United States Government

[Kaname Shikara]

I've been wondering for a while now about what might happen if the US Government was somehow shut down. We all know of everything that has happened/happening, and that the US Government is soooo far in debt. But, what do you believe might happen if they were to be shut down? I believe there might be riots, almost certain.

[SuXrys]

I don't think that they ever would be shut down in the first place.
I think that they would shut down alot of other things to maintain the goverment.

You could only hope that one of those things were their salary...


A goverment is so vital to a sociaty that it's likely that it would completly disapear.

[animeyay]

The US government has shut down in the past, like during the fight between President Clinton and the Congressional Republicans.
No big deal. All the essential services will still be operating, while the Congress will try to come up with something to end the shutdown.

I, for one, would like to see that happen at least once. Considering that I live right next to DC, it would be refreshing to go to work on unjammed roads due to that the government workers would be forced to stay home when there's a shutdown. (By law, it is illegal for them to work during a shutdown.)

[SuXrys]

The US government has shut down in the past, like during the fight between President Clinton and the Congressional Republicans.

I didn't know that. You learn something new each day!

[-GAZKUL-]

It would be a good idea in theory

[Eris]

Let's say the US government breaks down. With nothing to hold the states together, they would probably break into a half-dozen or so countries, cracking apart according to ideological fault lines. A few northern states could possibly join Canada. There's always the possibility of a military power grab, so it's likely at least some of them would be military dictatorships.

[animeyay]

Let's say the US government breaks down. With nothing to hold the states together, they would probably break into a half-dozen or so countries, cracking apart according to ideological fault lines. A few northern states could possibly join Canada. There's always the possibility of a military power grab, so it's likely at least some of them would be military dictatorships.

Doesn't sound half-bad. At least I'll be on the liberty and education's side XD

[Eris]

Doesn't sound half-bad. At least I'll be on the liberty and education's side XD

Something like that. And as a exclave of Jesusland, Alaska is very poorly defended, and given it's rich in natural resources, it could be annexed by either USLE or China.

Though if I were to draw my own map based on voting history, population density and the difficulty in holding sparsely populated territory, I'd go with something like this:


Where blue is disputed/lawless land and green is candidates for foreign annexation.

[Manhattan_Project_2000]

I prefer the sort of splits in William Gibson's Bridge Trilogy, where things break down more along the lines of culture. Like California breaks into NoCal and SoCal which are separate sovereign nations, but big parts of say, the great plains, clump together. It's never really mentioned, but the Bridge Trilogy might not be a separate universe from the Sprawl Trilogy, so it's possible the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axiswiki exists too, which is always an interesting idea (It's basically a giant city that stretches from Boston to Atlanta after urban sprawl made the cites on the eastern seaboard largely indistinguishable).

[Skylar1]

Few things need to be considered here, since there are varying degrees of socio-economical unrest. (this is just my own personal take on it)

Economic:

Level 1: Austerity Measures (governance actions taken to restore fiscal order)
Level 2: partial government shutdown (temporary lack of funding)
Level 3: total government shutdown (default on obligations)


Social:

Level 1: Civil Protest (public demonstration to express discontent)
Level 2: Partial government collapse (major drastic changes and restructuring under the same administrative body)
Level 3: Total government collapse (administrative body fails in holding structure necessary to function)

As we can see by the US's current situation, it's safe to say that within the past year or so we've entered into the first stage, not a good sign, but not impossible to still fix at this point of course. I can't predict the future, so I really don't know.




To play around with ideas for fun though, should worst case scenario in which the federal government permanently ended, I think you would likely see first the state of texas declaring sovereignty (shocker). California would likely annex southern Arizona to form the Republic of California.

Oregon and Washington would probably join into British Colombia. New England would mostly likely have little change and would become New US (capital remaining the same, and comprised of only 10 states). Maine would probably rejoin Canada. Florida (??).

The southern states would join to form a confederate, the Midwest would probably do the same as the southern states. Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio would become a Union-based democracy, and New Mexico probably wouldn't have even noticed anything had happened.

[Haoie]

They're the greatest!

At wasting money.

[sabishii1/2]

In any country... when the government loses its grip... there will surely be chaos....

[Velvet_Nightmare]

Doesn't sound half-bad. At least I'll be on the liberty and education's side XD

XD

I'd so move out of Jesusland in a heartbeat :|

[animeyay]

Oregon and Washington would probably join into British Colombia. New England would mostly likely have little change and would become New US (capital remaining the same, and comprised of only 10 states). Maine would probably rejoin Canada.

What's stopping the New England and Mid-Atlantic states from joining Canada? I would have no problem with it. Is it really so vital for a successor government of the US to exist in the scenario of a dissolution?

[Robin Sena]

then there might be the fear of what happened during the first Russian Revolution with the rebels wiping out all live presidents and congresspeople and senators, then reorganising the remains of what was once a goverment into the first American Empire, for a safer and stable nation.