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The Creation of a Political Utopian Society

Challenges of Increased Political Polarization

By Anthony ChanPublished 3 years ago 9 min read
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Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash.com

The 2024 U.S. presidential campaign topped the degree of polarization observed in the prior election. Many wondered how the country could be united after the election declared a winner since both the Democratic and Republican candidates vowed to contest the election results irrespective of whether the outcome was definitive or not. God help us was a popular slogan echoed by both candidates during their campaign rallies. And although an independent candidate also ran, most voters understood that this candidate was a spoiler that had little or no choice of capturing the White House.

As the elections approached, the candidates remained locked in dead heat as tensions grew stronger on both sides. It was an election in which few words of unity were uttered by either candidate! Instead, the extreme wings of both political parties dominated the party platforms of each candidate. It was not the same message we heard in 2020, but in this new and more polarized environment, the strategy was altered to maximize the odds of winning the election.

Stated another way, the virulent rhetoric heard from both sides came directly from their hearts as evidenced by the fact that each of the leading candidates took great pride wearing dazzling heart-shaped locket's inscribed with their campaign slogans. The charming heart-shaped lockets were often flashed at campaign rallies to demonstrate sincerity from the candidates and to generate loyalty from the voters!

Despite all this fanfare, violence on the campaign trail became a daily occurrence. Sadly, voters became immune to serious acts of violence at campaign rallies in which shootings and stabbings became a way of life. Both parties embraced the violence as a sign of party loyalty.

Not surprisingly, after the election ended, none of the two top presidential candidates received the required 270 electoral votes to win since the independent candidate captured some of the electoral votes. Of course, a contingency election held by the U.S. House of Representatives was the conventional next step in resolving such issues, but the level of polarization left little doubt that this solution would be rejected by voters of the losing political party and result in increased violence on the streets.

With both parties adopting this strategy it was clear that the House of Representatives or even the U.S. Supreme Court stood helpless if they intervened with conventional solutions. It became unsafe to go to an ATM, the supermarket, or even to commute to work due to the levels of violence and social unrest observed throughout the country.

Congress and the former President, who had opted not to run for reelection, met daily in an attempt to find a solution to this political impasse. Unfortunately, no solution was reached that could unify the American people. When social influencers and top newspapers jumped in to sway public opinion in favor of reaching a compromise, their calls for unity fell on deaf ears! Such turmoil caused the U.S. national unemployment rate to exceed its Covid-19 pandemic high and reach 15.0% as many individuals quit their jobs due to safety concerns.

Not surprisingly, more than a year after the presidential election, Congress passed legislation legally requiring the formal separation of the U.S. into blue and red states using the results of the 2020 Presidential election. They also selected the two states that were almost equally divided between both political parties and labeled them independent states that owed no loyalty to either major political party.

New Rules

To legally reside or obtain travel privileges into a blue or red state, individuals would need to meet several requirements, namely, proof that a person voted for a specific political party in the 2020 election (or in the 2024 election if they failed to vote in the 2020 election), a notarized statement pledging support for the political party of choice along with a permanent red or blue wrist tattoo for each individual. Democrats would need to have the blue tattoo imposed on their left wrist while Republicans would need to have the red tattoo drawn on their right wrist.

On a more controversial note, their offspring (below the age of 18), would be automatically assigned the same political affiliations held by their parents and had no way of changing or appealing that outcome. Only their offspring, over the age of 18 at the time of enactment of the new legislation had the right to decide where to live based on how they voted in the last presidential election or by the choice they made at the time of the transition.

Relocations

One of the toughest aspects of the new rules concerned the forced relocations of individuals living in a state that failed to correspond to their political party affiliation. To ease the burden of the relocation, the Federal Government agreed to provide a tax-free grant of $20,000.00 for U.S. households requesting assistance relocating to a state that shared their political affiliation if they resided in a state that did not support their political affiliation.

Of course, there would be challenging situations to deal with. What happens if a married couple happened to support opposing political parties? The recommended solution was to have one of the spouses disavow their political party and pledge allegiance to the political party supported by their other spouse. In cases, when such compromises were not feasible, the couple would be required to relocate to one of the states that supported the independent political party.

Was it a Smooth Transition?

On the surface, the idea sounded like a utopian society in the making. Now anyone could go to a cocktail party or social event without having to argue or debate about politics since everyone in your residential states shared their general political views.

