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Wizard01475 t1_j9s6k3d wrote

Ridiculous. I cannot believe a US Representative actually suggested such a stupid idea.

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tabthough OP t1_j9s6s0e wrote

Source: https://worldpopulationreview.com/states

Tools: https://www.mapchart.net/usa.html

Recently Marjorie Taylor Greene advocated for a National Divorce. What would a "National Divorce" look like in the United States? Here, the US is divided into five new regions:

  • New England: The classic New England region plus the rest of the East Coast up until Virginia. This is a region of immigrants with a beautiful diverse culture and a liberal lean. The financial center in New York helps make this the second largest region in terms of GDP. The Appalachians provide a natural geographic border.

  • New Canada: These states are close to Canada, with many people living in these states traveling across the border for work and vice versa. They are predominantly White, educated, and liberal.

  • New America: This is the heartland, united behind a conservative political lean. It has most of the population and the largest share of GDP, though the GDP per capita is second-to-last

  • New Mexico: New Mexico and Arizona

  • Pacifica: The West Coast, liberal states. It has the highest GDP per capita, though the total GDP is only third among these regions. The Rocky Mountains are a natural geographic border.

I do not agree with the idea of dividing up the country, but it's interesting to see the numbers.

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nachodorito t1_j9s6to6 wrote

Except co, az and nm lean blue; and nc / ga purple but ya whatever you need to do to push your agenda

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Numerous-Afternoon89 t1_j9s78f3 wrote

Yep, Colorado has gone blue for a long time now, last republican senator in CO win their election in 2012,

Whoever decided to draw these lines where they did, did it to make the conservatives look like they are represented more than they actually are

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RagingHeretic t1_j9s7g9w wrote

Good luck FL and TX lolololol Elon is dumping TX for Tesla's engineering HQ, too, and moving it back to CA. Not enough brain power.

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ExpensiveSwordfish65 t1_j9s7mn5 wrote

I don't think this is even remotely close to how it would go irrelevant of leanings.

Whoever secedes gets nothing. They become enemy number 1 to the US government. There's no "keep this or that because it was in my former state". It's "the US military strolled up in an M1A1 Super Abraham's and told you there taking their stuff back. Those states, or whatever they'd like to call themselves at that point, would be a pariah to America. And easy pickings for another nation to influence and trade with, to manipulate.

Maybe there would be trade deals but I wouldn't count on it.

And once Texas realizes they'll be financially carrying all those people, they'll just secede from those seditionists.

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triarii42069 t1_j9s85l0 wrote

Stupid proposal and even stupider implementation. Why would the liberal states be divided up and the conservative states stay together? Why would Colorado and Georgia be red if they voted blue in the recent election? Why would you draw the political boundaries by state if you're not keeping the country that those states are tied to?

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triarii42069 t1_j9s8l04 wrote

>I do not agree with the idea of dividing up the country, but it's interesting to see the numbers.

You spent significant time and effort creating a map outlining the national divorce, decided to give several recent and historically blue states to the conservative country, made the conservative country "New America", and divided up the resulting liberal countries into four...

And you want us to believe this is some impartial thought experiment?

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RagingHeretic t1_j9s900t wrote

I support the idea of dissolving the U.S. But the GOP's inference to a smaller federal government and blue states still paying the bills for the red ones is a non-starter. We're not doing that. Dissolution of the U.S. is fine as long as us Californians are absolved from having to support parasite states like Texas and Ohio. They want independence, they can figure out how to fund themselves, but the best thing that can happen is a breakup of the country into smaller sovereigns free to govern themselves. No more federalism is something everyone should aim for.

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ExpensiveSwordfish65 t1_j9s9yvv wrote

My concern here is Russia and China manipulating those smaller states/unions and slowly taking over the former states of America one by one. But you're dam right about finding them. I'm also in a liberal net positive state and not interested in funding them.

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ExpensiveSwordfish65 t1_j9sa6nj wrote

I'd hesitate to call her our AOC. AOC hasn't ever to my knowledge called for violence, or denigrated people because of who they are. If I'm wrong I'm happy to see a link.

But comparing them only provides legitimacy to theocratic fascist domestic terrorist right.

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Dandan0005 t1_j9sa8ys wrote

Colorado isn’t even lean anymore, it’s solid.

Boebert almost lost in what was supposed to be an R+7 district, lol.

Oh, and the gdp numbers are bullshit too.

