Trump Or No Trump, America Has Not Been, And May Never Be, One Nation

The rise of Donald Trump, regardless of whether or not he wins the November presidential election, is one more indicator that America is not one country. This was the case even earlier, when Americans were either Red (Republicans) or Blue (Democrat), but the ideological divide has only been sharpening in recent years. Any electoral map of America will show solid Blues on the West coast and North-East of America, and a Deep Red in the middle and south. A few American states swing both ways, deciding election outcomes, but the cultural, economic and social ethos of Red and Blue have been fairly consistent and different.

Normally, prosperity tends to blur ideological divides, but in America they have only sharpened. From the Tea Party to born-agains and neocons at the extreme Right of the Republican party to the Bernie Sanders-led Left of the Democratic party, American ideology is once again splintering. This time it is going beyond the normal Left-Right, Conservative-Liberal divisions of the past. The rise of Trump, who has drawn some votes both from the Left and Right, is an indication that even the two national parties are not able to bridge the gulf between different Americas. America is splintering beyond Red and Blue too. Barring war or an external threat, nothing can unite America easily.

India is often mentioned as an unnatural state, given its extreme diversity in terms of language, ethnicity, and religion, but the United States of America is the ultimate unnatural state, a state first settled by diverse peoples from Europe, then expanded through violence and ethnic cleansing, and then inundated with two additional racial infusions – the forced importation of Africans and the demographic migration of Hispanics into America. It is difficult to see why America is still one country, when the sense of nation is no longer what it was, say, even 50 years earlier.

What was once a melting pot is now becoming a salad bowl nation again, especially with the influx of Hispanics in a big way in recent decades. While earlier European immigrants to America found it sensible to learn English in order to communicate with one another, today you can travel in large parts of Hispanic America without knowing much English.

The Mexicans lost much of southern California, New Mexico and Texas to America in mid-18th century wars, but the physical migration of present-day Mexicans has begun turning that defeat into covert victory. Some 18 percent of Americans are Hispanics – the largest single ethnic group.

Todd Buchholzz, in his book The Price of Prosperity, lists five factors that have dented America’s earlier sense of nationhood. These are falling birth-rates among Whites, globalisation, eroding work ethic, high indebtedness and a growing multiculturalism. These factors, apart from religious and economic pressures, are tearing America apart. Trump’s support base, not surprisingly, comprises the angry, White male who has lost out from globalisation and immigration. It is a blowback against multiculturalism. Greater diversity has meant that trust between communities has broken down, as one group no longer feels that its taxes are going to the right people; and vice-versa. Where Americans were earlier willing to help one another and volunteer for social work, today, that trend is reversing.

Nations, says Buchhollz, are just as likely to unravel after periods of prosperity as after periods of depression. He points out how extremely powerful empires like the Ottomans or the Hapsburgs faded into history despite ruling large parts of the world at various points.

In part, what Buchholzz says is not new; all civilisations rise on the basis of a perceived common destiny (or common enemy) and strong work ethics, but start falling apart once prosperity is achieved, and it is no longer necessary to work hard to earn a living; we also import cheaper labour to do our work, and, in due course, we are no longer able to sustain our standards of living with so little work. Ultimately, it is those who work who gain prosperity.

Apart from the pressures brought on by generations of prosperity, which has eroded the Protestant work ethic, Americans are also being split by their differing cultures – something one tends not to notice if you are not an American.

According to Colin Woodard, America is not one nation, but an aggregation of as many as 11 of them. In his book, American Nations: A History of the 11 Rival Regional Cultures in North America, Woodard says that the two poles which lead these 11 national cultures are Yankeedom and the Deep South.

A report in Business Insider, which summarises Woodard’s book, says that the 11 nations embedded in the USA (and which include contiguous areas in Canada and Mexico) are the following:

Yankeedom, which is the American north-east, including areas north of New York City, and parts of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Yankeedom was initially peopled by “radical Calvinists” and it has no problem with big government.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Deep South, which was established with the help of slaves, and is dead-set against government interventions and regulation. It has a “rigid social structure.”

A close partner to Yankeedom is New Netherland, which, as the name suggests, was peopled by the Dutch. It has a commercial heart, with a high tolerance for diversity. It comprises New York City and parts of New Jersey.

Another ally of Yankeedom is the Left Coast, which comprises the Californian coast, parts of Oregon and Washington State.

The Deep South’s closest allies are in Greater Appalachia, a region which abhors Yankee values, and values personal liberty to the limit. This region includes parts of Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, Texas and Illinois. Apart from the Deep South, this is broadly Trump territory right now.

Also allied to the Deep South to some extent is the Far West, which includes the states of Montana, Idaho, Utah, Washington, Oregon, North and South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, Nebraska, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, Kansas, and parts of California.

Hispanic America is another nation, which Woodard calls El Norte, comprising parts of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas and Arizona.

Sandwiched between the two extremes of Yankeedom and the Deep South are the Midlands, which tend to include several swing states that decide US elections. The Midlands were largely settled by English Quakers, and are politically moderate, comprising the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska.

The three remaining cultural states of America are Tidewater (comprising Chesapeake Bay and North Carolina), which Woodard says is in decline, New France, which exists in two places – in the areas bordering Canadian Quebec and around New Orleans in Louisiana - and First Nation, which is peopled by native Americans, who hold a huge expanse of territory that borders Canada and enjoy sovereignty.

Woodard’s book should be a revelation to anyone who wonders why Americans fight so much over Left-Right ideology, Religion and Secularism, Big Government and Deregulation, Welfarism and Personal Liberty. It’s basically because they are not one people now. They never were. The rise of American prosperity has deepened the cleavages that always existed. It is widening under economic pressure now that American power is no longer unchallenged and its economic superiority is waning.

To be at peace with itself, America needs to break up. It needs to become a free trade area like the European Union.

(Acknowledgement: The details on Woodard’s 11 Nations of America have been summarised from a report in Business Insider on the same subject.)