However, many individuals previously working in productive jobs were now suddenly forced to relocate to another state whenever their current residential state conflicted with their political affiliation which required some individuals to suddenly disrupt their careers for political considerations. Even those who were willing to change political affiliations to preserve their careers, remained helpless since their prior voting selections predetermined whether they would reside in a blue or red state! The good news, however, is that there were copious red and blue states which offered some flexibility in the relocation process.

How Were the Territories Governed?

It was decided that both the blue and red states would be governed using the extreme beliefs of each political party. Stated another way, the left-wing of the Democratic party and the right-wing of the Republican governed in their respective jurisdictions.

Governing in the Democratic States:

On the Democratic side, they immediately opted to roll out the concept of universal basic income financed by higher marginal tax rates. While the higher marginal tax rates, discouraged the work effort of many residents, the states encouraged the use of Robots with artificial intelligence to offset the lower labor force participation rates that resulted from the widespread adoption of this program.

The good news is that as the income inequality metric (e.g., Gini Coefficient index) improved, crime rates dramatically declined. On the other side of the ledger, these states recorded lower productivity growth rates even after incorporating the boost they received from using more robots in their jobs and daily lives. Given fewer incentives to increase income since it would result in the payment of higher marginal taxes, the states recorded fewer innovative technologies along with many workers unwilling to work longer hours.

Governing in the Republican States:

On the Republican front, things were not perfect either. In those states, government leaders encouraged increased work effort, accompanied by low tax rates and little or no government regulation to ensure that corporate profits were maximized. One problem with this strategy was that many companies proceeded to maximize their profits without focusing as much on product safety, worker safety, or even the impact of their daily operations on the environment.

Product recalls increased as fewer regulations reduced the incentives to monitor the safety of their products. Labor laws were also loosened, and worker injuries and worker burnout surged. In this new world, it was all about making it easier for companies to boost their profits and margins in the hope that they would share some of this harvest with workers.

Were People Happier in this New World?

The short answer is that for those individuals that supported their party affiliation blindly, the move was viewed as positive but for the moderates of both political parties, this was not a Pareto optimal outcome.

Take the case of some democrats with liberal leanings that often wished to help those in need. After witnessing, the widespread adoption of Universal Basic income grants each month being distributed to so many people even when the case for receiving such aid became questionable for many of its recipients -- some moderates became disillusioned with the concept. They were not thrilled that in this new world applying and receiving a Universal Basic Income grant each month without having to work was something that almost anyone could request whether they had a legitimate need or not.

On the Republican side, the fewer government regulations meant that residents no longer felt as comfortable with the notion that the government was actively policing the safety of the products they purchased as the government focused on maximizing the level of corporate profits. Income inequality also deteriorated in many of these states as income redistribution efforts were greatly reduced and, in some cases, eliminated.

Additionally, truck drivers delivering products across state lines now had to switch drivers at various state borders to ensure that workers from a political party did not enter states that conflicted with their political loyalties. In some cases, this meant that cargoes had to change drivers several times before the goods were finally delivered which raised the cost of transporting goods and introduced inefficiencies across the production process.

Conclusion

For many, the outcome of this grand social experiment reminds us of Aesop’s Fables often associated with the famous saying, “be careful what you wish for,” because the outcome may end up being less than desirable.

In essence, several years after imposing this massive political social experiment, social unrest has declined since your friends and neighbors, to some extent, agree with your political views but governance in both blue and red states has been relegated to only a small minority in both political parties and the result has been met with great disappointment by the majorities in both parties. Ironically, in our efforts to seek a closer alignment between the ruling of government and the desires of its population, we ended up with two government structures that reflected the beliefs of a smaller share of the population while achieving slower economic growth, slower productivity growth, and smaller improvements in the standard of living for all Americans.

Be careful what you wish for, (because) it might just happen, and today fewer people are happy it did!

Fantasy
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About the Creator

Anthony Chan

Chan Economics LLC, Public Speaker

Chief Global Economist & Public Speaker JPM Chase ('94-'19).

Senior Economist Barclays ('91-'94)

Economist, NY Federal Reserve ('89-'91)

Econ. Prof. (Univ. of Dayton, '86-'89)

Ph.D. Economics

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