The 5 Nations Of America

As I have said in my blog post, and in numerous other posts in other blogger's blogs, I would expect the partition of the United States to be a disaster for a variety of reasons; none the least being that the real divide in America currently is rural versus urban, but I am digressing.

Here interesting article by Joel Koetkin were he writes about the '5 nations' of America.  Now these nations aren't based on any racial cultural demographics, and really aren't multiple nations like there are say in the United Kingdom, and we should probably add a few more nations for the increasingly Latino southwest and mix raced Hawaii if we added a demographic view to it, rather they are based on geographic, economic, and political guidelines.

The nations, while mostly ignoring racial, religious, and urban versus rural make ups, are generally split into who they voted for in 2008 and their economic prospects.  Joel Koetkins essentially makes these points:

1. Given that both parties can reliably count on the two nations, each one is generally seeing larger and larger control of their respective regions, the rust belt becomes the fulcrum point on how national elections, and from there policy, will turn.
2. The conservative nations are seeing far stronger economic and population growth relative to the liberal nations. Kotkin has said that despite short term set backs for republicans the long term state population growth demographics favor republicans; someone like Vox would disagree.
3. Depending on what the president does on fracking, which heavily affects the rust belt states, it could evaporate democrats gains in this region of the country.

Now it is very apparent that Joel doesn't ascribe to the racial demographic outlook wherea someone like Vox does. I myself am on the fence, like I have said before, I have never been what you call a race realist, but I am a cultural one. Certain cultures are superior to others and human societal evoluition is proof of this, and no amount of verbosity by those who find those ideas distasteful will change my mind. And as much as I hate to admit it, at times, Vox, and others like him, make some salient points. I don't think having a multiracial America is a negative, it isn't inherently positive either.  Whether immigration is a fountainhead of our power or a deluge that will drown America is up to America as a society.  However that is also another discussion, back to the issue at hand.

The larger than normal growth for the red states may simply be conservative and libertarian leaning individuals leaving the states that they tolerated only because of economic incentives.  Liberals are also leaving for the red nations, but I am willing to wager that they generally have been moving to states that have always leaned somewhat less right than others.  If the growth of the red states is predominately a shifting of individuals with differing political opinions, then this could possibly change the divide from an urban and rural one to an actual geopgraphic one; which would make Vox's prediction more likely.

On the other hand, if it is simply a migration of individuals, regardless of political creed, to better performing areas, then the divide that currently exists doesn't change. Moreover, what happens to blue states as their population drops? Will they remain blue, or will they undergo a metamorphosis? I think it would be a mistake to assume, as so many do, that once a state goes blue, it remains blue.  Once again, I will stress that this discounts certain demographic trends due to immigration and individuals varying beliefs on immigration, but the other point that needs to be taken into account, and which Joel Kotkin has pointed out before, is that conservatives are out breeding liberals.

It is entirely possible, however improbable it may appear, that even if red states start to blue we could see a general reddening of the country. Demographics is destiny, it is why China is in deep trouble, Why the Russia 100 years from now may not look like Russia today, why Japans civilization itself is threatened, and why the American progressive agenda might not survive the 21st century in America.

Now whether that means that America by virtue of demographics returns to a more constitutionally oriented society, assuming that either republican assumptions about the social conservativeness of Latinos are correct, or that if they are wrong and Latino immigration rates fall, or increased civil strife, like Vox predicts, remains to be seen. But one thing stands clear in my mind, the future of the United States, as a nation, as a society, and a civilization, depends on who is right about the effects immigration and immigrants; and what we as a nation do depending on who is right.