In response to suggestions by a lunatic in the US Oval Office, Green Party Canada’s leader Elizabeth May suggested Canada should invite western states Washington, Oregon and California join B.C and split from Canada to form the ‘Cascadia’ eco-state.
(Note this article is from Jan 8, 2025 and Elizabeth May has since become co-leader of the party alongside Jonathan Pedneault).
Why does the east coast always get left out?
Do you really want to merge with Quebec?
Because the east coast will form Mega-City One.
It’s gonna be called the DMV because I’m pretty sure that’s the coolest metro area name in the north east.
It will become DMV City when New York City becomes connected
Ok, but we made a promise in the past to take Alaska and Hawaii with us too.
It’s super convenient because Hawaii and Alaska are in boxes just off the west coast on maps.
Never forget
I personally support all of Canada amd the US breaking into smaller countries but with an EU style freedom of movement and trade deal.
I like this because it’s closer to “articles of confederation” version of the proto United States which imo is closer to anarchism although still far from it.
So, this was pushed for a while and was later discovered to be Chinese propaganda. But it holds water is the thing.
Breaking into smaller counties isn’t the solution because you lose economies of scale and inefficient trade. Which was why China pushed it, to leave themselves and the EU as the largest single economies in the world.
The real solution is to regionalize block of states and instead of having one head of state as President, a council of state like Switzerland with a rotating chair that functions as the ceremonial head of state.
But that would take a new constitution…
But that would take a new constitution… Yeah, its a good that the thing that is only a couple centries old has been updated to match modern times and all.
Ironic when you consider that the people who would cry foul and act all offended the most if you ever were to suggest thinking about changing the entire constitution, have no issue with blatantly ignoring it entirely when it suits them.
Almost like the people who follow and believe in it the most are the only ones about to get mega dicked.
Texas immediately invades smallest Southern states
New Mexico turns off the Pecos and Rio Grande
Fuck off.
I don’t think that’s quite how it would play out.
Texas has long been aching to leave the US. They’ve setup all sorts of their infrastructure and economy to not be dependent on the rest of the US.
Many southern states, particularly Oklahoma, fantasize that they’re part of that. When Texas leaves, they will expect to join. But Texas views them as freeloaders.
It’s possible Texas invades to steal resources, but they don’t want the land or the people. More likely it’s the reverse - The poor states (now extremely poor, since they won’t be getting all that juicy federal money) will be envious of Texas’s wealth, and may invade to claim some of it for themselves.
Interesting considering the tech oligarchs have been relocating their business structure (incorporation, etc) to Texas.
I just wish they would stop threatening to leave, and just don’t finally, so we can wall them off.
A d Texas won’t, because their “giant economy” is all federal funded aerospace and defense.
I remember how much they whined when Fort Cavazos was considering shutting down. Three cities would have died almost overnight if it happened.
You reached the right conclusion, but muddied your own waters.
Texas would invade to steal and subjugate. Texan “leaders” wants slaves and resources and New Mexico, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana are right on the doorstep.
Best things to come out of Texas? I25. They’re welcome to try.
I don’t think invasion is the first step after the dissolution of the US. I think Texas becomes the new center of a southern entity for the reasons mentioned, but the other southern territories becomes vassal states to Texas. Many of the southern states rely heavily on federal aid to exist. Texas will leverage this to use Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, maybe South Carolina (plus those you mention) as near slave labor to feed its wealth and influence. As a new constitution is negotiated Texas will emerge as the center of a christofascist nation. Florida maintains a tenuous parity with Texas until rising seas make it uninhabitable. They then plead with the great Texas union to provide aid at which point they become subjugated the same as the others.
On thing is for sure, they’d fix immigration overnight. No one would be trying to escape TO The Holy Christian Union of Texas.
Come to think of it, the first post US armed conflict will likely be the HCUT pushing into Mexico as it grabs for the Panama canal and eventually the natural resources of South America.
I wish I was more creative. I’d love to write a post-American fictional novel.
