There is no “America”, and anyone who tells you there is hasn’t travelled enough. “American” includes everyone from Eskimos who speak in their native tongue and eat whales and have never seen a two story building to NYC Wall Street billionaires. It is everyone from people living in some of the most rural areas on earth to people living in some of the most densely populated areas on earth. We do not have a common religion and increasingly do not even have a common language (or even expectations of if we should have those things!). Our internal legal structure is de facto vague enough that it led to a massive civil war…that didn’t answer the fundamental problems that led to it. Where does a state’s right end and the federal government’s rights begin? As of 2022 we do not know.

At this point, there’s like 5 Americas at minimum. They very seldom have anything to do with one another, even when acting in good faith. Should food be expensive? In a place like South Dakota, where “food” is made, that question reads like, “should farmers deserve good pay for their hard work”, in places like LA/NYC/DC, that question reads like, “why is everyone trying to bleed me dry financially”. And they are both correct.

Or guns: I’ve been to remote villages in Alaska where you are required to have a gun in your car during Polar Bear Migration Season because hungry polar bears are dangerous and help is far away. I’ve also been to Manhattan, NY where the idea of a very powerful rifle that can shoot 500 meters is (correctly!) seen as absurdly dangerous to the point of bad-faith. And yet firearms are handled nationally. Neither NYC nor Nome, AK is wrong in their understanding, and the system is set up to enrage us.

You have lots of people who favor a “Czech/Slovak” divorce, if in sotto vocce. America is no longer a meaningful unit and the sooner we quit lying to ourselves about it the happier we will be.

Another comment:

Doesn’t every country have that same “big city asshole” versus “country bumpkin” dynamic? I’m sure that an educated, white-collar worker in Stockholm, Tokyo, or Shanghai and a rural farmer in the same country hold very different values and priorities, yet they aren’t waging a culture war with the same ferociousness we are in America. (Or are they? I’m curious now.)

A reply:

A lot of it is because they can’t. Old school, Melian Dialogue style. “The weak do what they must, the strong do what they will”.

My father is from Belgium, and I have lots of ties to there. I’m not Belgian, but I “get” them. Belgium is really 2 countries uncomfortably glued together. But they realize that even as one country, they’re small and vulnerable. As two, they just wouldn’t matter. At least by grudgingly accepting one another, they can have some safety in the world.

America, on the other hand, is in a similar position. Texas and California do not have alignment of interests. The difference, though, is Texas by itself is the world’s 9th largest economy and California the world’s 5th largest. A Belgian looks across the culture divide differently than a Californian. After all, what would happen if California left? It would have a higher GDP than the United Kingdom, and that’s not exactly a terrible fate.

And a thought about Europe:

The Northern European societies are in a strange suspended anodyne state because they can simply import their culture from America, have no external threats thanks to America and can simply use their existing advantages to stay on top of American controlled world economy, meanwhile giving over their political decision making to the EU. These countries don’t have much of an identity crisis because they have long decided a slow comfortable death is the way to go. Their people will only object if the death symptoms become suddenly a bit too difficult to ignore (ie refugee crisis). If you have no ambitions left in life you won’t make many enemies