California and Washington alone account for more than 4.3 trillion GDP.

New England gdp is a trillion dollars lower than it should be.

the whole discussion is dumb as bricks and this map is even dumber.

Stop giving her attention.

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RagingHeretic t1_j9sadab wrote

Russia and China can't even negotiate their own wars of expansion against neighbors. There's no chance they will manage to do it here. "New America" will become a Russian ally on the North American continent...but they have no industry, no education, no public services...just guns. Pacifica, New Canada, and New England all either join Canada proper or join NATO.

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DoeCommaJohn t1_j9sazj9 wrote

Every “swing” state and 2 Republican states went to Biden, including Colorado by 14%, Minnesota by 7%, and Illinois by 17%. Looks like somebody wanted to make their party seem far more popular than it actually is.

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DoeCommaJohn t1_j9sbaaj wrote

Percent wise, Democrats won Colorado (14%) by more than Texas (5.5%) and Florida (3.3%) combined. Somebody either wanted to draw a map to make Republicans look popular or hasn’t paid attention to results (or more realistically watches a certain news source that hasn’t paid attention to) results in the past decade

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kompootor t1_j9sbuwh wrote

I'm assuming this map is based on a classification model that was fit to the demographics listed for each state, and that you are presenting the solution it gave you without further modification. It would be nice if you would describe the specific classification model and parameters you used, because I worry that some people might assume you just made up a bunch of regions on your own inspection and gave them alt-hist-style names -- they'll be hoping this is still a data sub and not a sci-fi/fantasy/Kevin-Costner-film-trivia sub.

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tosser1579 t1_j9sd1cv wrote

Not likely. At all. The crux of the problem here is that the main issue politically is a urban vs rural divide, so breaking it up on state lines isn't going to work but even entertaining breaking it up state by state, this map doesn't work.

AZ and NM would probably lock in with Pacifica, you need ocean access as a nation and they are the better economy to hitch your star to so to speak. Co also swings blue, so they are also likely to go that way.

NC and Georgia join up with the east coast, GA votes blue with a few exceptions and so does NC. They aren't going to hitch themselves to the new america. SC is such a non-entity economically that they'd probably flip just to keep up the tax incentives that new england could afford.

If anyone goes alone it would be Texas, and they would.

Next you'd see all the big cities trying to break free of the 'new america', so places like Cleveland are going to do anything they can to get out of the red states, border cities would have a reasonable time of it. . Literally any city is going to want to get clear of New America.

Ohio's big 3 C's (Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland) are all overwhelmingly blue, and would likely have massive issues joining this new US of MTG. Realistically, Ohio shatters in this scenario with Cleveland joining up with the New England states, Toledo joining up with Michigan, and Columbus trying to break free but probably failing and there being an absolute mass migration out of there. Gary Indiana is going to try to stick to Chicago, they don't make sense otherwise. Pretty much the whole shoreline over there is full of people who work in Chicago/Gary and they are going to want to stick with Chicago.

Other issues include things like Rural NY is largely red, as is most of PA, just most of the population lives in cities that are blue.

Texas is going to stand alone if the nation divorces as New America will drain it dry, and if they are removed from New America that nations economic prospects dim considerably.

The short of it is dividing everything by state lines isn't going to work here. It would be more a west virginia situation where everyone starts bailing to join up with the side they want.

So what I actually would expect to happen is Ohio loses the Cleveland/Elyria corridor to the New England government because they don't like how the GOP is managing the state already, then the 'new england' government would probably bribe Toledo into shifting over, and you'd have a continuous land based nation containing all of New Canada and New England, plus Georgia and the Carolinas (again South Carolina would be bribed)

Pacifica includes 'New Mexico' and Colorado. Texas stands alone.

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ExpensiveSwordfish65 t1_j9sd602 wrote

You don't think there's a difference between those with nothing living in destitution pushing back on the machine that forced them there compared to calling for dissolution of the union? One of these groups is fairly marginalized, the other seems... to want to enshrine a theocratic form of government with even more guns to harm the people they don't like? Just comparing the rhetoric between AOC and MTG.

Like if you don't appreciate the violence of the article you linked, I guess I can get that (unite the right violence aside), but it seems a false equivalence to me.

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Eric1491625 t1_j9sdmnw wrote

Except how would you explain the breakup of the USSR? Why didn't the USSR slaughter their way to unity?

The USSR did not collapse like the Ottomans or Germany - due to fighting total war, exhausting their military and losing. They had their military intact.

