It is taking a while for parity to come to pop culture. I wonder if this is the war the Pagans missed when Catholics came for them in the dark ages?
Right now I'm still thinking about the role media (and pop culture gatekeepers) play societally. In particular I'm thinking about the Chiefdom polity size split between war chiefs and religious/moral chiefs. Why do societies need moral gatekeepers? I suspect big societies do. We had religion for a while. But governmental pacing and leading of religion means we've left the sweet spot where society was equally balanced between secular moral chiefs and religious moral chiefs. And, we're clearly seeing Media (and academia) trying to take the role of the new moral chief.
I just have to say that my decades old prediction of US civil war is now pretty accurate. About 3 or 4 years ago I updated it a bit to suggest that any conflict should follow the standard weak empire evolutionary track. That's where a nation with too large of a de facto boundary fractures. The fracture typically produces two distinct states. Although during the fracture period more than that number of states may spring up, but over time, they coalesce or evaporate away.
Here's Tim Pool now discussing these issues based on a recent survey (of unknown quality) saying that around 40% of both Republicans and Democracts think it would be a good idea for the US to split into Red and Blue countries.
I think the spectre of a Trump 2nd (3rd) term would freak a lot of people out. This is especially true if he finally has a political machine and can pull the type of authoritarian BS that Biden's controllers can. Do you think the left wouldn't want to split if Trump purges the military, disbands the FBI and "builds it back better"? And then purges some of the judiciary due to various hyped up issues and "suddenly opened skeletons in the closet"?
Personally, I think figuring out the city state influence problem is the major issue. How do you keep city states from controlling urban states? You can remove the cities to some non-contiguous blue zone. Then the real cost of resources and labour could shoot up, providing equitable control between commoner classes and elite/coordinator classes. Coordinator centers would then have to go to small rural cities. Over time the same problems would emerge, but at least for a while issues would "flatten out". Horizontal or flat networks are good for a time, but not for a long time, and not during times of nasty military threats.
RESONANCE
One thing that will likely energize this split is the fact that many progressives want "America" to cease so that it can be recreated. This is probably an artefact of Hegellian dialetics. The radical left has made most of its culture war progress since the 90's by redefining terms. Thus, why not "redefine" your nation's name?
Once you do this, you have a clean Taliban-level break from cultural history. You can exclude anyone you want as an "other" and sacralize the allies/identities you want.
The only problem, is sometime the other side agrees to this. This produces a pyrrhic victory. Your side gets what it theoretically wants, but it looses what it oft-time really wants - power over their foes.
Here's a twitter post with a racial progressive calmly espousing the end of America. I can't see many right wingers disagreeing with her. "Let's divide the country and you can do whatever racial things you want - we'll focus on equality of opportunity and equality under the law."
