Blue America starts to separate from red America | Froma Harrop

What began quietly now feels like a real break. After MAGA Republicans installed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to helm the Department of Health and Human Services, turmoil followed: prominent scientists departed, research in cancer, autoimmune diseases and other threats was cut, and access to updated COVID vaccines grew more difficult and confusing.

A quiet breaking point

In response, several Democratic-run states are exploring ways to bypass Washington’s health upheaval. Health officials from five New England states (with New Hampshire opting out), along with New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, have met to coordinate their own vaccine recommendations rather than rely on the federal government. That kind of coordination could be the start of something larger.

Until recently, it was mostly the right stoking talk of a national parting. Blue America, the narrative went, was rife with crime, moral decay and freeloaders living off the industrious MAGA heartland. A few years back, the Texas GOP’s then-chair even floated a new union of “law-abiding states,” meaning conservative ones—an idea complicated by the fact that Texas’ largest cities are decidedly blue.

Food, farms and the economy

Some on the right flirted with secession talk and even implied leverage through agriculture—suggesting Democratic states would go hungry without the conservative farm belt. But the numbers don’t back that up. California remains the country’s top agricultural producer by far, especially in fruits, vegetables and nuts, with Oregon and Washington also major contributors. Swing states in the upper Midwest would face awkward choices. Would Wisconsin and other dairy leaders alienate their largest markets for cheese, butter and milk?

Much of the heartland’s agriculture focuses on commodity crops like corn, soybeans and wheat—significant export products. Any renewed trade war would test those markets quickly.

Blue precedents already exist

The notion of Blue America charting its own path isn’t new. In 2022, California adopted a rule phasing out the sale of new gas cars by 2035. Eleven other states signed on, and together they represented about 40% of the U.S. auto market—enough to push national manufacturers toward the same standards without federal action.

The culture-war scorecards

Pop culture has captured the counter-charges to stereotypes about “lazy liberals.” A common refrain notes that most of the poorest counties—and a large share of the poorest states—are Republican-leaning, and that many red states receive more in federal funds than they pay in. The argument flips the “moochers” label back onto those who use it most.

On crime, recent commentary has focused on high homicide rates in several Republican-led states, even as federal crackdowns were highlighted in Democratic cities. California’s governor has jabbed that Alabama’s homicide rate is triple California’s, puncturing the premise that “blue equals dangerous” while “red equals safe.”

Health care and research muscle

If Democratic states move to coordinate health policy independently, they have the institutional heft to do it. The world’s top medical-research powerhouses—Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the University of California, San Francisco, and Stanford—are all in blue states. The University of Pennsylvania, another elite center, sits in a swing state. That concentration of expertise and talent would give a blue-led public health consortium credibility and capacity.

If the split comes, keep it peaceful

No one should root for a national breakup. But if America continues down a path of profound divergence, a peaceful framework could minimize pain: trade agreements, mutual defense understandings, and practical arrangements for shared infrastructure. The map would be messy, with “blue dots” in red states and vice versa—think Omaha or the major cities of Texas—but such complexities are not insurmountable.

Values are the crux. MAGA conservatives object to progressive priorities. Blue America recoils from MAGA’s agenda. Both sides claim virtue; both contain good and bad actors. The more each side builds its own governing ecosystems—on energy, health, education, and civil rights—the more plausible a functional separation becomes, even short of formal secession.

For now, the immediate story is health policy. If federal leadership continues to chase ideology over evidence, blue states are likely to solidify an alternate network to safeguard vaccines, research and public guidance. That could be a template for other areas: climate policy, consumer protections, immigration integration and more. In practice, it would mean two parallel Americas operating under different rulebooks, competing to deliver better outcomes.

Let’s hope competition yields improvement rather than rupture. A peaceful coexistence—with room for experimentation, regional autonomy and mutual respect—would be a better outcome than a definitive break. But the quiet steps now being taken suggest that, in important ways, the separation has already begun.