I am not laughing, and you might want to recheck those assumptions.
In particular, Kansas City will see some vicious ethnic cleansing in both Kansas and Missouri sections. Oklahoma has some forgotten history of extreme race war that can be revived with horrifying speed.
Nebraska may have regular occurrences of illegitimate checkpoints along the Western end of I-80/I-76 and persistent eruptions of roadside banditry.
Troubles will be frequent but highly localized. If you are thirty miles away from the latest "blast zone", life will go on almost like normal - for the new values of "normal",
O BS those STATES are 70-80% right wing and the govs will get those cities under control ASAP. The lefties will then be given a choice, get drafted and fight for team red state or exile.
“life will go on almost like normal”
Try to watch the TV Series “Jericho.” It is a post-apocalyptic action-drama TV series which centers on the residents of the fictional city of Jericho, Kansas, in the aftermath of a limited nuclear attack on 23 major cities in the contiguous United States. It ran on CBS from September 20, 2006, to March 25, 2008.
It was very well done. Life afterwards was anything “like normal.” IMO, it wouldn’t require anything like 23 simultaneous nuclear blasts on US cities to cause complete societal breakdown. Given the social structure breakdown and uncertain supply chains, towns quickly began distrusting neighboring towns.