As USSR’s breakup shows, withdrawal syndrome will be harsher than imagined for all sides of the events. In 1991, as you might know, the universal understanding was that now, when inefficient Soviet planned economy will finally die, life will start, because we have all these universities, all these chemical and electronic industries, all that in our republic, not like some cotton harvesters in Middle Asia, right? Except those all existed in the context of the Soviet economy, with that just being abruptly killed the only things that really survived were Soviet elites and crime. Since that’s who were leading the transition, that was a sacrifice they were willing to make.
So, in comparison, the idea of anschlussing Canada and Mexico and what not may not be worse.
Just say no to balkanisation
Balkanisation - except Yugoslavia becomes bigger than ever
Genuinely curious: What do you see as the significant differences under such a scenario? What are the pros and cons of these differences?
I think the biggest pro for me would be that sane policies at the federal level that are broadly popular in my region could stop getting blocked by yokels representing states that sometimes barely even have the population of the semi-rural county I grew up in in the Northeast. Ditto for not having to worry about corporate interests from those same states filing frivolous lawsuits that manage to block the implementation of the odd policy that does make it through, like student loan forgiveness.
Also, I’m not above admitting that there’s a great deal of appeal in the potential schadenfreude of all the “But I don’t want my taxes paying for the trans, minority welfare queens getting bottom surgery! Down with any social safety net!” Republicans from the South and Midwest being forced to reckon with the fact that they have actually been the welfare queens this whole time, and it’s only been by the grace of those dang liberal states paying in disproportionately high shares of taxes that get funneled towards red states that their shithole states haven’t yet collapsed entirely. Let’s see how Alabama fares with its whooping 1.1% of the national GDP when they no longer have federal funding to prop them up. Their top 5 employers are all public institutions that likely depend on federal funding to remain operational, and 2/5 of them are military bases. Good luck, guys, the South will fall again.
For cons, obviously it’ll suck for the people who still live in those states until they finally move, but that’s been the case for a long time. If the decent regions help finance the move for those who are willing to leave, but unable to for lack of money, I’m kind of fine with it. Same goes for overlooking criminal charges when people are unable to leave their state due to some BS non-violent crimes landing them on parole and being refused travel permissions. If Mississippi wants to lock you down as exploitable labor because you got pulled over with some weed, or loaned a kid a book that said gay people actually aren’t the spawn of Satan sent to destroy US civilization, come on over. They can keep their sex offenders and violent criminals, though. For the folks that don’t move because “Oh, but my family is here and I love them too much to move away,” or similar reasons, good luck with living through the second feudal age, but that’s your own choice.
Likewise, it’ll be sad to see them destroy national and state parks in the name of business, as well as visiting those places while they still exist being a much riskier proposition.
Honestly, I think most red states severely underestimate how poorly things would go for them if they were to be cut loose, while overestimating the popular support they would enjoy and their international appeal as trade partners. Even for the ones who are in a relatively favorable economic opinion, like Texas, would probably see absolutely insane levels of brain drain from industry and higher education that would leave them dead in the water, barring state-sanctioned violence to prevent people from leaving.
That said, their economies would be devastated. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky would all see between 20.7%-30.7% of their overall revenues for state and local governments vanish overnight if they stopped receiving federal funding. States like New York and Texas could probably come away at a net profit just by retaining the taxes they’d previously passed on to the federal government, even factoring in how many new services would have to be provided for at the state/regional level that were previously financed by the federal government. For the states like New Mexico, Mississippi, and Alabama that manage to claw back almost all of what they contribute in federal taxes, if not get more back in federal funding, good luck. Somehow, I suspect their new, libertarian overlords in Texas aren’t going to be so keen on subsidizing their impoverished neighbors to any real extent.
Gets rid of the borders which are honestly just traffic jams.
And I think more regional nationalism will be healthier for everyone. Lot of frustration seems to come with seeing someone on the other side of the country behaving in a way that you think doesn’t fit in with the idea of your nationality.