The Soviet military was near peak strength, with 40,000 nuclear warheads containing some 500,000 Hiroshima bombs worth of explosive yield. Half a million Hiroshimas. And tens of thousands of tanks. Yet they did not use force. The Russian tanks didn't roll in.

It's funny that Americans consider Soviets and Russians to be brutal, rights-abusing, atrocity-committing evil guys - compared to "civilised" Americans - yet expect the US soldiers to murderously suppress seccessionists in a way even the "more brutal" Soviet soldiers did not.

Just food for thought.

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ExpensiveSwordfish65 t1_j9sdq8h wrote

I'm sorry I thought you meant the seditious states joining NATO. I would have thought america would retain membership since were the bulk of its resources to begin with, no?

But we keep the name America, not new america, or anything else. The seditionists can find a new name.

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RagingHeretic t1_j9sdxkp wrote

Texas has some of the highest taxes in the U.S., particularly if you are middle class. Nonstate is more expensive to live in than Florida. It's weird how people think no income taxes means cheaper.

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ExpensiveSwordfish65 t1_j9se8u0 wrote

Didn't Russia lose land and people from the perimeter of its nation leaving a fairly intact centralized nation? Our case isn't as simple as north and south anymore.

And I'm resigned with blood being spilt over this. MTG was right about one thing: this is an abusive relationship. And the abusers would be leaving. We're not gonna have peace when one side has built their entire tribal identity on war with the other side. So they can leave.

It's better than dealing with their domestic terror I'm and whittling away at specific peoples rights just because they don't like them.

It is brutal. But don't for one fucking second blame the left. This would be literally what they're clamoring for now.

0

Competitive-Bit5659 t1_j9se9p1 wrote

None of this will happen because we don’t have “red states” and “blue states”. We have states with mostly independent neighborhoods with slightly more Republicans and mostly independent neighborhoods with slightly more Democrats and a couple of neighborhoods that have a lot more of one than the other.

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DeepJob3439 t1_j9seckw wrote

I personally think each state should go it’s own way, but hold a defensive aid pact. Should any one of them get attacked, the other states must come to their aid. After that’s, states can form their own unions at their leisure. This will deter states trying to forcefully gobble other states or China and Russia interfering.

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Frisky_Potato42nite t1_j9sewsh wrote

I can’t believe people are taking what a moronic clown (MTG) said seriously.

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RagingHeretic t1_j9sg8ok wrote

Their property taxes are insane...and they assess personal property taxes. You'll pay upwards of $13,000 a year on house where in CA your property taxes cannot exceed 1%. If you're RICH TX is super cheap for you.

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ana_conda t1_j9shesd wrote

People have already covered the political angle of this, but I would like to add on my complaint that this subreddit is called “data is BEAUTIFUL” but there’s nothing beautiful about representing four groups of data with two shades of light grey and two nearly identical shades of blue.

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SpagetAboutIt t1_j9si0ze wrote

There are no red and blue states. Only purple states.

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Jumpshot1370 t1_j9sicos wrote

I’m 100% sure southern Illinois will not be a part of New Canada and eastern Washington and Oregon will be in New America. Nevada, eastern California, and Virginia outside the DC metro area might go to New America too.

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JibeBuoy t1_j9sig47 wrote

The chart bias, the only reason that rest of the population is divided into four segments “new countries” is to give the appearance that the large red area makes up a majority.

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RagingHeretic t1_j9siy8l wrote

Texas produces almost no crops. It's soil is mostly clay. Everything you buy in the produce section is either from CA or MX. And tech company HQs...for the tax giveaways. TX has no human capital. Tesla's moving its engineering HQ back to CA from TX already. Lol

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ThePanoptic t1_j9slksh wrote

AOC is one of hundreds of representatives, she can not do it alone, but her voting record shows that she will vote for these issues every time.

All we can expect of our representatives is to vote in our favor and she does.

Saying “she hasn’t done anything” make you sound as dumb as a rock.

“Why hasn’t the one representing out of 435 fix our healthcare system” it’s because there are inbred republicans on the other side of the isle.

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guano_guapo t1_j9srbmn wrote

This is just an ignorant statement. Texas is the 9th largest economy in the world, and Ohio is 21st, just ahead of Argentina. You’re looking at the other red states that are parasites. But Republicans are busy running Ohio and Texas into the ground.

