the most controversial prediction I've explored. When I talk with friends and family and my writing groups online, this subject get's a lot of interest, but also a lot of scrutiny and rightfully so.
As I drafted outlines and initial drafts it became clear that this is a series and not one simple post. So in the coming weeks I'll cover the potential fracture of the United States and why I don't think it's a bad thing in the long run.
Throughout the series I'll go over:
- Why it will happen including
- ~Every empire has fallen and parallels to the US
- ~The concept of large nations doesn't make sense in a global, internet driven world
- ~America's polarization
- ~State sovereignty and it's relationship to the federal entity with parallels to Europe
- How it might happen
- What to do about it
- What come next
Part 2: Citizenship and the Internet
Part 3: Polarization and Sovereignty
Part 4: How the United States Will Fall