Texas is building up to leave if they wish. They've got the energy, ag, and port access already. Look at the auto, space, and tech they're pulling in. They're in talks with one of the NY stock exchanges to move to Texas. It's no doubt being setup so they can leave if they want and remain a big player on a Country level. 

If Texas were to secede, they're almost certainly going to take others with them, and it'll be the more southern and central states if that happens. This wouldn't be good for the east and west coasts, especially in the long run. They have the money for now, but they'll lose their 'foundation' if Texas goes, along with whoever with them.

All you have to do is look at the increasing division in America (as well as Canada though it's kept more quiet), the splitting up of Europe in the past, the attempted centralizing and recent initial split of Europe again, and it's clear to see keeping the States together is highly unlikely. If the whole "Great Reset" thing gains traction, that'll be the final straw for Texas if America in general decides it wants to be part of it.

I'd say you're more likely to see a new sizable Country where Texas is Cali and NY, all in one.

Politicians in the US cannot secede because it is not their decision to make. Splitting up a country is bad for business and big business is paying them.

The good thing here is that they don't have a spine or any conviction. That means as soon as they realize that their plans will hurt them in any way they will just drop it and blame the democrats for stopping them.

And locking down entire states on and off for 9 months is also really bad for business (although it's great for big businesses like Amazon, WALMART, COSTCO)

The election is a source of possible unrest and uprising but so are the lockdown policies that are destroying peoples lives and they're mostly worst in democrat run cities and states.How is NYC doing? Why are people fleeing California? Breakdown of USA into separate entities is quite possible but election is unlikely to be the main cause, my opinion it will be due to the economic damage, restrictions and laws enacted due to lockdowns over a virus that 99.99% of people under 60 survive in the first place.

You said it perfectly. It's a great time for big businesses, aka the ones paying the politicians. Nobody gives a shit about smaller businesses in a country that measures economic success on a meaningless stock index. The breakup of the country was never pushed by the suffering citizens, it was a political stunt of southern states throwing tantrums. Nobody actually wants the country to break up. The majority of the country understands that the measures against corona are necessary and they also realize that the hardships from the lockdowns are the direct result of Republicans eroding social safety nets and worker protections over the decades. Nobody gives a shit about a loud Republican minority complaining about the shit they voted to happen to them. They're too incompetent to properly secede anyway.

The people who voted Democrat and are currently suffering from economic consequences are the happiest people right now, because things are gonna change for the better very soon. Why would they wanna leave the country? They are the majority. Believe me, Californians and New Yorkers are very much happy with how things are shaping up. That is Californians and New Yorkers who voted for the correct party.

Over 300k people have already died and that number would almost certainly be much, much higher if we didn't take measures to reduce the spread (such as lockdowns). Maybe if people actually followed the rules, wore their masks and socially distanced we would be able to open up safely, but this country is so chock full of idiots that it seems heavy handed measures are the only ones that make people listen.

A pandemic is going to be bad for for businesses. Not much that can really be done by that. Whenever there is a crisis somebody in the right business will benefit, so you'll have to do more if you are trying to imply that this is somehow done at the whim of those businesses (which I don't know if you're doing).

Not sure where you're getting 99.99% from. And you need to source these things, because we're generally pretty strict on covid misinformation.

Best figure I could find is .66 for the general population and about .12 between 40 to 60. The .01 figure applies to people between 12-40. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/09/26/what-is-the-death-rate-for-covid-19-coronavirus-what-this-study-found/?sh=3d6b86d25c46

As for people above 60, it rises to anywhere between 2 and 6% by various studies. Of course, it's not a matter of either you die or you're completely fine. For every person under 34 who dies, about 4 require ventilation, which can lead to long term complications. Twice as many of those people need treatment in the ICU. And five times as many of that need to be hospitalized.https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/many-young-adults-hospitalized-covid-19-face-hard-road

So, let's assume your .01% figure is accurate. That means .04% will be ill enough to require ventilation, .08 will have to be in the ICU, and .4% will be sick enough to require hospitalization. All of these people are at risk for long term effects, obviously most serious for those requiring ventilation. Of course, the more people who are hospitalized the worse outcomes are likely to be, not just for Covid, but for anyone needing hospitalization.

