Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Ben on February 16, 2020, 07:51:30 AM
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Another of the very unlikely to happen secession trends. I thought this one was interesting for a couple of reasons.
First, because for quite some time, the "secession" goal has been parts of OR and Northern CA splitting off into the state of Jefferson (where I would have moved in a heartbeat). This new one is cutting off a large chunk of OR and asking Idaho to take it. Their reasoning makes sense for the most part from my own experience with Eastern Oregonians, who seem to be quite a bit more conservative/libertarian than many Western Idahoan city slickers*. Though Ashland OR may be complaining about it, as the last time I was there, it seemed kinda hipster and liberal (but with extremely nice people). :)
Second, this is a pretty good example of the urban/rural disconnect, which might be worse in OR and WA than in many other states. The "new Oregon" would be a pretty small state in this scenario. All those dispersed towns and cities in "deplorable Oregon" may only have 1000-30,000 populations (though a few cities, like Medford are approaching the 100K mark), but they still the deserve the same representation that that tiny Portland metro of ~2.5 million not only gets, but forces on the rest of the state.
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2020/02/secede-to-idaho-heres-why-disgruntled-oregon-residents-are-hoping-to-do-just-that/
*Though I was extremely proud to read yesterday that a large and openly armed peaceful protest occurred outside Bloomberg's Boise campaign office, and zero counter-protestors showed up. :)
EDIT: I just looked up the total population of OR, which is a bit over 4 million, so this seems like even more of an example where slightly over half the votes, concentrated in a relatively small area, control the state. In places like CA, these population centers are a bit more geographically distributed, like LA and San Francisco, rather than being in a single, small location.