I mean hopefully it can be delayed by a year or two until I can get SRS and move to Seattle and integrate into some leftist networks. But we're all just stuck in this limbo of waiting for the evil empire to implode and it's still tottering along, smashing thousands of lives daily. I'm not romanticizing the Cool Zone, I'm just tired of being kept on the edge - waiting, waiting. Let's just get it the fuck over with
I've been giving that some thought. Given the present course of things, my own amateur best guess it that as the federal government is stripped of more and more power, the states themselves will be forced to take on more and more responsibilities. The states that have stronger bureaucracies and material economic bases (agriculture, manufacturing, transport networks, etc) will naturally arise as power centers. I think California and the West Coast at large will be good examples of this. From there, it all depends on how things crack and break up at the federal level. Maybe it'll be closer to the pre-Constitution 13 colonies' confederation, maybe even the extreme Brazil example.
To return to the California point, I've been thinking about how that state's borders are the top contenders for making geographic sense in the nation (besides like Florida and Hawaii). Big mountain ranges protect an extremely agriculturally productive central valley, not to mention the incredible ocean ports. If it were an independent nation, its number one priority would be securing the outside water supplies it desperately needs for that agriculture and the large, parched cities on the coast. That's a big deal, especially with the Colorado River getting smaller and smaller each year. The federal government is already barely able to keep CO, UT, NV, AZ, and CA to come to terms about that water usage. That's a potential wedge point in future balkanization.
This is where I think the brazilian parallel becomes more interesting. You've shown how a California must secure the nearby states due to the Colorado River. Let's think about the implications of that. This means water rationing in times of climate change, most likely against the interests of the rest of the Colorado River states. This means finding a border with Texas and other states which might be carving their own sphere of influence. This game theory can blow into all out war, but doesn't have to. Just as it didn't in Brazil.
The First Republic followed the Brazilian Empire. The Monarchy, specifically during the reign of Pedro II, had morphed into what historians like the call the 'saquarema era', or the era of conservative consensus. All the hardpower in the first decades after independence had been in the hands of the landlord class. And they often tried, here and there, to carve their own countries, or to carve some autonomy for themselves. There had been many rebellions in the first decades of Brazil's existence. The ultimate victors were the factions closest to the capital, and they and their provincial supporters came to a simple conclusion: liberalism (federalization) doesn't work as it breeds more rebellion, and we have to stop and set up a highly centralized system to pacify this nation which, in reality, was a multitude of colonies wrestled into one.
So the Brazilian Empire had been a country where all power rested in the landlord's hands, and to maintain their economic means was why the regime existed. But actual rule was centralized away from the rural areas, into the capital and into the provincial capitals, and was vested on an urbanized bureaucracy. The abolition of the monarchy came into being as local oligarchies grew prosperous enough to outcompete the heavily indebted imperial boy's club in Rio, and as the monarchy itself also lost even the capital landlords' support after abolishing slavery but failing to enact federalism in the late 1880s.
All the monarchists believed that the end of the centralized regime would balkanize the country. It ultimately didn't. There are many reasons why, one of which that the monarchy had lasted long enough to create at least the foundation of a common brazilian national identity. And yet, in the turmoils after the military coup that ended the Empire, the oligarchies of the new United States of Brazil found themselves making the same game theory as we presume the oligarchs of California, and New York, and Texas all will. The result, was this: you notice that I said the First Republic was practically a confederacy, but formally it wasn't. What held it together was that part where I said that the Federal Government would not intervene in coups that happened inside the states. This was the so called Governor's Policy. The second informal policy that marked the era was 'Coffee and Milk' politics: the Federal Government thereafter was to be alternated between the two strongest states, São Paulo and Minas Gerais. Altogether what we have is an Oligarchic Republic with a pecking order. São Paulo and Minas Gerais are at the top; Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Sul are somewhere in the middle with their own provincial spheres of influence; Rio de Janeiro becomes an 'occupied capital' of sorts and lives off prestige and everyone else is at the bottom.
Can you imagine something similar in the US? California and Texas agree not to go to war over the Colorado because they can just do what oligarchs do and shake hands while hiding knives behind their backs? And so the country decentralizes and balkanizes in anything but name.
Speaking briefly on CA / TX and Colorado water, note that the largest water source that originates in CO for Texas is the Rio Grande. That flows down into New Mexico and then into Texas. So CA needs to secure water from CO, UT, NV, and AZ. TX needs to secure water from NM and CO. A lot of those states will struggle greatly in a more confederated or even free-for-all balkanized setup (can you imagine AZ or NV surviving for long in their current configurations outside of the existing federal support structure?). CA and TX could come to some kind of agreement where they keep these "lesser" states subjugated by various means.
Are you Brazilian, or do you have any further reading I could look into? This is all fascinating and very new to me. You're definitely convincing me that Brazilian history can provide pertinent clues into reading America's potential future.
National identity will be a tricky issue. The PNW would have a secession problem if the Republic of Cascadia idea gains actual traction. Texas used to be its own literal nation, if only for a short while. I don't think it'd be hard for them to whip up a new Texan identity that outshines (or even positions itself as the rightful successor of) American identity. My outsider's perspective has always been that CA kinda does view itself apart similarly to NYC.
I'm Brazilian, yeah. I haven't read this one but I remember liking what the authors wrote back in uni. It should be a pretty good primer.
Thank you!
In a balkanization situation, I see southern California seceding and joining Mexico. If it was put to a popular plebiscite, like the UN does all the time, it would pass in a landslide.
Never underestimate the power of white worshipping POC to throw themselves under the bus
doesn't 90% of California's water come from the Sierra Nevada ice and not the Colorado river
It's complicated. It's a big state and water comes from many disparate sources. For the Central Valley, the linked article quotes 30% of the agriculture coming from Sierra Nevada snowpack. Meanwhile the Colorado river is more important for the southern portion of the state (so presumably leaning towards urban use and less agriculture)- "The Colorado is a critical source of irrigation and urban water for southern California, providing between 55 and 65 percent of the total supply."