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redfish-blu · 11 months

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People asked to drop the Danger Days tl from my last post so I’ll do that.

*Disclaimer: Not canon at all this is just my personal idea and take on like. How all that happened. Based on what they said in the videos and comics sort of.

*Disclaimer 2: I have not read National Anthem and I don’t care if this doesn’t line up with that.

Zones Timeline

1947:

- Cold War begins.

1987: Dr. D is born (hey legend).

1991:

- Cold War does not end.

1996:

- 1st Helium War starts.

- NATO and the Warsaw countries exchange declarations of war.

- Most of Eastern Europe is destroyed first, followed by the Middle East. Russia remains intact, as do a few Western European countries. Not including Great Britain or Germany.

- Other countries fall into isolation in fear of being the next targets of war, and either disappear into themselves or join pacts with one another. Some disperse entirely.

1997:

- America dissolves into civil unrest after attacks on the mainland result in various important political figures’ deaths.

- A number of American states cede from the nation and become The Confederacy of California, as per their secession being definitely illegal, and they take the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Wyoming.

- Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas are disputed.

- The rest of the states are assimilated into The Federal Republic of The United States, however they are in constant political battles between themselves because now everyone either wants out of the nation or they want control of it.

1997-98:

- Technology stagnates, but still advances. Just nowhere near as fast as it did in our lives.

1998:

- 1st Helium War ends.

- Cherri Cola is born.

- Tensions between the COC and the FRUS are high strung but not hostile.

- This is generally considered peacetime, if peacetime can be defined as you and the person you just fist fought in the bathroom being forced to sit next to one another in the principal’s office. Alone.

- A company specializing in chemistry and weapons manufacturing under the name of “Better Tech” rises in the COC and the FRUS.

2000:

- 2nd Helium War starts.

- Jet Star is born.

- War is declared on the FRUS by the COC, and various military campaigns take place in the disputed states.

- Better Tech supplies resources to both sides in a kind of double entendre situation where neither side knows they’re actually being played.

2001:

- Party Poison is born.

2006:

- Kobra Kid is born.

- Fun Ghoul is born.

- Helium Wars end when a series of nuclear bombs are dropped around the Rocky Mountains.

- The FRUS is never heard from again, and radio/electronic communication is disrupted by damage to the earth’s electromagnetic field.

- Better Tech rebrands themselves to Better Living Industries and gain influence over the COC government with the aim of salvaging the country and fixing the physical damage done by the war as well as the mental trauma of the citizens.

2010:

- BLi attempt to take control of Latin America but are flushed out by rebellion, and Mexico’s border is closed.

- Canada follows suit soon after, and America is officially cut off. Trapping everyone who remains there within the country (legally).

2012:

- Pig Bombs drop, eliminating Texas and New Mexico, whose governments were still kind of functioning independently after Helium 2 and building resistance against the COC.

- Fires of 2012 destroy Phoenix but leave Las Vegas intact. All remaining military units are pulled to Los Angeles.

- This is where BLi’s intense propaganda machine starts working to cover up all the crap they do. Working in tandem with how technologically challenged most people are at that point.

- BLi take what’s left of the lower 48 and establish Battery City as the new capital of America. Their borders define the nation as California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona.

- However, BLi becomes notoriously bad at maintaining and “cleansing” their proclaimed territories; and most of the area outside of Zone 3 sees little to no substantial BLi presence at all.

- Dr. Death Defying makes his first radio broadcast as a rebel.

2013:

- Analog Wars begin.

- Battle of Utah takes place wherein Salt Lake City is destroyed in a series of Killjoy v. BLi battles.

- Destroya was used for its first and only time during this battle, and was abandoned in Zone 3 during BLi’s retreat.

2015:

- Analog Wars pause after significant damages to both sides prompt an unofficial ceasefire, giving way to a long period of relative inactivity.

- BLi uses this time to build its presence in everyday life, establish the Zones, and advance it’s scientific research and development.

2028:

- The Girl is born.

- Girl’s mom is Drac’d

2029:

- The Girl is found by Killjoys.

- Analog Wars start up again when her existence is uncovered.

