Author: Frank Jacobs / Source: Big Think
- America’s two political tribes have consolidated into ‘red’ and ‘blue’ nations, with seemingly irreconcilable differences
- Perhaps the best way to stop the infighting is to go for a divorce – and give the two nations a country each
- Based on the UN’s partition plan for Israel/Palestine, this proposal provides territorial contiguity and sea access to both ‘red’ and ‘blue’ America
If more proof were needed that the U.
S. is two nations in one, it was offered by the recent mid-term elections. Democrats swept the House, but Republicans managed to increase their Senate majority. There is less middle ground, and less appetite for compromise, than ever.To oversimplify America’s electoral divide: Democrats win votes in urban, coastal areas, Republicans gain seats in the rural middle of the country. Those opposing blocs have consolidated into ‘red’ and ‘blue’ states decades ago.
Occasionally, and often after tight-run presidential elections, that divide is translated into a cartographic meme that reflects the state of the nation.
Jesusland vs. the U.S. of Canada
Image: Strange Maps
Canada annexes the entire West Coast and borders Mexico
In 2004, this cartoon saw the states that had voted for Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry join America’s northern neighbour to form the United States of Canada. The states re-electing George W. Bush were dubbed Jesusland.
Trumpistan vs. Clintonesia
Image: New York Times
Trumpland is a perforated continent, Clintonland is a disjointed archipelago
In 2016, these two maps disassembled the U.S. into Trumpistan, a vast, largely empty and severely punctuated land mass; and Clintonesia, a much smaller but more densely populated archipelago whose biggest bits of dry land were at the edges, with a huge, empty sea in the middle.
Soyland vs. the FSA
Image: Jesse Kelly
Following state borders, a line separates ‘red’ America (in the south) from the ‘blue’ half of the country
Writing in The Federalist, Jesse Kelly in April this year likened America to a couple that can’t stop fighting and should get a divorce. Literally. His proposal was to split the country into two new ones: a ‘red’ state and a ‘blue’ state.
On a map accompanying the article, he proposed a division of the U.S. into the People’s Republic of Soyland and the Federalist States of America (no prizes for guessing Mr Kelly’s politics).
It’s a fairly crude map. For example, it includes Republican-leaning states such as Montana and the Dakotas in the ‘blue’ state for seemingly no other reason than…
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