The former United States

One of the memorable lines in the recent movie "V" occurs in the rant some evil character makes about "the former United States," a play on that well-used phrase of the 1990s, "the former Soviet Union."

Well, a Russian political analyst thinks that "former" status is in the future for these United States. He has been predicting the break-up of the country for more than a decade. His reason: this country is going dead broke with no possibility of righting itself. And he ought to know since he watched his own country--the former Soviet Union--fall apart for similar reasons.

I've long thought that in the continental US there are at least three separate countries, and the recent election confirms my view. There is a northern country composed of New England, the Atlantic states, the region around Philadelphia, mid-West states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the northern parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and the region around Pittsburgh. There is a southern and central western country composed of the states of the Confederacy, the central mid-west states and the southern parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania, and the states of the west and southwest. Then there is the Pacific country composed of California, Oregon, and Washington. These divisions have been evolving for at least the last two generations, and they continue to evolve and the divisions become ever more marked.

Within those large divisions are smaller divisions. For example, the Pacific country is really the coastal sliver of California, Oregon, and Washington, and it is only about 50 miles wide. The western areas of all three states differ entirely in culture and politics from the urban coastal areas. Those regions really belong to the southern/western country.

The last election conclusively demonstrates that the United States is dividing into distinct, separate regions that are largely hostile to each other in politics, culture, and economics. These differences, already obvious, will become even more pronounced as we fall deeper into depression and can't find any way to escape it. The federal government is already held in contempt by millions in the southern/western country; its enormous future failures will only aggravate that contempt possibly to the point that secession--a word long reserved for libertarian kooks--will become widely discussed among ordinary people as a realistic solution to their problems. Watch out when authorities in the imperial capital--that Constantinople on the Potomac--issue orders and edicts but nobody listens. The end is not far away.

Increasingly, there are good reasons to think that the phrase "the former United States" is the future. When the national vase shatters, what will be made out of the shards?

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