2029-35:

- These years see the most one on one fighting between kj factions and BLi since the Analog Wars first started.

- Generally remembered as a sort of Zones Renaissance due to the re-popularization of art, media, and philosophy within the killjoy community.

- Who had fractured off in the years after the armistice and became very detached from one another rather than a collective movement.

2035:

- The Killjoys die.

- Analog Wars officially end.

2036-47:

- The schools of thought built up during the renaissance period fade into the background once again as their figureheads either die off or become irrelevant.

- This is the era in which the Val Velocity era of killjoys grow up in. They were all born well after the Helium and Analog wars began and ended, so they have little to no connection to the values or customs of pre-war life.

- Its very Lost Generation-y in that everyone just kind of wants to party and forget about how their lives suck underneath all the glitter.

2047:

- California Comics events.

- Cherri Cola dies.

- Dr. D dies (rip legend).

- BLi is destroyed.

#danger days #ttlotfk #party poison #kobra kid #ttlofk #killjoys #the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #fun ghoul #mcr

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morbidology · 4 months

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The day before the murder of Jeff Hall, his ten-year-old son, Joseph Hall, proudly displayed a leather belt adorned with an SS emblem to a visitor, stating, "Look what my dad got me." Little did anyone know at that moment that Joseph would be responsible for his father's death the following day.

Jeff dedicated his life to the National Socialist Movement, the nation's largest neo-Nazi party, leading a chapter in Riverside, California. Expressing extremist views, he advocated for a white society, secession, and openly blamed Jews and minorities for his employment challenges despite an economic downturn in the construction industry.

Growing up in an environment of hatred and abuse, it's not surprising that 10-year-old Joseph exhibited volatile behavior. He assaulted his elementary school teachers, embraced white supremacist beliefs, and faced expulsions from several schools. Homeschooled by his racist father, Joseph attended monthly gatherings at home that mixed Nazi propaganda with peculiar party games, witnessing his father impart lessons from "Mein Kampf" and boasting about teaching him to handle firearms.

On May 1, 2011, Joseph retrieved a .357 revolver and fatally shot his father as he slept on the couch. When the police arrived, Jeff was already deceased. Joseph claimed he acted in self-defense, alleging his father's threat to remove fire alarms and set the house ablaze while the family slept. He also expressed frustration with enduring beatings from his father. During the trial, Joseph's defense argued that he was a victim of his father's racist beliefs and abusive upbringing, with his stepmother testifying to frequent beatings over minor issues.

Joseph was found responsible for his father's murder and was confined to a juvenile detention center, eligible for parole at 20 years old. The conviction sparked controversy, with advocates questioning whether a 10-year-old could fully comprehend the consequences of his actions, especially during police interrogations. Despite the grim circumstances, reports from the juvenile detention center indicate that Joseph has made substantial progress through attending classes and therapy.

Remarkably, even the prosecutor who secured his conviction expressed an unexpected attachment, acknowledging Joseph's adherence to rules, expectations, and dignified treatment in the detention center.

#true crime

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fictionadventurer · 1 year

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@ellakas I'm so glad you asked!

Zachary Taylor is one of those presidents that no one talks about in history class. But the thing is, in the 1840s, everyone was talking about him. He was the war hero of the Mexican-American War. The war itself (a blatant land grab by President Polk) was unpopular, but Taylor emerged as a beloved hero, because was a really good military commander, and because stories emerged about how humanely he treated Mexican prisoners.

Taylor was so popular that both political parties asked him to be their candidate in the next presidential election. He had never held political office. Never shown interest in politics. He had never even voted in a presidential election before! (His reasoning was that, as a military man, he didn't want to serve a commander-in-chief that he had voted against). Yet he was eventually persuaded to run--and win--as the Whig Party candidate.

(Fun fact! His wife, who had no interest in being a politician's wife, prayed that he'd lose the election. Taylor also showed his religious convictions by refusing to be sworn in on a Sunday, so his inauguration was delayed by a day, leaving the US president-less for twenty-four hours).

Even after he was president, Taylor had no interest in playing politics. He wanted to serve the country, not the party. He refused to play political games, purposely not appointing some of the big names of the party to his Cabinet so he could have more diverse voices representing a wider swath of the country. Still in the military mindset of "I give orders and people obey", he was frustrated that he was constantly questioned by Congress, and was very much at odds with them.

