America Is Growing Apart | Hacker News Reader

America Is Growing Apart

theatlantic.com

31 pointsjs236 comments

Podhorzer isn’t predicting another civil war, exactly. But he’s warning that the pressure on the country’s fundamental cohesion is likely to continue ratcheting up in the 2020s.

Seeing the US from outside, some of us think that it's going to be a neck-and-neck race between a another US Civil War or a big US peer-to-peer International War that happens first.

There is no need for a civil war if the US returns to a less federalist approach. People can spend more time improving their communities and states and less time worrying about what others are doing across a state boarder.

Defederalizing won’t work, for three reasons: - the red state/blue state divide isn’t actually real. What we have is a rural/urban divide, and the red/blue state phenomenon is just an artifact of that and whichever faction happens to be larger in a particular area. - Defederalization doesn’t fix human rights violations when there’s disagreement on what counts as a “human right”, which is the case for a lot of our divisions. - the reason the United States doesn’t have its own version of the Greek debt crisis is huge, permanents fiscal transfers from blue states to red ones. This wouldn’t work under defederalization and a bunch of red states would go bankrupt.

In a past post, I mentioned that I thought the city was the appropriate area of division for this country--i.e. city's rights not states' rights.

It may not ever happen, but I think it addresses your first concern since, as you mentioned, the divide is urban vs rural which is a good proxy for city boundaries.

What I don't understand is the economic implication of such a split. Is there a way to keep the economic stability of the country while having more cultural freedom?

I suppose one of the problems with this sort of split is that some cities can leverage agriculture, heavy industry, business activity, or tourism; but some cities probably exists that don't have any means to generating income beyond taxing citizens.

It's the 1920s all over again - a civil/cultural war between urban and rural areas.

>> the United States doesn’t have its own version of the Greek debt crisis is huge, permanents fiscal transfers from blue states to red ones.

The Greek debt crisis happened because those southern countries joined the euro without centralizing country debts up to EU. Greece still had it's debt yet could no longer service it by printing it's own currency. At inception, USA federal took over State debts.

Nebraska is a red State and has about $1000 State debt per resident. Not likely to go bankrupt before blue Illinois.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/blue-red-states-2000-thru-2012

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/debt-by-sta...

That debt is after federal transfers, though.

Illinois loses a net of $4.7k/year/person to federal transfers[1]. Get rid of that and they could pay off their full debt in a few years.

[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/donor-state...

Honestly, I think that a split _without a war_ is more likely.

Either states decide they are going to leave, and people decide not to stop them, or congress decides that "this isn't going to work" and each state has a vote more or less on which "side" they will land on.

If you think that is crazy, remember the USSR split up much like this (more or less).

Sure there is fighting these days but the split happened with less of a civil war than you would have expected.

Also it works for the politicians. Say Democrats win the next election. By offering the split, the losing side still gains power, there is still an ideological enemy they can point at, without the need for a war.

There is no requirement for a war in the case of a split, and honestly, it is very unlikely there would be one, since neither side gains anything out of having one.

If anything it may avoid a civil war.

This would be absolute mayhem. The USSR was, at least in some sense, independent nations. The USA is nothing like that. Imagine what happens to the army and navy bases of seceded states. Do you think either side will just let them go?

Honestly, the states are pretty independent anyway. They have their own taxes, governance, legal system, laws, etc.

Wasn't that exact scenario basically what started the previous civil war?

Exactly, and that’s the bloodiest war in American history.

This isn’t a terribly comforting example, as the former states of the USSR have been fighting a slow-motion civil war since 1991, of which the Russian invasion of Ukraine is simply the latest chapter. See also Chechnya, Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, etc.

I suspect a serious political divorce in the US, and the bad blood engendered, would inevitably lead to a similar outcome.

Also Tajikistan, which was pretty much destroyed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajikistani_Civil_War.

Also Transnistria.

I love that the media is reporting on America growing apart when the media is the reason. The Atlantic is one of the worst at being biased up there with Fox news and CNN.

How about the media quits preying on unaware people's ingroup outgroup instincts and starts focusing on things that unite instead of divide.

Fox News might be bad but nowhere as bad as a company that makes its money on giving crazies a place to congregate and "engage" and even spreads the craziness to others who might otherwise be still on the fence.

Biased media has always been a thing, but giving every dumbass a megaphone (and making money off it, spending some to create even more megaphones) is a very new thing and we're now seeing the effects of it on society.

You could say that it's inevitable and that if it wasn't for social media then forums would fill the niche, and while that's true, those forums would be something you'd explicitly need to seek out if you were already interested in this kind of content, where as right now the same thing you used to keep in touch with your family harbors this disgusting content and might even show it to you if it thinks there's a probability you'll "engage" with it.

Can't argue there.

Social.....media and the web is the competition for normal...media.

And why in my opinion normal media has to create sensationalized content to compete for clicks with the insanity of social...media.

Yep, cause Fox News makes no money giving crazies a place to congregate lol. MyPillowMan TM sends his regards, brother

Fox News gives the crazies a single, read-only feed with a limited amount of ad space and at least some regulatory oversight. The largest "congregation" you could make with that is to ask all your neighbors to go to your Fox News viewing party. Furthermore, other channels with different (opposite?) biases are a button press away. Biased media has always existed and didn't lead to this kind of large-scale polarization, so it seems like a read-only feed is mostly safe.

Facebook gives the crazies a town square and a set of megaphones, the volumes of which dynamically vary depending on who's at the receiving end to maximize "engagement" (which usually translates to outrage or arguments). The size of the congregation is virtually unlimited. There's also no "channel" you can just switch - if Facebook thinks you will "engage" with a certain kind of content it will slowly but surely start feeding you more and more of it, which would also draw in and radicalize people that were otherwise well-meaning. This is a whole other level compared to a biased TV channel, and something society hasn't dealt with before.

I for sure agree, I accidentally made it seem I was defending Facebook or Social Media in general. I think I meant it's also not accurate to say Fox News DOESN'T do that. But fair points!

Of course there has always been non-mainstream opinions; however most of those were found in corners and not amplified and stoked.

The media stokes discord and amplifies the existing discord. If you look at the news one might think most downtown respond to national events like downtown Portland does. Most do not. People have their opinions and are apprehensive about things and are concerned but most people aren't about to create destruction.

What does Portland have to do with any of this?

The two-party system is largely to blame for the rise of media polarization. Not to say that either the media or the political structure are "the most" responsible, but pointing fingers at either in isolation at best misses half of the problem, at worst deepens the polarization along another axis.

>> The two-party system is largely to blame

The two-party system is created in election law in each State by R+D in each State legislature. State ballot access and funding is in each State election law, and there is a harsh difference in 'major' or 'minor' party designation.

In short, the system is designed this way at the State level.

The two party system is definitely the root cause, but it is because the mainstream and social media is constantly amplifying the voices and viewpoints of extreme minority in each party.

(First-past-the-post plus gerrymandering) is the main culprit here. The electoral dynamics are clear and inevitable.

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