We also don't know how long immunity will last, so people may be able to get infected multiple times if things are allowed to spread unchecked. So, if you have a .01% chance and get it thrice, that triples your chance of death.

As for the people over 60, they matter too... I'm not sure why you just threw them out of the data. Unless there is a good way to sequester them completely, which I've not seen from any state not imposing general lockdown restrictions, then we can't just ignore them. Old lives matter.

In terms of number of cases, the red states are crushing it. North Dakota has about 11,600 cases per million, compared to about 4,000 for New York. Which is surprising considering population density and that NY was hit with this first due to more travel. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109004/coronavirus-covid19-cases-rate-us-americans-by-state/

Of course, state levels can be tricky, because local policies can be different from state policies. As of today there were 1349 cases of Covid deaths in Brooklyn. Compared to Staten Island (which is heavily republican) which had 350. So Brooklyn has 3.8 times as many cases. But, while Brooklyn has 3.8 times as many daily cases, it has 5.5 times as many people. So it seems a lot more people are getting infected in Staten Island per capita, which seems like it shouldn't be the case considering that Brooklyn is pretty densely populated and Staten Island is not. https://projects.thecity.nyc/2020_03_covid-19-tracker/

Of course, Staten Island and Brooklyn both share a mayor and governor. So maybe it's be better to compare Jacksonville (Republican Mayor and Governor) to San Francisco (Democratic mayor and governor). I can't get city numbers, but Duval County as a whole (Jacksonville and some suburbs) has had 738 cases yesterday, 53,000 cases total, and 692 deaths. San Francisco County has had 19,942 cases overall, 341 new cases yesterday, and 173 deaths.  

These counties have nearly the same population (882,402 for San Fran, and 957,755 for Duval). Despite this, Duval has over twice as many daily cases, nearly thrice as many cases overall, and more than twice as many people dead. We can assume that this means about two to three times as many people are being hospitalized and will suffer long term health consequences. 

So, doubtlessly there is a legitimate purpose to these lockdown measures, and they are achieving something. Are these measures worth the economic damage they cause? I dunno. You seem to be saying no, so you bear the burden of proof on that. How is this affecting the GDP of those states and cities? How many Covid deaths and how much illness are we willing to endure for what kind of boost to the economy? If the disease keeps spreading, will the long term economic effects be worse than the short term consequences of lockdowns?

If you have some answers to those questions, go for it. Be mindful though, that as I mentioned, we are pretty strict about Covid misinformation, so, if you're going to reply, make sure you're using sourced information from reputable sources. Hard data man, not just anecdotes or op ed pieces from non-experts.

Here's my main point. Regardless of whether the economic impacts of the restrictions are worse than the health effects (and I'm not saying they can't be, but I'm generally going to err on the side of health and you'd have to make a really strong case that risking infection for the economy leads to a better outcome), it is clearly a reasonable course of action to impose restrictions. Hindsight may show it was not the best decition, but all the data shows that it is saving lives, and it's hard to argue that this isn't a rational choice considering the data we have available. 

On the other hand, there is no rational purpose for the election the unrest. It is the case of one orange dipshit throwing a hissy fit because he's a loser and his cult following him. There is no valid reason for it as every court so far has agreed. 

It's not a case of leaders being between a rock and a hard place and having to make a difficult choice between public health and economic health where there will be dire consequences regardless of the choice that is made. It's a case of one psychopath having a tantrum and people trying to indulge him for their personal benefit, while his cult follows him as they do.

A pandemic was going to cause turmoil and unrest regardless of what measures were taken. On the other hand, the unrest Trump is kicking up is entirely unnecessary. Comparing the two situations is rather ridiculous.

