Could the Western States Pact Become a New Country?
A thought experiment
It isn’t the first time that it has been suggested.
Back in 1975 Ernest Callenbach wrote a book about Ecotopia, which was based on a future where California, Oregon and Washington broke apart from the United States to form their own country.
Cascadia is another proposal that has been talked about at length in the past too, which would not only include some of California, but all the way through Canada on the West Coast. It would be united around the bioregion of Cascadia, which encompasses a lot of the Pacific Northwest.
More recently, after the 2016 election, California and other states talked about a Cal-exit, as they found themselves at striking opposition to the new leadership in the White House.
Here we are again, in 2020.
Conversation has sparked again about a piece of the United States breaking off, sending ripples of speculation and conversation throughout Twitter after a very public announcement of the “Western States Pact.”
While Trump assembled his team of people to decide when to stop social distancing for the sake of the economy, and said that he had more authority than the governors (which isn’t true), the three westernmost states took a…