The big issue of his presidency was the fact that the US had just gained a ton of land from Mexico, and they had to decide if they'd enter the Union as slave or free states. Since Taylor was a slave-owning Southerner, the Southern Democrats hoped he'd side with them. But Taylor didn't want to expand slavery. First, because it's dumb--it's not like we can grow cotton or sugar in New Mexico or Arizona, so why would we even need plantations? But also because he was coming under the influence of some of the most vocal anti-slavery New York Whigs. To the great anger of the Democrats, Taylor said he wanted California to enter immediately as a free state, and would prefer all the territories to be free states. Before the issue could be resolved, he died. He got violently ill after Fourth of July celebrations in 1850 (because the White House water was still contaminated by human feces), and died five days later, after only a year and a half in office.

A year and a half isn't much time to make an impact. But I'm still fascinated by this president. He was a wonderful mess of contradictions. He was a Southern slave-owner who joined the Northern anti-slavery party. He was against all talk of secession--on the grounds of "I spent forty years serving this country and I want it to stay in one piece"--even though his son-in-law was (I'm not kidding) future president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis. As a slave-owner and US military leader in the 1800s, he logically can't be a totally good guy, yet I get the sense that he was genuinely trying to be, in the context of his time. And he was showing signs of further character development. If he had lived, who's to say what he could have become, what he could have done?

But we'll never know, because his death left the country in the hands of Millard Fillmore, possibly the most aggressively mediocre man ever to become president (though I have high hopes for Chester Arthur). He actually has a pretty amazing origin story. He was the son of a dirt-poor farmer who apprenticed him to a cloth-maker in what became an indentured servitude situation. He scraped up enough money to buy his freedom and return home. Growing up, the only book he had to read was the Bible, until he turned 17 and bought himself a dictionary. At 20, he started taking adult classes to finally get the education he'd been denied; his teacher was a woman two years older than him who he eventually married. He became a lawyer, and then went into politics, serving in the New York State Legislature. He authored no significant bills. Made no big impact. The main traits people noticed about him were "tall" and "good-looking" (Queen Victoria did later call him the most handsome man she'd ever met). He was just kind of... there.

He was picked as Taylor's vice president for much the same reason Taylor was recruited as presidential candidate--he was moderate enough to appeal to both sides of the polarized political spectrum. New York was the home of the most vocal anti-slavery Whigs, but Fillmore was moderate on the slavery issue. As vice president presiding over the Senate, people mentioned he was "very fair" in how he let both sides speak. And that's like...the best people can say about him.

The question of the slave states eventually produced a bill that came to be known as the Compromise of 1850. Taylor--the enemy of compromise--was against it. Fillmore, a few days before Taylor's death, stated he would support it. After Taylor died, his entire Cabinet resigned rather than serve under a president who supported the Compromise. When the bill passed, Fillmore signed it into law.

The Compromise stated 1) California would enter the union as a free state; 2) the slave trade would end in Washington D.C.; 3) The other territories would decide for themselves if they wanted to allow slaves or not. Most importantly, it put the Fugitive Slave Act into effect, requiring all citizens, even in Northern states, to help return runaway slaves to their owners. The North was outraged over the Fugitive Slave Act; they wanted nothing to do with the practice of slavery and now the government was forcing even free states to support the institution. This law was meant to bring together both sides and prevent war, but it probably had the opposite effect, deepening the divide and hastening the plunge toward armed conflict.

This has led historians to speculate--if the more forceful, principle-driven Taylor had lived, could the path to Civil War at least have been delayed? No way to say, of course; maybe Taylor's solution would have made things worse. But the contrast between these two presidents is so fascinating. In Taylor, you have the apolitical war hero who sticks to his guns--the increasingly anti-slavery slave owner. Meanwhile, Fillmore is a bland politician from the most anti-slavery state who refused to speak against slavery--a man who never really achieved anything because he never really stood for anything. They're such complex characters, full of irony and contradictions, and I'm outraged that my history classes completely skipped over them on the way to Lincoln.

