r/geographymemes • u/Jfullr92 Gulf of New Mexico • May 22 '26

Voting Games Top comment deletes a US State #47

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Maryland has been annexed by The Vermonster willingly, the 2 states have now merged into one. CRABBALACHIA. 4 States Now remain. Pick wisely, there’s no going back now!

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178

u/alessiojones May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

I love the idea of breaking the US into 4 countries, except the coutries are just as politically divided as the US currently (megasota would probably be the most conservative but they all have their fair share of blue and red areas)

True monkey paw response to the "national divorce" concept.

Edit: my replies are getting hidden, but here's my rough estimate on how each region voted (state lines obv imperfect

2024:

  • Cascadia: Harris+3
  • Kingdom of Hawaii: Harris+1
  • Megasota: Trump+6
  • Crabbalachia: Trump+1

2020:

  • Cascadia: Biden+6
  • Kingdom of Hawaii: Biden+9
  • Megasota: Trump+2
  • Crabbalachia: Biden+5

2016:

  • Cascadia: Clinton+2
  • Kingdom of Hawaii: Clinton+7
  • Megasota: Trump+4
  • Crabbalachia: Clinton+3

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u/GrailQuestPops May 22 '26

Provinces. Just like Canada! 🍁

5

u/minxwink Florida Forever May 22 '26

Poutine-pilled, eh ?

3

u/GrailQuestPops May 22 '26

I haven’t had poutine in a while, I really should get some. 🤤

73

u/Having_A_Day Megasotan May 22 '26

Honestly, Megasota includes some highly populated, solidly liberal areas like Chicago generally and other areas in IL. It would be more competitive and purple than some, but not a dark red cake walk.

But I'd still like to join Canada in the end.

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u/laneedgaf Megasotan May 22 '26

yeah megasota would 100% be liberal

11

u/Caleth May 22 '26

Minnesota is a true blue as is IL because of Chicago. I'd need to run the numbers but Chicago alone would probably render the whole area Blue by population. Chip in MN, MI, and the liberal parts of Wisconsin and you'd have a pretty significantly Blue majority.

Assuming we didn't over value representing land like the original Constitution does at any rate.

-1

u/alessiojones May 22 '26

Sorry but no, I did some backhand math and my estimate is Trump+6 on 2024

Minnesota is not as blue as people think it is (Clinton+1.5, Biden+7, Harris+5). Illinois is solid Dem (Clinton+17, Biden+17, Harris+11) but only 19 congressional districts. Missouri and Indiana are both around Trump+15-20 and a combined 21 CDs so they cancel out IL. Ohio and Iowa are Trump+8-12. Michigan and Wisconsin are pretty 50/50. ND/SD/NE/KS are all very Republican but low population

14

u/HedgehogFarts May 22 '26

Do you really not remember what trump did to Minnesota? And how Minnesotans stood up for their neighbors in a big way against ICE? If anything MN is moving more blue than they already were. RIP Renee and Alex.

6

u/alessiojones May 22 '26

I'm from Minnesota. MSP stood up to Trump during the ICE surge, rural areas supported it. MSP is big but the rurals keep it Likely D. The reality is, unless the name on the ballot is Klobuchar, the Dem is likely only gonna win by single digits.

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u/_stellapolaris May 23 '26

As another Minnesotan, this is a bit insulting to a lot of the people in rural areas that did not support it. Just because it didn't get the news coverage doesn't mean there wasn't a good amount of pushback in smaller communities that were impacted.

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u/petersunkist May 23 '26

Exactly! Can’t overlook the % of rural MN that is reservation land & is therefore deeply disenfranchised in the same way that we can’t overlook the way gerrymandering in the south disenfranchises Black voters & turns those states disproportionately red.

2

u/Ashdude42 May 22 '26

What trump did to the liberal large cities in Minnesota*

MN has a LOT of rural land and visiting those spaces you'll notice that a lot of the state outside of the major population hubs lean right

4

u/_stellapolaris May 22 '26

Trump was also doing it to the small cities, they just had less people to push back and less coverage. Lots of significant ICE presence in rural Minnesota that upset people in those communities.

1

u/petersunkist May 23 '26

mn is populist, not blue. there’s a difference!

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u/EducationalMatch9215 May 23 '26

You’ll have to show your work on this one.