Stops federal government from…existing and strong arming states miles away. I know a lot of Europeans are looking at the u.s. right now and asking why we aren’t pulling out guillotines, it’s because 200 million Americans live west of the Mississippi. At the very best that’s a 900mile journey, with the largest population center being 3k miles away. All that versus most states having their capitals centrally located, or at least within a days drive.
The other pro is that if every state just sent a representative, we wouldn’t have a figurehead for massive swaths of vastly different people, we’d have a straight Congress/parliamentto represent each states interest and thats it. (My personal hot take is that having a figurehead hasn’t been very beneficial to the u.s. since Washington. Like I’d even say Lincoln is debatable, not that freeing the slaves wasn’t cool as shit, but that him being a figure head at that time didn’t have much benifit)
As a Washingtonian, I’m totally okay with this.
Same here, this sounds like the best thing I dare hope for at this point
Just FYI Canadians, don’t get fooled when people say California is “leftist”. Check out recent referendum results, they voted against abolishing slavery (for prisoners) and in favour of the death penalty for example. They are only “leftist” in relation to the neofacist US’s overton window.
Do you think Canada is on average that much more leftist than California? Canada has plenty of Trump supporters and they aren’t even US citizens.
Yes, as a Californian leftist, our government has always been more interested in money than people, and it will continue to be a problem. NIMBYs will be the death of us.
California has a rural state within it that’s called The State Of Jefferson and it’s very rural and conservative. You can just cut that part out of Cascadia
But that is where all the food comes from…
No it fucking isnt, the Jefferson crap is located in the economically depressed mountains of NorCal, when the logging industry imploded they were left behind. They dont produce much food of any note.
My bad, I though that area extended down the east side of the state.
No its pretty exclusive to NorCal, also there isnt too much going on along the California Nevada border agriculturally. Not to say theres nothing just that it pales compared to the Central Valley.
Yeah, I looked it up. I must have been thinking of something else.
You may have been thinking of the older movement to have a bunch of random parts of Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and California join up with Idaho. That one was a hell of a lot less consistent in what areas they wanted. Theres also the original proposal for what would become Utah which included lands as far away from Utah as San Bernardino and LA.
Canada’s prisoners work on average for 30¢ an hour. I don’t think they car about prison slavery there.
Canada doesn’t have private for profit prisons and the difference in the quality of life shows.
Never going to happen. The USA will not let CA leave.
So, I think this could happen. Trump and Musk are just trying to speedrun smashing the administrative state; it’s difficult to overstate the enormity of the damage they’re going to do to the federal government’s ability to govern over the next two months. Laying off all these administrators and closing their offices is going to create a glut of administrators at the same time as it creates a demand for administrative capacity to make up for what the feds dropped. Plus, they’re going to want to stop California, but how will they when they’ve gone and replaced every competent person in the DOJ/DOD/FBI/CIA with incompetent stooges?
California has an advanced enough administrative state to handle breaking off, jokes aside. California also has the economy. Here’s the kicker: California has the geography. California would be a complete bitch to invade; for most of the coastline, the mountains (hills, as the locals call them, but they ARE mountains) just run right into the ocean, and the ocean is notoriously a bastard for much of that coastline; as for an overland route, there’s basically, like, three big highways that cross the Sierra Nevadas to inland Cali. A couple of big bombs or cal fire bulldozers would make short work of them. Plus, California has a LOT of agriculture to support itself with. Basically, the one weak spot is water supply, and we could be doing a lot better than we are if we just tightened up on our industrial, livestock, and rich dumbass consumption.
California’s economy is extremely dependent on being part of the USA. They barely cover the hap between money taken from the government and what they contribute and it is fairly easy to make the case they take more.
The government would not need to invade. The moment they make clear that CA farmers cannot access the Colorado river waters like they used to and that any foreign tech company is no longer able to access US DOD money you will see tech be willing to move and agriculture collapse in CA. After gutting any aide and scholarships for students attending CA schools and the USA will have crippled the top 3 industries in CA without firing a shot.
