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The central problem really comes down to something I've observed living here in Portland, and it's this: "Whatever Portland wants, Oregon gets". If every single citizen in the state of OR voted against a measure, doesn't matter what it is, and Portland votes yes, it passes. There's no balance other than relying on Portland to 'play nice'.
What percentage of Oregon’s population is the city of Portland alone? 30%? 35%? It’s not like Portland has 51% of the states population. There are other parts of the state that also votes Democrat.
@@brandoncameron2686 It depends on how you count it. Portland *technically* isn't that big. The Portland *Metro* area, however, as of March of this year is 2.5 Million people. That's including the cities have all built up into each other, like Gresham, Hillsboro, Beaverton, Tigard, Troutdale, Wood Village and more that everyone understands as part of Portland life. Think of it like NYC only listing Manhattan as their population without including the other burroughs.
@@dragonstryk7280 Even the surrounding areas of a big city are not gonna be as left-leaning as the voters in the city limits itself. For example, Philadelphia. Philadelphia county votes 81% Democrat. However, the counties that surround it (Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Bucks) may vote 55 to 65% Democrat. No Democrat in Pennsylvania can win a statewide election with just the Philadelphia metro area alone. And Pittsburgh is not even that big. There are blue votes adding up all over the state to contribute to the Philadelphia metro region. In Wisconsin, Joe Biden didn’t win by just carrying Madison and Milwaukee alone. He got a ton of votes from red counties that Trump won. I think Biden got over 700,000 votes from red counties in Wisconsin. So we can’t even just blame Madison and Milwaukee for putting Biden over the top. Red county Democrats greatly contributed to the statewide vote. We concentrate so much on the urban vs rural divide that we forget that there are Democrats in red counties voting, and there are republicans in blue cities voting. Trump did get quite a bit of votes out of the Chicago area. Hell, Trump got a lot of votes from the Houston area. Harris County gave Trump plenty of votes.
@@brandoncameron2686 That's Pennsylvania, this is Oregon. Yeah, Im from NY originally, and yeah, it's MUCH more pronounced. Look at the Population Density Map for Oregon. There's the Greater Portland Metro, and then it's just the reservations and Wasco, really. Wasco has about 10k, and it drops off hard from there. Shaniko, OR, for instance has a population of 30. Thirty. Yeah, this ain't NY, and it's not PA.
I mean... I know a TON of people that voted Trump in 2016 for basically that reason. I voted Kanye in 2020 for basically that reason. I live in Eastern Oregon. I know ALOT of people who voted for this for the PURE REASON of "our government sucks, it would suck if it were left, it would suck if it were right, they just hate us so let's vote for anything that rocks the boat" -- voting to "separate" is mostly symbolic for these people and they'd vote to join Oregon if the situation was reversed. It's not about politics REALLY, it's about a middle finger to whomever happens to be in charge. You are basically 💯-- most peope I know voting for this are just voting for this for the collective middle finger - although it's slightly more metaphorical than making the borders look like a middle finger 😅
Not really. North Dakota is far better off without South Dakota. North Dakota is the only state with a state bank, quite a left-leaning institution despite a Republican-majority legislature since years. South Dakotan Republicans who are far more easily lobbied would dissolve the bank.
I thought their was a rule against removing states to create a bigger state. Also the fact the us senate would be completely out of balance. Republicans would lose 2 senate seats so... i dont think it will happen ever.
To be clear here, as an Oregonian. None of the counties as voted to leave. They have voted to form committees or to direct county leadership to explore the option.
@@SirManfly Beleive it or not, the sticking won't come from getting approval, but in negotiating. Idaho won't pay the likely billions of dollars to Oregon for state owned land and facilities.
@@stevennelson8479If that were Oregon’s reigning philosophy, then Portland’s residents and businesses wouldn’t be fleeing the city like shoplifters from a Nike store.
@@kyletucker3811 It took me all of 30 seconds online to find that Portland’s population is DECLINING at a loss of 1.21% annually. That fact alone, for a city of that size, is proof that, no, we aren’t imagining things when it comes to Portland’s problems.
I'm really impressed how well you represented each side. You gave pros and cons brought up by both sides without imputtung your own opinion. This is what history/news needs to be more like
The ones who advocate for changing state borders are right tho. Big countries are federations for the purpose of giving autonomy to local groups and regions so they wouldnt be disenfranchised or too powerful in the central government. The US states dont give autonomy to anyone, they where in a hury drawn as streight lines over what was for the most part uncharter teritory. This leads is a great deal of polarization as people get state laws forced on them which they dont like and with no hope of winning on a state level many of them chose to work together with people of different states to try to enforce their views on everyone on a federal level. Give me the power and Id redrawn US states to be more similar in size and population to each other, more homogenus internally and with their borders trying to follow natural borders so these new states would stand the test of time and not be demendant on short term political whims.