#history is awesome #answered asks #ellakas #my reaction to the taylor episode was outrage i'd never known any of this #the only thing animaniacs taught me about him was he 'liked to smoke his breath killed friends whenever he spoke'#(which is a tidbit the podcast failed to mention)#i feel like there should have been *something* about this guy's ridiculously colorful life worth mentioning #now i'll have to fight the urge to track down my brother again to tell him i forgot to mention the jefferson davis thing #talk about irony!#presidential talk

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fleshadept · 2 months

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right wing texans including greg abbott are so psyched to challenge the federal government and threaten secession but they'll be shitting themselves and crying if they have to show a passport or get a visa to drive to oklahoma. or pay out their ass for california oranges that suddenly have import fees

#cricket chirps #uspol #it's so DUMB like. even calling it 'texit' as if most UK people don't hate that they're not in the EU anymore

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mararhodus · 7 days

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Okay, I’m sorry, Civil War is a great thriller (it’s almost as good as Annihilation in that regard) and Kirsten Dunst is incredible, but I literally can't get over the nonsensical state divisions. I'm willing to give leeway for storytelling, but, like... Texas and California? As a team? That straight up feels like a boardroom decision designed to piss the least amount of people off.

And I straight up laughed out loud when it was implied that South Carolina refused to secede from the union out of loyalty. This fucking state has threatened secession almost every other year since I was born.

#film thoughts #civil war 2024

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tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors · 2 years

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Are adopted children able to inherit a noble title in the Pieces!verse?

thank you dear nonnie for giving me an excuse to infodump about the aristocracy and inheritance law of Westrand /gen

so. short answer, yes, with caveats

long answer went under the cut because i physically could not shut up

the nobility of Westrand is divided into two tiers, the royal families and the noble houses. i'll explain why first

Westrand is a country in an interesting spot, geographically speaking. it's on the coast, and bordered on the other side by mountains (think california, approximately, though not the same shape really)

it used be a coastal territory of the Aprendian Empire (now just called Prend, their neighboring country)

about 600 years ago, a group of five Aprendian noble families pooled their resources and initiated a war of secession from Prend. this was mostly possible because of their geography - Prend had more resources but little to no experience fighting in mountainous, snowy terrain, and Westrand composed the majority of their navy.

there was a very brief cold-war esque civil war after this, where these five families were like "well, now who's king?." eventually they settled on an odd system in which all five of thise families are considered "royal families," and the monarch is selected from one of the five heirs to those family upon the death of the previous, by vote of all the nobles (this system is referred to as elective monarchy)

i would explain that whole process but this is already like 600 words im so sorry alsdkjalsjd

the heirs of the royal are determined by an inheritance system called cognatic seniority which basically means that men and women can inherit, in order of eldest family member - not eldest child

so if the current Grand Prince/Princess has a younger sibling older than their children, the sibling inherits, not the kids. basically - oldest person with the last name "Laurent" is the Laurentian Grand Prince. (except Katherine Laurent is queen rn, so its the second oldest)

Royals can adopt children, and those children are granted a courtesy title of prince/princess, but they can never be Grand Prince or inherit the throne.

okay. i hope that made sense alskdjalkj now! noble houses

noble houses are, nominally, chosen by the monarch. at the first go round, those five royal families (who have declared themselves to have a sort of shared divine right by this point) chose the nobility from both the previous nobles who supported the war, and from other war supporters such as high class merchants and even some military generals.

Monarchs can name new noble houses at any time (the fitzroys are a relatively new noble house, declared a couple hundred years ago from the illegitimate peasant child of a particularly unpleasant king) but they cant be stripped of their title for any reason other than treason.

because these noble houses are less "divine right" and more "chosen ones" vibes, their inheritance laws are slightly different. by default, they use cognatic primogeniture or absolute primogeniture - eldest child regardless of gender of the current title holder inherits, and if one doesnt exist, the next oldest sibling. currently, Roman is Logan's heir, because Logan doesn't have any children, and next is Remus because Roman also doesn't.

