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Regionalism used to be the dominant force in the great national parties. That has died out to an extent with the movement of blacks to the Democrats (where they became 40% of the active voting strength of that coalition), and the Southern whites to the Republicans (where they became about 30% of the active voting strength of that coalition).

At the same time we have "industrial' alignments AND "agricultural" alignments.

A lesson ~ decades back Southern farmers could not raise corn as well as those in the Corn Belt. Today, thanks to modern fertilizers Southern farmers get yields that rival, and sometimes exceed, those found in the Corn Belt.

That fact, and Roundup, seed drills, and an incredible degree of mechanization, has given Southern Farmers their much sought after THIRD SEASON. It has also given Corn Belt Farmers a SECOND SEASON, and in some places, a THIRD SEASON.

That has allowed a vast reduction in the need for a large year round farm labor force ~ so those folks moved off the farm into town and industry. A newer foreign based "pulse' farm labor group has grown up to provide people those 2 or 3 times a year when they are needed (mostly at harvest). That process, in turn, has created some serious dilemmas for the Democrats and Republicans.

The current polarization goes back to the Great Compromise of 1986, as consequential (and as dangerous) as those of 1820 and 1850.

The Great Compromise between Reagan and Tip O’Neill was that the Republicans could cut taxes (and claim credit in productive districts) as much as they wanted, and the Democrats could borrow money to give away (and claim credit in parasite districts) as much as THEY wanted.

This couldn’t last, of course, because no nation can endure half slave and half free. What the Reagan-O’Neill compromise has produced is a massive migration of producers to so-called “red” states, and a corresponding migration (augmented by immigration) of parasites to “blue” states, to the point that the parasites are now geographically concentrated enough to control the Senate and to have a near-lock on the Electoral College.

Destroying the money system is only ONE of the consequences of this 1986 compromise, and not the worst.

It is the use of our decaying republican institutions to enslave producers to parasites that means we are headed for war, just as much as the Compromise of 1850 dictated the outcome of Dred Scott v. Sanford and pushed the nation to war.

As soon as Obama appoints 2 or 3 more Supreme Court Justices, and they proclaim that “no producer has any rights to property or income that a parasite is bound to respect”, the fat will be in the fire.