Every time I visit this comment, there's comments that I saw previously that aren't there anymore. Happens more on this channel than any other channel I visit BY FAR so I'm sure it's not RUclips being RUclips. I get the feeling this creator is censoring comments he doesn't like that don't agree. Which ironic AF considering what you just said. If it's true, I'm basically speaking into the void now I guess. Hi void. How you doing old friend?
@@robnobert I do think its YT being YT, to me it happens here as much as everywhere else and it happened under my comment which has 1 like so is unlikely to have been seen by the youtuber himself.
Good Luck! You don't want to mess those UP people. They are unique and I don't think they take well to anyone being charge. The UP-side of the issue is that it would likely turn Wisconsin Red.
@@OregonCountry1836 It's just too small. But those of us in the lower half of Michigan are proud to have it. My son went to NMU and Marquette. A great place! The UP has so many wonderful treasures.
Not only that, but they effectively don't have the right to vote thanks to the electoral college. I know how they feel in that regard, I live in California as a conservative. My vote means nothing and the massive population of California is counted as 100% left-leaning in elections despite that not being true at all. It's incredibly frustrating and I would 100% support a movement to split California or at least change the boundaries to join Nevada. I hope eastern Oregon farmers get the chance to finally live in a place where their values are respected, and I hope more states follow suit. Conservatives would also unlock so many electoral college votes in that case lol, we'd never lose again.
@legogenius1667 I think changing the rules from Winner Takes All to a point by point basis would settle a lot of these issues. If a candidate wins (hypothetically speaking) 10 points from California and another wins 15, then they should get those points instead of one getting all 25. It's not a fair system at all and doesn't properly represent our voice.
There would be a change in congressional seats and state senators seats. Oregon would loose power and Idaho would gain. But would be easier to govern the state itself tho
Yes, this would definitly impact Oregon's federal representation, which is another reason for the state legislature's aversion to the idea. The question is how big that impact would be. There is a pretty complex math to how congressional seats are calculated and there is the possibility that under the right circumstances, a secession of Eastern Oregon with its small population would have a negligible impact on the representation of Oregon, especially if immigration to Oregon's urban centres contributes to off-setting the impact. I'm no expert on the US political-system though, so take this with a grain of salt.
I do not believe there would be a change in senator seats, as the constitution explicitly states each state is to receive two senators. So unless Oregon is completely devoured, the number of states will be the same, and both states will only have two senators.
States are sovereign, counties are not. The only way this could happen is with a statewide referendum in both Oregon and Idaho, and Congress approving it. Neither state's legislature would do it themselves.
@@1antag0nist53 Not at all. It is the easiest and most painless case. Eastern Oregon is different demographic, different culture, and geographically separated from the rest of Oregon.
I have a better idea. Allow electoral voting districts to vote independently. Set it up like Maine and Nebraska nationwide. There are countless communities that are unheard because of our current system setup.
There's actually a counter movement in Idaho saying they don't want to take on the debts and responsibility of Eastern Oregon because Idaho doesn't have the financial capability to suddenly add 300,000 individuals smoothly. And I'm sure Oregon doesn't want to have to pay the offset cost.
Idaho has an unstable government, tons of well armed people in militia groups, and you’d be hard pressed to squeeze an additional 9,000 dollars out of every single Idaho resident to pay for it.
As an Oregonian, this perhaps one of the best deconstructions I have found on the matter. Our state continues to be a prime example of geopolitical division in the US. I’d be curious if you’d be interested in exploring another fascinating movement (the State of Jefferson) that directly influenced the Greater Idaho 2022 revision that you mentioned here 7:17. Excellent video! Keep up the good work!
Eastern Oregon residents really haven't thought this through, though. Joining Idaho means losing legal marijuana, funding for highway and road maintenance (Idaho's roads are terrible and terribly funded), and will have to start paying sales tax (Oregon is currently 0%). Also, the minimum wage will basically be cut in half. That's honestly just the start-- they'll immediately want to go back to Oregon.
As someone who actually lives in Oregon, this is a really good summary of what's happened so far and why Greater Idaho becoming reality is so unlikely.