CA wouldn’t be akin to France ir Italy if it left the USA it would be more like Mexico economically.
The moment they make clear that CA farmers cannot access the Colorado river waters like they used to
But…but…I’ve been told that there’s a big faucet up here in Canada that we can turn on for y’all to make it all better.
/s. (god I can’t believe I live in a world where I need an /s tag for this)
Bro, Mexico isn’t really that badly off. They’ve got their problems, for sure, but who doesn’t?
Second, California is sure to have its own defense industry, and I don’t know if you’d see tech abandon their silicon valley HQs. It’s going to be hard to walk away from that pool of skilled labor they’ve concentrated in that area.
True but many of the people who back this will mouth nonsense about how CA would be the 5th richest nation when that position entirely depends on being part of the USA. Once the agriculture businesses cease getting US subsidies and the tech sector flees California would not be so wealthy.
Tech will go where their money goes and those employees will follow.
The geography you are talking about is important as a minor modifier in the context of highly professional fighting force using it. By itself it changes nothing compared to dry flatlands, a bit more costly transportation. When a military doesn’t have a road, they first make the dirt road (throwing sand and gravy here and there), then lay armed concrete shields in line, and then may even use asphalt on top of that. I don’t know anything about that, so may be a bit more complex, but the point is that it’s a solvable problem.
I would honestly love to see a gravy road.
Jokes aside, there’s a reason why there’s only a few major roads going through the Sierra; it’s a major PITA to lay new routes, and even rebuilding old ones is a huge pain (I should know, I’ve seen them get washed out). Many times, these roads have many and large choke points where your maneuvering choices are a rock face on one side and a cliff or drop off on the other. Even if you could repair the roads quick, they’re ripe for guerilla warfare, sabotage, and espionage. Really, it would be IED central, and those IEDs would likely set off land-slides that would have to be dealt with to get the road usable again. And keep in mind that we’re talking about crossing an entire mountain range to get into the interior of California. Invading Cali by land would be a real bad time.
Invading Cali by land would be a real bad time.
Right. But there’s no shortage of aircraft, fuel and airbases well within reach.
EDIT:
I didn’t mean gravy road, I meant that as sort of a stabilizer it’s needed inside the elevation for that road. Actually I don’t know much about building roads. Countryside pathways are my level.
Or any other state
True but few are as important as CA.
That would immediately launch it into the #2 spot of countries by GDP. I’m down for that 🤣
No, it woukdn’t. A ton of California’s money comes from being part of the US economy. Redirecting all the money the state gets from being oart of the USA away from those states will change theor GDP considerably.
Every single tech firm that wants DOD money will have to leave those states. That will gut any potential gain you could expect.
Do you think there would be no DoD equivalent?
And how do you fund the US DoD without CA?
Lulzwut
Yes, fucking, PLEASE.
Sick of our tax dollars supporting these fucking deadbeat ass states like Arkansas,Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
Also Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi all smell like a fucking asshole because of all the paper mills.
Yep. There’s a reason me and my wife left Mississippi a few years ago for Washington.
As a Washingtonian, I would unironically support this. I’m sick of being forced to fund a fucking genocide.
As a resident of British Columbia, I would support this with the sole condition that we all use only the metric system.
But, how will i know how big something is if we stop comparing things to horses and refrigerators?
I’m down
Canaforeton
Can you please bring the Northeast in as well? NY and Toronto are already buds, and Niagara Falls has one foot in each
Fuck it. I’ll volunteer western NY to just become part of Ontario. We don’t even need to be our own province.
Cleveland and buffallo are oddly tied at the hip when you think about it.