However in practice, noble houses most often choose their "most suitable" heir from among their children or niblings. This includes in their will, which sometimes causes Drama. Technically, they can name anyone their heir, it's just assumed they'll choose someone in the family.

the Philosophy is that the royal houses chose the nobility from "the best" people of Westrand, and therefore now the nobles choose "the best" for their heirs. as you can imagine, this causes a LOT of sibling infighting, with parents often pitting their children against each other to "prove" their suitability as heir.

#ask #anonymous #pieces verse #words words so many words #walls of metatext #can you worldbuilding is basically crack to me

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prolifeproliberty · 2 years

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This is REALLY rich coming from the people who wanted vaccine passports for interstate travel.

Tl;dr: no state is actually considering any kind of restrictions on travel. Missouri is considering a law allowing people to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion out of state (not the woman herself). This is only if she actually got an abortion - not if she went on vacation or traveled for other medical care.

Nobody’s right to travel is being threatened - it’s the supposed “right” to kill your baby that is in question. Do you have the right to cross state lines, kill your baby, and come back?

Now, enforcement of such a law would be difficult, but these kinds of rules might push more geographic polarization - women who are concerned about being able to get an abortion may choose to move to a state that allows it, rather than depending on their employer to pay for their travel.

While I wish we could protect every preborn child from abortion, I know that’s not realistic. What we can do is ban abortion in as many states as possible, while simultaneously building a culture that values life in the womb and supports mothers, regardless of how they got pregnant.

What will inevitably happen is pro-abortion people will move to pro-abortion states, and those states will enact extreme and horrifying laws, such as those proposed in California and Maryland that would allow “perinatal death” (death within a week or so of a baby’s birth) to not be investigated.

Hopefully, the contrast between the pro-life and pro-abortion states will become clearer, and one of two things will happen: either people in pro-abortion states will finally realize they’re the baddies (less likely), or the country will split or Balkanize along these lines. Hopefully that Balkanization will be peaceful.

Since the article mentions slavery and the fugitive slave act, quick reminder of what actually happened in the lead up to the Civil War:

Northern states abolished slavery because it violated the rights of human beings. Slaves escaped to northern states, and Northern states refused to follow federal mandates to facilitate slavery in Southern states. The South cited the North’s refusal to follow federal law (requiring the return of escaped slaves) as one of the main reasons for secession.

It’s hard to make a direct comparison, because preborn babies - the ones whose rights are being violated - can’t escape to pro-life states (neither could a toddler). But the similarities we DO have show slavery correlating with abortion (both being grave human rights violations) and one part of the country abolishing the practice, while the other half continues it.

There will necessarily be division and conflict if half the country abolishes a human rights violation and the other half celebrates it.

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randomvarious · 8 months

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1980s Synthpop Playlist (YouTube)

Tiny update this week for this great and eclectic playlist that I'm slowly continuing to build up over on YouTube, with a somewhat obscure add from the legendary UK synthpop/new wave/post-punk/alternative dance band New Order. Back in 1986, these guys released their fourth album, Brotherhood, and on that album was a terrific piece of intense electro-influenced synthpop called "Angel Dust." However, in that same year, "Angel Dust" would receive a largely instrumental remix treatment too, called "Evil Dust," and that remix would never actually appear on a New Order album until a re-release of Brotherhood in 2008.

Where "Evil Dust" did first appear though, was on a 1986 various artist compilation called Funky Alternatives Volume 1 that was released in the UK on a label called Concrete Productions. And in 1988, the song would also re-appear on a CD-video single for one of New Order's biggest ever hits, "True Faith," of which only 6,000 copies were ever pressed. And then in the mid-to-late 90s, the song would find itself on a handful of other budget various artist comps too, including a 1997 double-disc called Hypnotic State, put out by the usually not great, California-based Hypnotic Records, which is where I first encountered it.

So, for such a highly beloved, revolutionary, and era-defining band, this New Order song currently only has just under 30,000 plays on YouTube across a handful of uploads, which is very low, considering just how massive and devoted their fanbase is!

New Order - "Evil Dust"

And this playlist is also on YouTube Music.

