Blog entry supplemental four: We live in interesting times…

The old Chinese curse is proving increasingly apposite in these troubling times. The election of Donald Trump is forcing me to rethink some of the predictions I made in chapter four of A Children’s Crusade. My assumption had always been that a future break-up of the United States would be as a result of the secession of South, the South-West, and Mid-Western states, following a pattern similar to that set in the Civil War. Obviously this was good dramatically as I could evoke many of the Romantic aspects of nineteenth century US history, but it now seems increasingly implausible.
From the vantage point of January 2017, it would seem more likely that any secession would come from the other side; with the prosperous, densely populated, culturally inclusive (and Democrat voting!) states of the East and West Coasts deciding that an electoral system that patently favours the Republicans and leads to the political agenda being set by the underpopulated, insular states in the middle of the country is unsupportable, and making plans to leave themselves!
I look forward (with a certain amount of trepidation!) to developments over the next twenty years, assuming we all live that long!
Happy New Year