China is betting that the West is in irreversible decline
I just don&#x27;t see how the US keeps together.<p>The disconnect between the two sides is, on the one hand, not based on anything concrete. So maybe we can patch it up somehow. Like, before the Civil War, slavery is a real thing with real human and economic effects. Today though, conservatives are mad about what exactly?… It seems like they&#x27;re mad about a generalized disrespect which the mainstream culture has towards them. And fair enough, they aren&#x27;t imagining that. But they vent this anger into really bizarre things like trying to keep trans people from using the bathroom and imaginary voter fraud prevention laws. And those are the mainstream, non-conspiracy minded Republican issues!<p>On the other hand though, if there can&#x27;t be any communication between the two sides, if anyone adopting a position that is popular with 40% of the public makes them a pariah to the other 40%, I just don&#x27;t see how you can run a country like that. I also don&#x27;t see any causes on the horizon that would cause the current trend to reverse and for things to become less polarized.<p>So my current best guess is that we are in the quiet period now, things will stew along for the next 2 to 4 years, then Trump will run again or some other crazy thing, and then there will be secession crisis. It doesn&#x27;t have to happen, but preventing it from happening requires the Republicans to denounce Trump and anyone associated with him, and I don&#x27;t think they&#x27;re going to do it. That isn&#x27;t to say that the Republicans will necessarily be the ones to precipitate the crisis. I think it&#x27;s pretty much equally likely that Trump&#x2F;a Trumpist wins and then the blue states decide to leave. I think something like that probably would have happened in 2020 if he had squeaked out another narrow electoral college win, so it could happen in 2024 or 2028 instead.