So, as it currently stands, we're now at 11 songs in this playlist that end up totaling 55 minutes. And there's a couple terrific tracks on here that are nowhere to be found on Spotify too: the "Pecky Plus mix" of Glasgow band Secession's "The Magician," and one of my most favorite synthpop tunes of all time, the "Kalimba mix" of German band Cetu Javu's "Have in Mind," which feels like a quintessential closeout/roll-credits type of tune for any kind of 80s-set coming-of-age flick 😊.

More to come, eventually. Stay tuned!

Like what you hear? Follow me on Spotify and YouTube for more cool playlists and uploads!

#synthpop #synth pop #new wave #music #80s #80s music #80's #80's music #playlist #playlists #youtube playlist #youtube playlists #youtube music #youtube music playlist #youtube music playlists #youtube

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cultml · 2 years

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dhaaruni · 2 years

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Yes yes Chuck, we’re all looking forward to seeing Senate Republicans put forth the 60-vote threshold “Hurl Migrant Children Off Cliffs” and “Force California Secession” amendments that will all fail, only for the Inflation Reduction Act to pass on a party-line Democratic vote.

#twitter #politicking humour #he should retire and become a full time Twitter poaster #lol

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mariacallous · 1 year

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In contemporary American politics, talk of secession is rarely more than theater. Political leaders tease—sometimes bellow—the idea as a reaction to unfavorable election results, the prospect of big-ticket legislation with which they disagree, meat for their base, or to attract media attention. In reality, the barriers to secession by any state or region within the United States are exceptionally high.

There are, however, quasi-secessionist political movements that do not threaten the United States’ territorial or political integrity but nonetheless express a growing, elemental discomfort with one of the fundamental principles of a healthy democracy. Though these efforts, like their flashier secession relatives, carry little likelihood of success, the grassroots sentiments underpinning them—in particular, the decay of Americans’ willingness to be governed by their political rivals—render them worthy of analysis for what they communicate about polarization, hyper-partisanship, and political intolerance.

Secession from one state to another

From the Mid-Atlantic to the Pacific Northwest, rural counties in blue states have taken steps to redraw state lines to subsume themselves under neighboring red states or to form new states of their own. In some cases, such exercises have drawn sizeable community support, leading to the placement of the secession question on local ballots and subsequent approval by voters.

The Pacific Northwest is home to a long-running movement to reorganize state lines along political rifts. In Oregon, Washington, and northern California, as in much of the United States, rural counties are much redder than their densely populated, coastal counterparts. Citing dissatisfaction with the liberal policies of the state government, citizens in some rural Oregon counties have organized to place on the ballot the question of whether to break from their home state to join neighboring Idaho—a reliably red state for the past fourteen presidential elections, where Republicans helm every statewide and federal office. In 2021, five of those counties in Oregon forged ahead and voted to join Idaho. Similar votes are likely to be held in the future in rural counties in Washington and northern California.

In the Mid-Atlantic, Republican state lawmakers in heavily Democratic Maryland made overtures in 2021 to the state legislature in West Virginia expressing their desire to secede from their home state. The lawmakers—all representing portions of three counties in Maryland’s rural western panhandle—claimed in their letters that West Virginia, in both its professed values and the heavily Republican lean of its government, would be a better home for their constituents than Maryland, where Democrats enjoy supermajorities in the State House and reclaimed the Governor’s Mansion in November. Residents of the three counties have not yet been asked to weigh in on the switch via a ballot question, though the lawmakers have indicated that such a step could be taken in the future.

This phenomenon is not exclusive to the coasts. Over two dozen counties in Illinois, including four in the southern portion of the state that border ruby-red Kentucky, have taken steps to leave Illinois for redder pastures, including by passing non-binding resolutions that encourage local officials to explore the possibility of leaving the state. Meanwhile, residents of a county in northern Colorado have explored the idea of joining heavily Republican Wyoming. And in 2021, a New Mexico state senator proposed an amendment to the state constitution that would allow counties to pursue secession, either by joining neighboring states or by creating a new one.

Even if voters do approve a state switch via referendum, actually merging with a neighboring state and shifting state borders is an exceedingly arduous procedure. The process, which is similar to that by which new states are admitted to the nation via Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution, requires approval by both the legislatures of the affected states and by Congress.