−1

Pizzaismygirlfriend t1_j9ssdkl wrote

fuck that, why does az get absorbed into new mexico? it should be the other way around

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Karlzbad t1_j9swqho wrote

Fuck that we're annexing a hundred mile wide easement through Jesusland and just remaining America. We have all the money and you're the ones who want to leave. Bye yall.

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Teschyn t1_j9tau6o wrote

I’m sorry, can we stop calling it by the cutsie name: “National Divorce”. We’re talking about talking about secession—secession for the pure reason of accumulating more political power.

Edit: spelling

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Judgethunder t1_j9thfzm wrote

I kept looking at this chart expecting insights to like.. Divorce.

Not the entertainment of some looney House Members from the most racist part of Atlanta's Twitter rant.

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Specialist-Cup9038 t1_j9tix63 wrote

We don’t need divorce we don’t need revolution, revolution is for communists and u don’t know what the true goAl is. We have perfect legal ways to restore Constitutional, republican government the bill of rights and constitution guarantees everything we need

0

KindlyQuasar t1_j9tnij5 wrote

I'm a Texan homeowner. I have a modest 1600 sqft home built in the 80s. I pay about $6300/year in property taxes. My effective property tax rate is 2.47%, which is considered low.

Sources online will tell you that the state average is between 1.6-1.8%, but that is because the "agricultural exemption" is used by very wealthy landowners to reduce their tax burden.

Those over 65 can "lock" their tax rate (and qualify for additional exemptions), so even if the property value doubles they don't pay one extra cent in tax --- shifting that tax burden to the younger generation, of course.

Californians pay less in taxes than Texans -- unless you're in the top 1% of wage earners, then you pay a LOT less in Texas. Source: link

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ZombiePlaya t1_j9ttqbo wrote

From what it looks like, California and Texas have similar tax rates. It's just that Texas splits it to make up for the no income tax, and California takes it at once.

Pay now or pay later I guess, both have really close class revenues I see as well.

All I can say is that I wouldn't live in either, especially when both I hear have energy problems.

−1

JTuck333 t1_j9tuxdu wrote

What about we have one nation with 50 states that can each have their own Bi-laws as long as they don’t violate the constitution? I know it’s a crazy idea but it might just work.

Let Florida be Florida and let California be California. Migration and voting will indicate what people want.

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ConqueredCorn t1_j9tzkn3 wrote

Im not a fan of New Canada. Id rather be called the United Lakes of America. Or the northern water tribes.

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gizamo t1_j9u3r9s wrote

Also, if a red state seceded, many/most of its Democrat voters would flee east or west, and probably not make it all the way to the coasts. So, states like UT, CO, AZ, NM, and all of Rust Belt would go blue quickly.

Edit: just imagine the exodus from Austin. That alone would easily flip AZ, NM, and probably GA.

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Teschyn t1_j9u7s7v wrote

The only way to ensure that you aren't around people you disagree with is to ban them from being around you. Restricting where people live and work based off their political beliefs is deeply undemocratic.

Also, irreconcilable differences? Don't be a fucking drama queen. You can disagree with a tax plan without seceding from the union, you fucking baby.

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RagingHeretic t1_j9u99c1 wrote

I assure you Texas would not be able to support itself. It's culture doesn't allow it and it lacks the human capital and resources. It's got oil and gas. That's it. It's soil is unfarmable, it's mostly arid steppe. TX only has the 2nd biggest GDP in the U.S. because other states absorb a lot of the load TX would need to make up for as an independent country. Without Washington's support, TX is not the powerhouse you think it is.

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Corporate-Scum t1_j9unlbo wrote

The Mid-Atlantic is its own thing. It’s where the Government is located, so new America will actually look more like Old Virginia before there were 13 colonies.

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AdAcrobatic7236 t1_j9utuy9 wrote

🔥Upon secession, I somehow don’t quite envision those former states simply acquiescing to a forcible inventory retrieval. This is the point of no return and they will need to be exterminated right down to the last smoldering Chicken Waffle House …

−2

vt2022cam t1_j9uu4s7 wrote

Arizona and New Mexico would likely join Pacifica.

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ltlawdy t1_j9uvm8f wrote

They didn’t slaughter their way to unity because: 1). Change in leadership, 2). No money, 3). Shake up of natural/governmental order

Why would they use nuclear weapons, pissing off the wider world, while habit very little to no effective military capacity?