And by that, I mean I’m tying Cleveland to this deal by teaming up with Buffalo to get in on this. C’mon. We got beer and chocolate and a pretty strong polish population. Which are great people to be friends with. C’mon Canada! You know you like chocolate, and beer, and perogis! Slso buffalo has buffalo wings…I mean I assume. Why else would you name a whole place after a food if that place doesn’t have that food???
eats french fries
Ah the french. Known for their CHAMPAIGNEXCELLENCE!!!*
long awkward silence…like, really long…like you’re wondering how the other guy isn’t breaking character AT ALL. He’s too scared to disrespect Orson Wells
Cinci’s chilli is just too weird, though.
The National Post seems to have taken down the article so linking to archive.is
Elizabeth May says a lot of things I like, but also comes out with bizarro-world shit like this
It was mostly a joke I’m sure, but a good retort :)
Taking away 74 reliable Democratic electoral college votes would permanently throw the US to the Republicans.
Texas (40) and Florida (30) would steamroller New York (28) and Illinois (19).
Last election did that. If you think there will continue to be free and democratic elections in US after Trump you are mistaken. Those college votes are no longer going to matter.
While true, this is pretty much gonna happen anyway. Next census, if the GOP is still in control they’ll exclude non-citizens from the counts and pretty much make up numbers. Who knew the entire West Coast was 30% non-citizen!
Yup. Guess those who want to stay out of a Repub hell-hole would want to move to Cascadia (or more realistically, an enlarged Canada) while they still could, then.
So, instead of Canada becoming the 51st state, the suggestion is that Canada just loses BC? How about we dismiss all the options where Canada loses territory?
Also, if BC seceded, it would only be a matter of time before Quebec did too.
I’m not fundamentally against the idea of states splitting off or joining up. There’s no reason that the configuration of countries should always stay as they are in 2025. But, the reasons should be good. If there truly is a “Cascadian” culture, then yeah, maybe a nice separation agreement could be negotiated that’s fair to everyone. But, having spent time in Vancouver, Seattle, San Fransisco and LA, I sure don’t see it. The cultural difference even between SF and LA is pretty huge. And, I can’t imagine that most people in BC would be keen to accept the guns of America, and the lack of free health care. Or, going the other way, would Americans be willing to give up their guns to join Cascadia?
It just seems to me that every time the world adds borders or moves borders, the result is conflict. I hope that over time there are fewer borders, and that the borders matter less. But, the only way to do it while avoiding war is really to do it slowly.
The “Cascadia” idea wouldn’t be viable IMO. It would be better for all to just add the newcomers to an enlarged Canada. (I 100% wouldn’t want B.C. to leave Canada, just to be clear, nor any Canadian territories to be ‘exchanged’ or lost).
I’d be against any absorption that brought US gun ideology to Canada… if they’re splitting from the US, they’d better be doing so for the goals of taking on the more pacifist and commensalist Canadian values.
You realize that Canadians can own guns too, right?
Canadians were clever enough not to enshrine gun ownership as a right in the constitution. As a result, Canadians have limited gun rights, and almost no handgun rights. Sure, having guns for hunting is pretty common, especially in rural areas. But, the idea of a gun for home defense or a gun for taking on a tyrannical government is something that never took hold in Canada.
the idea of a gun for home defense or a gun for taking on a tyrannical government
… is something that only existed in USA when it was pure utopia in terms of government tyranny. All tyranny was private - white only towns, Blair mountain, things like that. Where problems are close to what gun ownership may solve - in the former case in the wrong direction unfortunately. In some sense it was symbolic weapon ownership that suggested that citizens should own all weapons they need to fight tyranny too, and all limitations are circumstantial and shouldn’t hold when need arises for citizens to own B52’s, field artillery pieces and main battle tanks. It still remained symbolic and any government possesses all the means to squash any insurrection with small arms allowed to citizens in USA even by the measure of year 1960 (for example).
I don’t think the idea is bad. If you look long enough, all the difference between good and bad ideas fades. Good and evil may remain, but they matter only in our own choices.
Also the original tyrannical government for the USA was the British Empire. For Canada that relationship is inverted, except Quebec.