Along with those high technical hurdles, states would be hard-pressed to find economic or political incentives to surrender counties to a neighbor or to allow them to form their own states. State legislatures are unlikely to pass off portions of their tax base to other jurisdictions. Ceding population, which helps determine, among other things, a state’s Electoral College votes and its number of congressional districts, is also a political non-starter. Some legal analysts have further argued that Supreme Court precedent renders county-level secession impossible.

What is notable about these movements, then, is not their potential to radically restructure political jurisdictions, but what they telegraph about the deterioration of Americans’ willingness to tolerate life under the rule of the opposing party.

Analyzing county-level secession

Residents who vote for their counties to switch states for political reasons send two messages with their ballots. First, that they are displeased with rule by their political rivals. The second message is less direct but no less consequential for the nation at large: Those voters signal an unwillingness to live in a state where their party does not control the levers of power and therefore does not dictate their state’s policy agenda. Once a cornerstone of democratic life, that toleration’s decay and a drift toward zero-sum thinking about power-sharing in governance bode poorly for the nation’s sociopolitical cohesion.

A sharpening rural-urban divide is a persuasive, though incomplete, explanation for the growth of these movements. The gulf between the two groups in key measures—socioeconomic status, education level, age, and others—has been widening for decades. Values shape what citizens expect of their elected officials and the bodies they comprise, meaning that as rural and urban Americans diverge further in their worldviews, their expectations of their representatives diverge concomitantly. Analysts have also argued that both parties have historically neglected rural populations, exacerbating their dissatisfaction.

What rural voters choose to do in the face of that disconnect (or neglect) is where polarization’s toxic effect becomes clear. For differences in policy priorities across demographics are not new. Americans, as participants in a democracy, have always had to stomach rule by the opposition, whether at the local, state, or federal level. Indeed, the persistence of democracy rests on individuals and parties maintaining a willingness to participate in the democratic system even when their party, their team, loses. Elections have consequences, meaning that when one’s political rivals win an election, conferring on them the prerogative to steer government, they reserve the right to legislate the priorities on which they campaigned.

But as American politics have radicalized, willingness to be in the minority has waned. Americans have become more restive under the rule of the opposition, be it at the state or federal level, increasingly viewing it as insufferable tutelage. In many ways, the impulse to call lost elections “stolen” or “rigged” is an outgrowth of that lack of toleration. The use of increasingly apocalyptic language to describe the election victory of the opposing side epitomizes the dire terms in which Americans have come to view living under the control of their political rivals. The spirit of competition that typifies democracy, specifically the effort to change strategies to attract new voters, to get behind leaders who offer real solutions and express a readiness to work across the aisle to devise solutions to problems afflicting both rural and urban Americans, and to expand one’s representation in government, has been supplanted by a readiness to blow up the system.

Even if that destructive impulse is not new, the impassioned drive toward life in uniformly like-minded political environments is. Indeed, in many ways, those counties seeking to join politically similar states are merely taking the next step toward the ideological homogeneity that has been congealing in the United States for the past several decades, with each party’s vote share growing in counties and states where it already does well. Americans increasingly choose where they live based on the political lean of the area. Polarization can now be tracked in geographical terms.

But there is a strong case to be made that the cross-aisle conversations which arose from that comingling of political ideologies was what once made American democracy so robust, and what now has rendered it so frail. County-level efforts to address political dissatisfaction by simply becoming part of neighboring states with more kindred political leadership only accelerate that self-sorting, further isolating Americans in their increasingly unbreachable ideological silos.

Rather than the louder, more theatrical shouts of secession from political leaders seeking points with the base, grassroots, county-level maneuvers to switch states should disquiet those attempting to peer into the nation’s future. Both exercises—the grand and the humble—bear little chance of success. But the latter figures as a better barometer of local dissatisfaction, a sign that the sociopolitical fabric anchoring American democracy is fraying. Certainly, that fabric has been stressed, stretched, and ripped; but never so irrevocably that it could not be stitched back together. Aside from offering valuable data to campaigns and leaders who seek to mend, not widen, the country’s political divides, these movements offer a window into local thinking about governance and toleration in today’s strained America.

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