We care occasionally when we think its in our interests. There are many small countries where we don't care.
If they have no resources that we want or are of no strategic importance, sure. But that's not a
lot of countries. The US has been historically quite happy to involve itself in the politics of other countries, even when there's not much at stake for us.
The idea that California isn't going to care about an authoritarian Utah or Idaho anymore than we care about Bahrain is implausible. If nothing else, they're inconveniently located nearby.
And note there are fair amount of people who might be in favor of breaking up the US are imminently concerned about this country becoming authoritarian. That group includes people on the right who are against vaccine and other government mandates and see the failed Trump assassination attempts
And most of those people will never have any real power, so it's neither here nor there. Once you're in power, breaking up the country becomes a lot less appealing.
No, people want to get out of what they see as a current bad situation - a hypothetical future bad situation is not going to hold as much weight. Californians love to brag about how big their economy is - I'd bet there will be substantial support there for separating.
You're advocating for something here, so you ought to be considering possible future consequences, even if
people don't.
Sure, but we're not talking about what we want.
We are talking about what we want, but more crucially about what is possible without a great deal more violence than we're currently seeing.
You were overlooking it - you characterized the first admin as not particularly bad. An attempted coup is... pretty bad.
It was a keystone koup with no real chance of ever succeeding, because nobody bothered to secure support behind the scenes. Yes, it's pretty bad, but things will get worse once someone vaguely competent decides to organize a coup.
Note more people still voted for him after this incident than in the first election (and many believe the 2020 election was stolen).
That's largely a function of turnout and an unusual election cycle. Harris also got more votes than Clinton did in 2016. Yes, there's still a base of support for Trump, but I don't see any reason to believe it's completely independent of actual outcomes. His much-ballyhooed gains in support among minority voters have already cratered.
Agreed - part of why I think the country as a functional unit is doomed - we won't change key things.
Abolishing political parties isn't just a
won't problem. It's a dumb idea that gets perennial play as if it were at all feasible. No democracy in the world has done so--the countries that ban political parties altogether are all authoritarian states. Think about what doing this would actually entail for a democracy.
A much more realistic plan would be electoral reform towards multi-party elections. This would lessen polarization by eliminating many of the incentives for demonization of the "opposition" party, because there isn't just one.
We won't do that, either, because our dumb constitution makes serious electoral reform nearly impossible, but it's a clearly preferable approach. And I suspect that as things continue to get worse, our support for current constitutional arrangements will weaken.
Trump blatantly lies all the time. If people like the overall message, they don't care. Also, as Sam Clemens said "There is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress". Getting rid of parties might help (but they'll go to great lengths to make sure that doesn't happen)