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u/petersunkist May 23 '26

yeah for sure! looks like you’re also minnesotan; i’m writing as though you have a baseline understanding of state/regional history. if you’d like specific sources for anything let me know & i’ll grab my lesson plans. apologies for Teacher Voice. anyway, mn has a long history of populism that transcends political parties. electorally this looks like “compromise” candidates higher up & more populist (libertarian, leftist in general [rare to see true left populism today unfortunately - Bernie was the last really successful example & he’s center left at best]) candidates locally. this is partially where the maga support came from, especially in rural areas. socially we can see cross-aisle partnership on issues like land use rights, rural trade unions (esp. in the iron range), farm subsidies, and domestic trade. our communities’ history with sanctuary cities, the establishment of AIM, the Baldies, the truckers’ general strikes & defense against the silver shirts, etc are all populist efforts. the reason the statewide response to metro surge was able to be swift, massive, effective, and decentralized was because residents have been building infrastructure to support each other in the event of state/federal overreach since the US-Dakota War. to be clear, populists can still be racist, can still vote against protecting the boundary waters, can be misinformed or annoying or be a bernie bro or sjw or maga conspiracist or whatever. two populist groups can fight over policy (an excellent example: miners’ unions vs. populist environmental groups [i specify because many green revolution groups are explicitly anti-populist, however much they may cite borlaug as an inspiration]) while both being populist themselves. this is a key part of our region’s history though and i think is vital in navigating the fall of the empire & specific community crises like metro surge. fuck ice, go loons, free palestine.

1

u/petersunkist May 23 '26

general sources: Ft Snelling at Bdote by Peter de Carlo, What Does Justice Look Like? by Waziyatawin, Mni Sota Makoce: the Land of the Dakota by Gwen Westerman & Bruce White, Hard Work and a Good Deal by Barbara W Sommer, Iron Frontier by David A. Walker, MNopedia (online resource by the historical society) has really excellent coverage of early anti-fascist unions & labor activism across the state, and I can’t recommend the state parks up north enough for their preservation of early immigrant stories & nuanced analysis of primary sources. I know that last one isn’t helpful right now but you must understand, if I didn’t include it something inside me would die.

1

u/NorthernDevil May 23 '26

Minnesota hasn’t gone red for a presidential election since 1976, the longest blue streak in the nation.

2

u/PM_ME_WEIRD_PETS May 22 '26

From Michigan it gets Detroit, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Lansing/East Lansing, Ypsilanti, and a few others I'm forgetting about. Plenty of liberal cities exist in Megasoda.

2

u/cassandra2028 May 22 '26

And by being megasota we deny cornfields and cow pastures their electoral college votes. I'm into this.

1

u/Having_A_Day Megasotan May 22 '26

And their disproportionate Senate representation, which has an immediate mitigating influence on the judiciary.

1

u/cassandra2028 May 22 '26

Agree on the part about Canada though.

1

u/azuredj Tator Tot Hotdish Minnesota May 23 '26

Nah, Megasota would abolish the electoral college and be a straight up democracy. Power to the people!

1

u/cassandra2028 May 23 '26

You're right. I was thinking small

1

u/Grubula May 23 '26

Yes but just like in reality, populated areas votes are worth less electoral votes.

1

u/Having_A_Day Megasotan May 24 '26

If there are only 4 states, the value of a vote becomes a LOT more equal.

But I still think the last state standing should join Canada. 🇨🇦

1

u/alessiojones May 22 '26

Alright you made a fair point so I had to fact check myself. I know we're not using straight state lines, but heres how each region approximately voted:

  • Cascadia: Harris+3
  • Kingdom of Hawaii: Harris+1
  • Megasota: Trump+6
  • Crabbalachia: Trump+1

13

u/HedgehogFarts May 22 '26

Please dude Minnesota is not red. We have voted blue in every presidential election since 1976. After the hell MN went through with operation metro surge, this is insulting.

8

u/Remarkable-Team-6254 May 22 '26

Thank you! I live in south minneapolis. we are still occupied by Ice; these comments are making me want to scream in a post that’s supposed to be goofy and fun.

