Thread by @balajis

California has the scale of a nation state.

If it’s doing better (or thinks it’s doing better) in controlling the virus than the rest of the country, it may put up quarantine borders. A green zone discouraging travel from red zones.

Like 16 other US states have already done.

https://twitter.com/gavinnewsom/status/1245158370824216576

Now 16 states are restricting travel.

- Alaska
- Delaware
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Nevada
- North Dakota
- Oklahoma
- Rhode Island
- South Carolina
- Texas
- Vermont
- West Virginia

And a North Carolina county.
edition.cnn.com/2020/03/31/us/…

A breakup of the EU would likely come first, but the American Devolution into 50 states may be underway.

A sci-fi scenario? Yet the reason some predicted *something* along these lines is because scale causes disalignment. It's easier to get 40M people on the same page than 320M.

There's no lower bound to devolution beyond what is politically & economically feasible. Doesn't have to stop at 50 states. There are 3000+ counties in the US.

It's happening at the county level in North Carolina and the town level in Italy.

It might seem paradoxical for red states, often rhetorically positioned as the core of the "real America", to suddenly flip into independence. But federalism has been growing in popularity, and calls for a "national divorce" predated the current crisis. nymag.com/intelligencer/…

It might seem paradoxical for blue states to suddenly flip to strong border controls, but if you recall there aren’t too many Republicans at Harvard or the Times. So blue institutions may try to get by without reds. Especially if reds are thought to be spreading a deadly virus.

This by @mckaycoppins is worth reading. The emerging cleavage is as follows:

- Blues will say reds aren't social distancing enough
- Reds will say virus is worst in blue cities

So, that's how this morphs from public health into a political issue. 🤦‍♂️
theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

There aren't many who had "pandemic" as the reason for a possible EU breakup or American Devolution.

But there are plenty who thought Brexit, or the next financial crisis, or US polarization was a fracture point. The virus is putting more pressure on those existing divisions.