You vastly, vastly underestimate the revolutionary sentiment bubbling within the US. If it happens, it won't happen legally. It doesn't have to. Same goes for many aspects of the US. "Rule of law" has gradually stopped having meaning. Nobody cares about the law created by a tyrannical government that cares so little about its people.
If it doesnt become a reality the USA should prepare for a crisis of the third century when the Roman Empire realized its administrative divisions wherent up to the task of governing the much expanded population the hard way.
Indeed, I am in Oregon too. I acknowledge that movement for Greater Idaho is but an distant pipe dream. It's time for people in Eastern Oregon to realize this cold, hard facts and move on. Or, if they don't like it, they can move to Idaho instead.
@@Helezhelm You don't actually give a reason to move on. Something being unlikely to succeed isn't a reason to not work for that outcome. There's little worthwhile that is ever easy.
I don't know about that, Republicans hate having to give reparations to Natives. I wouldn't be surprised if they start treating the reservations like Israel treats Gaza. Especially with all of the anti-immigrant and now the "illegal citizen" talk going on. You get a MAGA crowd that now has jurisdiction over a minority of people they see as inferior... Hell, we saw a militia group assault a man in the middle of new york city live on TV because he was brown in skin and spoke a little spanish...
@@Napalmdog paradoxically, that might increase support for legalization in Idaho. This could also have the knock-on effect of increasing support for the Libertarian Party. With such a safe Republican state, it would be difficult for them to argue that supporting the LP would help the Democrats (though the duopoly has done much to stunt the public imagination). Then again, California is a completely safe Democratic state (Trump lost by a 2:1 margin the last two times) and that hasn't gotten through to people enough to boost the Greens or Peace and Freedom (the socialist party on the ballot) by a statistically significant degree, so...
Eastern Oregonian from Wheeler county here. Everyone knows this won't happen. But one can dream right? Eastern Oregon is very poor and it's mainly run by the few wealthy families that exists in each county, usually the main landowners. These families are almost always very conservative. I'm a leftist but even I can understand parts of the movement. Western Oregon is completely different culture and the politicians there do not look out for Eastern Oregon at all. It's sad to see nothing being done about the poverty, unemployment, or drug crises in Eastern Oregon, let alone the wildfires. I just find it ridiculous that people think our local government leaders and the state of Idaho will treat us any better.happy to see any attention being paid eastern oregon tho
"Western Oregon is completely different culture and the politicians there do not look out for Eastern Oregon at all." This is nonsense. The west side heavily subsidizes eastern O. Go check the numbers. West side should quickly agree to surrender it's interests to idaho and let them handle the burden. Remaining Oregon territory could cut it's taxes by 30%
@@rcpmac It's their own fault there's any ongoing issues then. Just throwing money at the problem doesn't make it go away. If you don't fix the root cause, then nothing really changes. This is one of the main tenants of fighting poverty. You've ever been to Eastern Oregon? I can guarantee it's not the same hippie, leftist dream of Western Oregon. I want to hear from your perspective why Eastern Oregon is so poor.
@@rcpmac Not sure why my comments to you always get deleted. Throwing money at the problem doesn't fix anything. You need to solve the route issues. If Western Oregon really was trying its hardest than why is Eastern Oregon so poor and behind in terms of services and infrastructure?
@user-ConnorKaroThompson Cause they're idiotic conservatives who hate anything and everything besides white people And even then, not all white people, it has to be other white people who also purposely choose to live a lower quality life on a beat down farm, thinking that they're too good for the city.
Oregon has the BEST state flag but no one ever gets to see it bcuz every other state flag is single sided; so they nvr show the fact that Oregon's flag is way cooler on its back! No other flags are dbl sided like Oregon's and that makes Oregon's the best; even if a shite committee designed the other side of it
@@dustinDraig Also on the reverse of Oregon's flag; its a bit of an optical illusion of sorts. Bcuz if you look at it the right way, you can instd of seein a beaver on a log; see a turtle reachin their neck down for a big sip of water
@@SylviaRustyFae I was skeptical but they have a beaver on the back of there flag what idiots would put a beaver on there flag just to hide it on the back?
The government in Boise is not going to take on the debt of those eastern counties and the gov't in Salem will not let them walk away without taking that debt.
They might. The government in Boise is worried about, well, Boise, and as Boise grows the demographics of Idaho shift from rural to urban. Adding a bunch more rural is something they’re interested in.
