Will America Split?
America has, from its inception, been an expanding country. It and Canada split from one another very early on, as most Canadians were American British colonists that did not want to separate from England (or French colonists that did not want to leave France), and I think it's important to realize how much American and Canadian history really is intertwined.
In the first eighty years, the opportunities for growth, wealth, and finding like-minded people let to the expansion of the country to the West Coast, but already the seeds of conflict, primarily over slavery, were planted. The more early industrialized north developed a mercantilist attitude very much at odds with the plantation-centric states in the South, which were borrowing an economic model that it really wasn't suited for. The worst excesses of slavery happened in the Caribbean, Central America and the northern parts of South America, and cotton, rum, and tobacco were very much secondary crops in the vast trade network triangle of the Atlantic. Most economists have concluded that slavery would have likely persisted only to about 1885, even if the civil war had not happened, because it was becoming less and less economically viable.
Similarly, the Civil War's conclusion was pretty much inevitable. The South had the better generals, but that was really their own advantage - the North had advanced technology, the ability to manufacture rifles of superior quality in far greater numbers, and the economic base sufficient to continue to do so long after the South's economy had been destroyed. The North urbanized the South, and in the process set the groundwork for what has come since.
By 1912, New Mexico and Arizona became the last contiguous states to join the union. Alaska and Hawaii would be the last two territorial states to become fully recognized states, in 1949. After World War II, the US gained much of the British Empire by proxy, having effectively replaced British garrisons globally with Americans, and it boosted the American economy to become the largest in the world. However, empires are expensive, especially when colonies no longer significantly contribute to the Imperial well-being. Yet America's Empire has become more a formality as country after country has nationalized their primary exports, and this erosion, which started in the late 1970s, has been reversing the tide of globalism and the increased standard of life for many, exposing islands of greater wealth while leaving more and more people facing decline.
Empires do not remain empires for long. The Ottoman Empire split in the late 19th century, the German empire expanded from multiple states to eventually expanding nearly to Moscow, the British Empire began to dissolve even before World War I, the Soviet Empire peaked in the 1970s, collapsed in the 1990s, and looks to be collapsing even more now. The Chinese Empire is now expanding, but it's a tenuous one - my guess is that it will likely expand primarily by absorbing the Russian oblasts in Siberia, but that's only a guess.
When Empires collapse, internal divisions within the Imperial host become more stressed. Oligarchs in the US have come to realize that retaining the whole country is no longer feasible - demographics are against them in the long run, and oil, which is what the current generation of oligarchy is built on directly or indirectly, is threatened by nuclear power, green energy, and within twenty years, fusion.
Their current strategy, funded by deep pockets, is to split the country along cultural lines. They are succeeding. I would argue that neither Trump norDeSantis would be able to become President today, let alone win the Trifecta as they did in 2016, if the US overall. Yet, lose the West Coast, the Northeast, and arguably most of the Canadian adjacent North, and they end up with a Red America that is half the size with perhaps 35% of the economic strength of the current United States, still making it (by a considerably margin) the 3rd largest economy on the planet, behind the Blue United States (China immediately vaults to 1st place, at least for a few decades).
Even if Blue America united with Canada, (unlikely but not completely out of the question) this really wouldn't change much. Red America would at least on paper be a country with a GDP of USD$8 Trillion, with roughly 1,000 nuclear weapons and one Fleet (4th Fleet (South Atlantic), out of Mayport, Florida. It may seem like a worthwhile gamble if you're an oligarch wanting to be even more powerful.
How likely is this? Currently, 19 states have passed legislation calling for a constitutional convention. However, an additional 15 currently have active legislation, and another 6 have had such legislation pass one chamber (this includes DC). 34 of 50 states would be required to call a constitutional convention, and 38 votes would be needed to pass. The latter is an almost unattainable goal (76% of all states). Still, I suspect it wouldn't matter - having called such a convention, the likelihood that a Red American coalition would form and then vote for succession from the convention would be sufficient as it is likely they would take a hard-line stance guaranteed to be at odds with the rest of the states.
Now, as to what would happen after, that's where things likely get interesting. Most states are more purple than red or blue. Central and Southeast Texas, home to military bases, universities, and research facilities, may very well be loathe to leave the union - and indeed, I suspect that most plebiscites (if they were allowed to be held) would put the kibosh on any secession plans. In other places where you have large minority populations relative to the apartheid governments, the areas may turn into a bloody civil war that did not go the way the apartheid government intended.
Over the long run, I suspect cooler voices will prevail, and the secession attempt will end with more comedy than tragedy. A second convention may very well be called (or the first simply resumed), the hard issue of resolving some very serious inequalities of representation should be rectified, the rights and responsibilities of corporate personhood need to be ironed out, the Equal Rights Amendment needs to be approved, and the direction of the country, as it moves into the twenty-first century, needs to be determined.
My personal belief? We have long had de-facto regional governments - the US district court of appeals, for instance, has 14 divisions + (Fed and DC). A system which placed more political power at this District level might better balance power than exists today, and can be done without threatening the integrity of the US as a country. Similarly, we can expand the number of Supreme Court judges to fifteen by assuming that each district has one justice appointment. The districts would also have a number of representatives proportional to their population, with the districts then being redrawn every census.
However, that's my own opinion. There are no doubt many others.
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