Those satellite states were offered referendums to leave. Should Russia have changed government, went back on their word and start taking over the land? Again, pissing off everyone?

Nothing you’ve said proves anything, it’s just silly talk points that have no basis in reality. The USSR collapsed. Russia didn’t have the capabilities to pursue any world doctrine.

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tosser1579 t1_j9v5h0b wrote

I don't see NC going red either, quite frankly. They have a blue governor and two blue senators. A state wide vote is going to put them into the New England catergory. That gives Georgia a land border to the New England portion of the map.

That leaves a cut off south carolina... one of the most federally dependent states in the union. I doubt that the new confederacy is going to try to get them back without a land border.

If Georgia swings blue, I'd bet Jacksonville and Tallahassee would both break free from Florida to join up with the blue states.

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gizamo t1_j9v5rjs wrote

I think so, I too. But, it's possible that was only because Trump was such a terrible candidate in 2020. I'm excited to see if that holds up in 2024.

When states flip, I generally consider them purple for a few presidential elections.

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Torker t1_j9v9gon wrote

This math never works as simply as most assume. If you paid taxes in NY for 30 years and retire to FL, then why would you lose Medicare and Social Security benefits? If so, those retired would not be paying mutual fund managers in NY. The whole system would collapse for both NY and FL.

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Torker t1_j9v9toh wrote

If Texas has no human capital, why does it have a low unemployment rate and millions of workers? Someone is paying $2000 a month in rent in Austin and they probably have a job. They are probably not all republicans either, so this whole divorce would be mess for sure.

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ZenofZer0 t1_j9vecpc wrote

Ahahahahaha. You mention being in the chaos of Chicago riots and get downvoted by people tucked away watching hand-picked info on their carefully curated feeds and told that your ears and eyes are lying to you 😂😂😂.

0

tosser1579 t1_j9vf8na wrote

Blue governor probably translates to a popular governor win. If the states dont' lean one way or another, I think we'd see chunks of them break off rather than the whole state go one way or anohter.

Another big problem is that if you take the GDP of the areas that are voting blue, it represent 80% of NC's economy. NC is going to be very rough, and if it goes red and there is a mass exedos of even 5% of the cities population, they will all go into instant and massive recession, and frankly it would probably be more.

I'd be really curious to see what happens there, but I tend to think people vote with their pocketbooks as much as for politics, and NC would probably go blue if it meant they were going to get crushed economically almost instantly.

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ZenofZer0 t1_j9vfd6y wrote

It goes deeper than taxes. That’s disengenuine and overly reductive to even try and play it off like that. There’s a rift in America right now. One that I don’t honestly see healing. Neither side is looking to concede. Both are the most self-righteous twats that I think the nation has seen since the crown ruled. I think it is a powder keg that is going to go one of two ways: The keg blows Some kind of cataclysm forces people to stop separating into “warring” factions and actually band together to accomplish something larger than furthering their personal political dogma.

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RagingHeretic t1_j9vi73b wrote

The divorce would be easier than you think. You put a deadline on citizens in every region to get their affairs in order and move or accept their new passport for the country that it will become. Say, 10 years. Everyone gets 10 years to decide whether they are staying or going before the walls go up. Would there be some chaos? Sure, a little. And it would take some time for the dust to settle internationally, but life will go on. No biggie.

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ZenofZer0 t1_j9vljj6 wrote

Honestly, the way you got attacked shines a light on things that I really didn’t believe were a thing. I guess it just seems weird that people would dismiss a “witness” and not supply a reason. It was like they just tried to shut you down with downvotes. Wheird..

0

arvada14 t1_j9vnerm wrote

So you can't name one? That's the difference between the Parties. Also, random looters burning cities get attributes to the left? How many of those idiots even vote.

On the otherhand you can bet every person on Jan 6 voted for trump.

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tosser1579 t1_j9vx3nv wrote

To be blunt, I don't see any way Cleveland stays. They are already pretty upset at the OhioGOP, and this is just repressing them writ large. The other thing would be a massive depopulation of some of the cities, and if even 5 to 10 % of the population leaves, that city is going to be having a massive recession.

1

arvada14 t1_j9vycpc wrote

This is an explanation of why they riots happened not a justification for them. Republicans have denied that Jan 6 was even a serious Event. Theyve Held up people like ashley babbit as heroes.

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carbroboi t1_j9w1c9x wrote

Bro this is not beautiful data at all, it’s so hard to follow

3