4 ms·
There seem to be a lot of comments about civil war or splitting being a solution to the country's woes. If, however, you look at a voting map on a county by cou
by mrakve 5y ago
There seem to be a lot of comments about civil war or splitting being a solution to the country's woes. If, however, you look at a voting map on a county by county basis, it is startling -- vast majority are red.
- idontwantthis 5y agoThat's because there is a lot of politically disinterested corn in most red counties.
- JaimeThompson 5y agoThe population density in a lot of those areas that are colored red is much lower than the major cities.
- mrakve 5y agoThe food production level, however, is exponentially higher -- not a trivial factor.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dghughes 5y agoThen again the number of people that buy the food is quite high. Farmers need non-farmer people to buy food as much as non-farming people need farmers to grow it.
- kcplate 5y agoWhile this assumption is correct assuming a functional republic, what if the republic isn't functional? Those low population density areas can easily sustain themselves with considerably less production output needed and less cost to produce. However the high population density blue areas would have a tough time adapting if those big red swaths of corn dried up for them. Ditto for red state energy sources too. The problem with the blue states (and it’s actually just giant blue cities that make these states blue) in a hypothetical republic breakup scenario is they don’t necessarily provide a viable industry or commodity whose wealth can sustain their demand. Short of wood/lumber, there is not a lot of valuable commodities there that could be exported to buy the food and energy needed to maintain the blue cities, which would quickly shrink.
- dghughes 5y ago>The problem with the blue states I had to look up what a "blue state" is. That's not a common concept outside the US. Most countries have a politically diverse make-up multiples parties over a range.
- JaimeThompson 5y agoThe fertilizer comes in from further away, hard to keep that high production level up without chemical fertilizer.
- kcplate 5y agoYes, from other red states.
- hindsightbias 5y agoBy corporate farms with lots of federal subsidies.
- Hnrobert42 5y agoThe article has some interesting points about that very topic.