Deschutes county and Bend would be really unlikely to separate from the Willamette valley, so the rest of Eastern Oregon would be joining ID as an economically unproductive tax drain
@@Justanotherconsumer Maybe you don't realize how big the debt would be. Do you seriously believe the hardcore anti-tax politicos in Boise will try to foist a rather large increase on their citizens if only just this once?
Deschutes would likely stay Oregonian, with a small chance some of the smaller conservative towns like Redmond or Prineville are merged into Crook or Jefferson county
Midwestern Urbanite transplanted into Eastern Oregon here. The real reason Eastern Oregonians want to leave is very simple and childish. They just hate Portland. They hate it. They can’t stand the thought of living in the same state as Portland even while being hours away from it.
Here is the kicker. Portland pays for everything in Eastern Oregon. All of the schools and libraries are funded by Portland taxpayers. I say let Eastern Oregon leave and watch it become poorer than West Virginia.
Almost every movement like this has an actual numbers minded component, and a raw resentment minded component. Same with the unrest in the industrial belt over what NAFTA caused. To some, it's: bring back community-based economics. To others (most, I'm sorry to say), it's a conflation of the fair trade idea with racism, xenophobia and general disgust over things like the way people dress these days.
Would you getting a girlfriend reduce political fighting and polarization in America? No. Would Oregon being a costal progressive state and Idaho being a mauntain conservative state reduce the political fighting and polarization in America? Yes.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Hahahah you're funny guy. That ain't happening, bucko. Idaho is broke as shit, has unstable government and no sane governor or legislation from both states will ever agree to this. Heck, not even Congress would approve it, not without a good reason. "Greater Idaho" is dead in the water, period.
I feel this would be bad for Idaho on an economic lvl. The state of Idaho currently has issues taking care of its own people and infrastructure. The people in Eastern Oregon are benefitting from Oregons large gdp. Idaho has less than 1% of Oregons gdp. If eastern Oregon left they would lose many jobs and income due to the differences in state laws. If there were a merge Idaho would not take care of roads, bridges, or much rural infrastructure at all.
I grew up in rural Oregon and moved to Portland. People in rural Oregon love to complain about cities not understanding rural needs, yet they also make no effort to understand urban needs and spend too much time focusing on culture issues. It goes the other way too of course, but rural citizens really lean into their self-righteousness from what I’ve seen.
Idaho does not have the money to absorb eastern Oregon. Eastern Oregon is dependent on Western Oregon for schools, roads and other basic services. Washington is the same. The eastern part of both states are basically free-loaders.
This same concept has happend on a much smaller scale in Baton Rouge where Georgetown separated from Baton Rouge due to poor management by baton rouge and over taxation.
It's worth noting that at least half of the population of Eastern Oregon live in Deschutes county which is the one county that has been consistently excluded in the greater Idaho movement.
The rest of the state is tired as being treated as serfs by Portland, mostly. Eastern-Washington would do the same thing and join Idaho, except it has insisted it needs to be an independent state since the early 1900s.
just see the comments, many people who are not conservatives/libertarians are see themselves in relation to conservatives in the same way as serfs see peasants, they want their rule, their resources and their obedience and the serfs want more freedom and to preserve local customs and rights, yet, many people don't see them as locals because they have european ancestry, but many migrant tribes until they settled never were too much native or their land just see west virginia and virginia, even if at the 1860's virginia and west virginia were similarly conservative in relation to societal issues, they were divided in relation to slavery, in 2024 virginia is a democrat public worker state and west virginia an republican impoverished state, and both are different to this day, honestly, the geography of west washington/oregon are different and in reality, they just don't want more states to be antiabortion, since the abortion question is something that defines if you are conservative/liberal and left/right wing person, even among libertarians who despite personal choices agree on free weed for those who want, free guns for those who want and no taxation for all, and the issues about migration, drug use, lgbt issues, and so on who even if existed in the past and were registered in documents, were seen bad by rural population, just see the ethiimology designated to call someone bad(see the "bad" ethymology), ie, the urban-city divide will continue until the fall of an civilization and the reset of the zeitgeist of the local people and neighbours
It's come and gone here in Western Virginia. Several counties wanted to join West Virginia, but that mainly happened back when Northam tried instituting a gun ban and all the local police everywhere outside of NOVA said they wouldn't enforce it.
It's emblematic of the growing rural/urban divide. I've seen it here in Oregon, and in Colorado and in Minnesota and Wisconsin. There's a lot of resentment. Rurals, in particular, really want to be left alone. The way of life is vastly different between both groups. And because of the concentration of power in urban areas, rurals feel completely ignored politically, or worse, lectured. I don't have an answer other than government greatly shrinking its scope of influence, which probably isn't happening in my lifetime.
