> The 51% cannot completely neglect the wishes of the other 49%. In these cases, the only non-gridlocked solution is fragmentation. It's the survivorship bias

> The 51% cannot completely neglect the wishes of the other 49%. In these cases, the only non-gridlocked solution is fragmentation. It's the survivorship bias - the only issues that continue to paralyze a region are the ones that couldn't be decided one way or the other. In the US' case, this would be granting certain issues to be within states' power to decide upon, and incentivizing people to move and live under the system that works for them. Ultimately, though, that won't happen - because the people who believe in these issues (be they taxation, abortion, LGBetc rights, etc) are in an all-or-nothing mentality whereupon changes have to be enforced federally. America will never admit to itself that it's too diverse and that its various extremes cannot be reconciled, so it's stuck moving at a glacial pace with the eventual hope that the 'average' will move in the direction of progress. Which is all well and good as long as you don't mind the periodic risk of government shutdown or terrible policy precedents being set by lobbyism/financed-campaign promises in the interim.