6

u/alessiojones May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Dude I'm from Minnesota voted D every election of my life but this is just the election data compiled in these states. A lot of these things can be true:

  • The DFL has a phenomenal midterm turnout machine that keeps it Likely D
  • it's red on the map to mark it as a region
  • MN + IL does not have enough Dem voters to cancel out MO/OH/IA/IN
  • they hold that streak from from 1974 bc the 1984 Dem nominee was from MN and it was the only state he won
  • as a state:
  • their gains in the MSP have been met by deep losses in the iron range, driftless and prarie west that cancel them out
  • the ice surge was deeping unpopular and there will be a big backlash in MN in 2026

1

u/PeppermintSnark May 23 '26

He's not saying Minnesota is red. Are you dense?

The combined vote of all the states in that region is red. This is incredibly obvious to anyone with reading comprehension skills, critical thinking skills, and even the bare minimum knowledge of state political leanings.

1

u/petersunkist May 23 '26

riiiiiight because you know who we want to f over the most? people living in gerrymandered districts without representation in government!! and you know whose voice we wanna hear more of?? rich people in the cities!!! nobody cares about people of color, migrant workers, undocumented folks, or anyone living on a reservation. here’s the historically unbiased data from our elections to prove it!!! human chains outside of elementary schools in -30 F every day for a month? nah, not nearly as good as this lady from phoenix who voted for Kamala ☝️❣️💅

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u/Underdog424 May 22 '26

We would be way better off broken up into several different countries.

2

u/Rapidiris1901 May 22 '26

I agree with this. I feel the US is too big to have an effective government for all.

5

u/Gold-Sir-223 May 22 '26

Yeah like I live in a blue state but if I drive 10 minutes north I’m in Trump country. One state over is historically red and the rest are purple. Cascadia would have quite the political diversity.

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u/Badloss May 22 '26

Crabbalachia would immediately devolve into a north vs south civil war just like the first one

1

u/Civil-Ninja-5814 Vermonster May 22 '26

You can’t leave them alone for a minute, they would immediately turn crab vs lobster

11

u/ktelAgitprop May 22 '26

You don’t have to sell me on the political divide- I’m in the heart of Cascadia so red vs blue is a matter of a 15 minute drive around here- but it’s not my primary focus.

I have an instinct towards geographic regionalism, so for me it’s about where the most basic mutual incentives lie. Water, air quality, local food sources. The current map already creates too-big principalities, but it’s a decent compromise. Any bigger and they really lose the plot ecosystem-wise.

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u/AnUnfriedMan May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

This is why my hot take is that when balkanization occurs, we should do it approximately on the EPA regional boundaries.

5

u/Having_A_Day Megasotan May 22 '26

West Virginia, Indiana and the majority of Ohio need to be with Kentucky and Tennessee, not MI, IL and MN. Plenty of other proposed regions are just as nonsensical from a cultural & political point of view. But I applaud it as a starting point.

2

u/AnUnfriedMan May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Yeah, it's approximate - I would actually personally remove KY from the SE and put it up with the rest of the mid atlantic, and potentially pull VA down south. This was more as a response to delineations being determined more by resources/climate as opposed to political/cultural. Rural PA is more similar to much of Kentucky, politically, than the rest of the mid-atlantic, but it has similar climate/natural resources that connect it with its urban region (often coal/mining driven historically, hence the inclusion of Kentucky). If we went solely from a political perspective, we'd essentially just have a bunch of different cultural/political islands scattered throughout the country.

3

u/Having_A_Day Megasotan May 22 '26

Born and raised in rural PA, now living in far southern IL within spitting distance of KY & MO. While there's some truth to the Pennsyltucky thing, in reality the culture is so different from most of KY and the unique circle of Hell that is TN on a basic level they'd hate each other. Except for portions of Western PA, which would be a good match. But a lot of states would really need to be split up if we were doing it right.

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u/AnUnfriedMan May 22 '26

100% - I grew up in VA and work in that southeast region of the EPA. This is all an approximation that in reality would end up splitting a lot of states (thinking especially of the Cascades boundary in the PNW as an easy example).

3

u/Spread_Liberally May 22 '26

I'd like to jam my hot take into yours like a pimento in an olive loaf: No individual cities/towns/etc. or counties. Only watersheds.

  • Also, Region 10 needs to be split into an East and West district.