It's also pretty crucial to remember that if hospitals become overwhelmed, suffering is going to skyrocket, which will not only result in higher rates of death, but an increased likelihood for long-term side effects in survivors too. A contributing factor to the northeast facing such high casualty rates at the beginning was because hospitals became overrun. Thankfully we know a lot more about the disease now, but that doesn't really mean much if there isn't a bed to treat the person in.

The most stringent restrictions typically come into play whenever hospitalizations rates are at their most dire. How "hospitals are being overrun" translates into "we are evil and taking away your freedoms for our jollies", I will never understand. I really feel bad for my friends who work in healthcare. I see them post messages pleading even for their immediate family members to understand...

Aaaaand just when it looked like there was light at the end of the tunnel, here you have another Trump-bred idiot parroting his orange fuhrer and treating the virus like the joke Dumb Dumb told him it was:

What a moron. People are right to uninvite his ass, assuming they ever invited him in the first place, which I kinda doubt.

Funny that a GOPer is preaching "my body my choice" BTW, more like "his choice, other people's bodies".

Oh and BTW, no vaccine has EVER done the things he said might happen to him upon taking it, little FYI.

Eh... has Trump actually said anything against Covid vaccines? I believe he made anti-vaccine comments in the past in general, but I believe he wants people to take the Covid vaccine so that he can claim he ended the pandemic (which he already has done several times...) and take the credit away from the people who actually did the work. He's been pimping the vaccine pretty hard actually, or at least was until the election cause he was hoping it would come out in time to save his ass. 

So, I'm not sure this particular instance of stupidity can be blamed on Trump.

That last sentence is pretty telling. It's never about personal freedom or health. It's only about social validation from peers. People like that don't come to those conclusions by themselves, they just look at their social circle and then try to fit in, or sometimes try to stand out to feel both special and part of a group.

Vaccine denial, trumpism, conspiracy theories, religion, it's never actually about that thing. It's an entirely social phenomenon based on limited cognitive abilities and the brain's struggle for simplicity and endorphins.

There is a great video about Flat Earthers and how it's never about the earth actually being flat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44

It's never about any cause, it's just a mental struggle to make complex things simple. It basically explains the entire Republican base and their constant cognitive dissonance.

Conservatism is about keeping things simple. It's about the old known things, which are easier to understand than having to deal with new concepts.

Giving all the money to the rich and rely on them to distribute them makes things simple. Much more simple than having to micromanage every person's needs with several social policies like healthcare and welfare.

Trump makes things simple by just being the best human and knowing what there is to do. You won't have to worry about anything if you just believe everything he says, because everything he says is optimistic.

God makes things simple, because if there is a higher being controlling everything then there is no self responsibility and every complex issue has a simple and singular cause. A cause that doesn't need or even can be dealt with. Simple.

Smart people are bad because they present complex issues. They get in the way of simple solutions by claiming they're not simple. That hurts the brain and is therefore bad. Smart people are bad unless they are the REALLY smart people who only make things simple. Like Trump.

QAnon's main motto is "Trust the plan". No need to do anything or think, just trust that someone powerful is doing everything for you. And even if things look dire it's all part of the one plan. Simple.

This alone is already enticing enough to ensnare at least half the people on this planet to believe in ridiculous things, which then reinforces itself by having a collective. You don't need to question your believes when there are millions of people who believe the same. That means even if you are completely wrong, there is still millions of people you can count on, so there is no reason to be afraid to be wrong. And also no reason to try to see if you're wrong, because it doesn't matter.

It's why there is no point to reason with those people. It's not even that they're not capable of reasoning. They just completely reject to be reasoned with because to them it is a waste of time and a potential complexity they don't need in their lives.

Really the only thing the reasonable people can do at this point is strengthen their own base and slowly introduce change without frightening the opposition. Slowly make things better for the others to get used to it and feel comfortable enough to embrace the change rather than fight it. But it needs to be as simply explained as possible so as to not meet outright rejection. And if that sounds like raising toddlers to you, then yes, it is, because they are toddlers.