[GonzoGOP]

I think you have that backwards the red states are the ones that are the welfare recipients of government largess. That is they get back more than they pay into the government coffers.

I saw an article on this last year. Break it down by county and it goes completely the opposite way. There are a lot of red counties in Illinois, New York and California. The red counties pay most of the taxes, the blue urban counties rack up most of the expenses. But since the net is positive (at least until recently) the blue states as a whole paid more taxes than they received. But at the county level the blue counties receive much more in taxes than they pay out.

It depends on how you draw the lines at the breakout. If it is all or nothing at the state level your argument holds true. If it is start with a blank map and redraw from scratch then the results could be in favor of the red areas.

[grumpygresh]

I don’t think that succession ,if it does occur, will happen all at once and everywhere. In some cases, succession is impractical because of geographic reasons. Red counties in Illinois and New York are too close to blue power bases.
Foreign policy events could actually precipitate events. Alaska is geographically isolated and very difficult to control militarily because of the size and weather. In addition, its citizens are very much rooted in individualism and self sufficiency like no other place in the union. Perhaps, the Chinese would covertly fund an insurrection movement to get an oil deal. The Russians seem to have designs on Alaska and may wish to gain a client state.
If the US military then became bogged down in Alaska, Texas and the inter-mountain West may be the next to secede. After that, the whole union would unravel.
I’m not predicting this. But I could have never imagined what’s going on right now just a few years ago.