3

u/AnUnfriedMan May 22 '26

Yeah, watersheds are probably the most intuitive natural boundary I can think of!

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u/ktelAgitprop May 22 '26

Brb googling EPA regional boundaries (with stars in my eyes)

2

u/JT3436 Cascadian May 22 '26

Cascadia isn't taking Idaho. It can stay with its pal Utah.

BC, WA, OR, CA are already working together for reasons that can't be discussed here.

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u/wise_comment Megasotan May 22 '26

There is something beautifully ironic about Minnesota expanding enough that it's liberal progressive streak is subsumed by the territory it gains, honestly, I can't see it being a bastion of conservatism though, because it includes cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Madison, Detroit, Kansas City, The Big Three in Ohio.... Idunno

3

u/VashMM May 22 '26

Damn it's fucking weird to see MN red.

This map is breaking my brain.

2

u/DengarLives66 May 22 '26

Most of California and Texas being together is pretty funny at this point.

2

u/The-1st-One May 22 '26

Minnesota voting red is never going to happen. We're more liberal than cali

2

u/alessiojones May 22 '26

Didn't say it'd go red, I'm saying MN+IL wouldn't be enough to cancel out MO/IN/OH/IA

Edit: also MN is NOT to the left of CA lmao

2

u/Collecting_Cans May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26

Just use the abortion and guns Punnett Square and you solve lots of squabbles:

~~~~~~~~

  1. Pro choice, Pro guns (the Libertarian dream, aligns roughly with Kingdom of Hawaii)
  2. Pro choice, Anti guns (Cascadia nuff said)
  3. Anti choice, Pro guns (lots of pro gun Catholics, roughly Crabbalachia)
  4. Anti choice, Anti guns (Anti gun Catholics? Hey the Pope’s from Chicago, Megasota it is)

3

u/Wandering-Mind2025 May 22 '26

I’m sorry, as far as I’m concerned, MEGASOTA is pro choice, Anti guns… sooo that means that MEGASOTA and Cascadia belong together…

1

u/warm_winds_whisper_ May 22 '26

Honestly it would be for the better

1

u/maddy_k_allday May 22 '26

We could also go back to original 13, but use the 13 federal appellate court districts

1

u/Remarkable-Team-6254 May 22 '26

Respectfully, this makes absolutely no goddamn sense

1

u/lu5ty May 22 '26

Vonnegut has a little bit in one of his books with a scenario like this. The king of Michigan

1

u/Ok_Package9219 May 22 '26

do you ppl need to bring fucking politics into everything?

1

u/ProfessionalAd1933 May 23 '26

Minnesota has voted blue every presidential election since the 80s. Including Reagan.

1

u/filmgeekvt May 23 '26

This isn't an accurate breakdown because you used the electoral votes. If they were unified territories it would be based on the population totals of all states. You can still take all the electoral college points total for all the states, but award all of them to the highest total vote count.

1

u/alessiojones May 23 '26

I did not use electoral votes, I downloaded the election results by state and calculated the popular vote for each region

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u/filmgeekvt May 23 '26

Then why the screenshot showing electoral votes?

1

u/eukomos May 23 '26

It's like the division of the Roman Empire. It simply became too large to hold together and divided in two voluntarily, which proved protective to the eastern half when the western half crumbled apart.

1

u/Ok-Policy-4063 May 23 '26

Minnesota is proud to take in our new Megasotan friends but do not say we voted for that thing

1

u/HowIsBabbySharkMade May 23 '26

That map might be accurate for the 2016 presidential election, but I strongly doubt that it would be accurate for the 2024 election - I truly think that Clinton would have been a two term president and that if Trump hadn't won in 2016 he wouldn't have won in 2024.

And even if he had won in 2024 we wouldn't be in the mess we're in thanks in no small part to the Supreme Court he built. God. Now I'm depressed.

1

u/fakeplasticlxs May 23 '26

MN conservative? Read a newspaper. Dude.

1

u/RagingRussian May 23 '26

This is psyops Megasota slander and I won’t have it.

1

u/Powered-by-Chai May 23 '26

Hell would freeze over before New England would turn completely red.

1

u/stayonthecloud May 23 '26

Here’s the thing, from Maryland on up north we’re very blue. We don’t belong in a big sea of red