Americans: If your state decided to secede from the US what would you do?

You want to know why the very idea can be but a pipe dream, and those who clamor for it have not thought it through? Those places most eager to leave are exactly the ones whose very subsistence hangs on Federal largesse. Imagine De Santis announcing the planned secession of Florida from the meddlesome national government, and then having to explain the immediate cessation of those social security checks and medicare benefits to all the dumb seniors who cheer him on.

I would stay right here in California. Anybody that didn’t want to be a Californian would be welcome to leave.

California gets a minimal net amount of money from the Federal Government. We could get by without Federal Aid.

@zenvelo exactly right. In fact, it would be a nightmare for the secessionists, who must witness the mass exodus of young people from the 3rd world places to the places with the money, jobs and superior state sponsored infrastructures. Pretty much, the same as today, only decidedly more stark and undeniable.

Given the industry, tourism, education and research, healthcare, and geographic location, I think Massachusetts would be fine on our own.

According to some research done in 2017:

Massachusetts would rank number one in median income, beating out Luxembourg and Norway.

We’d rank number five in GDP per capita, and be at the same level as the United States.

We did score low in obesity, have an older population, and lower average birth rate — so we might not be around long, but we’d be a fabulous country for a while.

@HP Good point about social security checks! How would that be handled? We readily ask for FEMA help in Florida too.

I never hear Floridians talking about or wanting to secede. The state is full of people from other states. Not only from other states, a good portion live in two states.

I would think (guess) most people who talk about wanting to secede are born, raised, and probably lived most of their life in their state.

I honestly don’t know what I’d do.. move to CA, I guess, though the transition would suuuuck. A general rule in America, if you have a Medicaid waiver, don’t move to another state. That said, I think a US citizenship is the more important document to retain. Canada might be ok, but I’d be worried about access to medical services, plus they might not take us, because ableism.

I don’t see how a state could survive without just becoming a client state of the US. Unless a state can enforce its borders, it isn’t sovereign. With the pullout of federal money and bodies, who would be protecting the new nations border? Will the people who stay be down with the spike in new taxes to cover the myriad of services the federal government was in charge of, or will they just be happy living in a developing nation? It’s all so fraught, and free movement is the paradigm towns, cities and states were developed under. Can you imagine Kanas City folk not being allowed to go to Kansas, Texarkanians not being allowed in Arkansas, or New Jerseyians not being allowed to go to New York. Or Florida people just stuck on the wang everytime a hurricane comes through?

If it ever happened, the new nation would be different from previous experiments in government. I truly doubt it would survive long.

Secession would be interesting but we are stronger unified.
My primary concern would be our retirees on Medicaid more than anything.

I’d also take a good hard look at my state’s resources before voting to secede.

I wonder if the US would allow a trial three years. Go ahead and try it, and then the state can vote again at the end of three years. Maybe the UK should have done that regarding leaving the European Union.

The truth is that the thing unifying this country is the places doing well helping those limping along. That and the fact that the Federal government (all of us combined) can print money at will instead of collecting it from the rich and their corporations.

We’d have to move, my wife works remotely for a contractor of the United States.

Personally, I find this idea rather silly at best. If a state could secede from the USA its economy would fall into ruin and those in charge of the “new state/country” would be wanting back in no time. Far too many people and businesses rely on the Federal government they are too invested in the benefits. What about the “new states” older retired people? Would this new country be able to support them?

It very much matters which state, why and in what way it seceded, and whether it’s joining something else.

I sort of like the idea of the West Coast or the Pacific Northwest becoming “Cascadia” and/or joining British Columbia or Canada. I feel like there are significant cultural and political differences such that I might rather like that, and prefer to not keep arguing with the Bible Belt in particular.

I’d feel even more alien in mainstream US culture than I already do, if I lived in many other parts of the USA, especially Texas, the South, and much of the Midwest, and also to some extent the East Coast and/or Chicago. So if I were living in one of those places and they seceded, I’d leave. I might see a lawyer about whether it could be used to help me move instead to Europe, where I’d probably be more content.

@RayaHope of course brings up a good point, that it’s very unlikely to actually happen, and would involve an extreme amount of chaos and cost. There would need to be attempts to make sense of not only trade, but politics, infrastructure, military stuff . . .

Sit back and wait for it to blow over.

I would never live in a state dumb enough to do that in the first place.
Those states want their own freedom so they can start putting asbestos back in homes, relaxing regulations at chemical factories, and lowering everyone’s wages.

Quit my job and work on trying to make it happen. I’ve been saying I want CA to secede since I was a teen.

It doesn’t sound like a good idea but I doubt the financial burden would be much trouble. Remember that all those federal taxes would now go to the state in addition to the current state taxes. Not to mention the bloated federal payroll would no longer be a burden. I may have to move out of California but I’ve been wanting to do that for quite some time anyway.

Then there’s the question of secede to what? Clearly, certain states could not possibly persist minus Federal participation.

@Jaxk Come on out to the middle. Plenty of water here and our lakes have sand beaches. :)

I think West Virginia and Alabama pay a dollar per person for every $1.25 the receive from the Federal Government !

They’d be SCREWED

@Jaxk If you’ve been wanting to do that for some time, what’s stopping you?

My wife! She won’t move away from her family. I not willing to lose her quite yet.

@Jaxk Fair enough!

Are you possibly talking about those pesky ‘flyover’ states that tire when coastal
states legislatively ram their coastal ideals down their throat?

I’d be dead set against it!

Those flyover states are flyover because your kids flee to those coastal states to join in ramming those progressive ideals down your regressive throats.