I would like to see voter turnout for the secession votes in those counties. Due to how unlikely it is to ever happen I think many of those that would vote against greater idaho would not show up, similar to the Catalonian independence referendum. If these votes are taken more seriously I think we would see less support.
@@shortystomper3656 That's normal, some elections will have lower turn outs and usually the lower ones are in more rural counties but overall I believe the state averages in the 60%-70%. I was just pointing out that Oregon doesn't have the issue of needing to take time off work or school to go wait hours in line to vote like other states. Possibly the OP is correct that maybe the ones against secession in the eastern counties didn't bother to vote.
What bugs me is that some counties appear to have voted on this multiple times. As with Brexit, you don't get to vote over and over until you get the result you want. Vote on it once, and if it fails, wait a good amount of time (say 10-20 years - enough time for a significant percentage of people who never got to vote on it to become eligible to vote) before you vote on it again. Voter turnout isn't really an issue. Mathematically, in a perfectly randomized vote sample, the tally from just 10,000 votes is likely within 1% of what you'd get if all 4 million Oregonians voted. What maters more is bias in voter turnout - if there are factors which make people who wish to secede more likely to vote, or less likely.
Best video about this subject that I have seen yet. I live in western Oregon and it's almost impossible to even discuss this without people having a meltdown
The real reason this will never happen is because if eastern Oregon is allowed to do this, hundreds of other republican counties that are in blue states would try to do the same thing. Eastern California would want to join Nevada, all of Minnesota besides the twin cities would want to join the Dakotas. Southern Illinois would want to merge with Missouri and Kentucky. It’s sad that the rural minority isn’t fairly represented in these states, but this split would cause dramatic divides across the country.
@@stevennelson8479 You're thinking of utah. There's quite a few mormons that look into their family tree and find out it's a little too interlinked. Sometimes it's their wife that turns out to be distantly related.
Im from Crook County. The problem is mentalities. Eastern Oregon is all country folk, and we're tired of city folk making our laws and taxing us for projects we will never use.
It's called a "democracy". It's a very simple concept that Republicans don't understand. If no one is representing you, vote them out and and get someone else.
then move to idaho, the portland metro has the vast majority of the state’s voting population, essentially you’re mad that people vote & land doesn’t, literally move to a rural-dominated state if you want pro-rural policies, dummy
It should be mentioned that the geopolitical situation is similar for eastern Washington. Back in the 80s, I read a book called "The Nine Nations of North America" that grouped the coastal parts of California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska into a country the author called "Ecotopia" while the rest of BC, Washington, Oregon, Northern California and Idaho joined most of the interior intermountain west in what he called "The Empty Quarter." It also should be pointed out that any state with one or two large cities and a lot of sparsely populated rural areas has some of the same political tensions.Virginia, for example is divided into the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC and the rest of the state - AKA "the real Virginia."
It's not unique to US states. Pretty much any political jurisdiction comprised of a single economic region inevitably has this issue with it's core/hub city once the technology is advanced enough that it's size isn't limited by transportation issues and plagues. It might initially have more than one, but over time they'll either merge or one will eclypse the others.
For many of the western states, borders were drawn this way on purpose. The people pushing for statehood often had mining interests in the territory, but the federal government made sure to include farmland in the state borders as well. That way those states had more diverse economies and weren’t completely reliant on mining.
As someone who voted for the separation in Union County OR, this video misses how much lopsided Covid responses triggered many of these counties flipping their votes.
And as it turned out in the end, the redder counties suffered from lower masking & vaccination rates, which led to higher covid death rates in those places. The scatter chart is available if you look for it.
@@surelyyoujokemeinfailure7531 I’ll believe the studies forty years from now, maybe. The amount of disinformation that flew around during Covid (and to this day tbh) was/is unreal.
@@surelyyoujokemeinfailure7531 I smell BS, no way a land mass of 300k people with very low population density had the same amount (you're claiming worse, which is even more unbelievable) of death as a high density population area with millions of people. Social distancing is practically built into these areas since they are so depopulated, you don't need to wear a mask when your neighbor down the road is literally a mile away from you.
As a former Oregon resident who was identifies as very politically left but was raised in a very conservative part of rural western Oregon. I mostly get the grievances of the greater Idaho movement. I don't really support the idea largely because I don't think Idaho's management would fix a lot of the issues, primarily infrastructure and accessibility to vitals like Healthcare. A looser grip on regulations would allow for more industry to move in sure but it would require a lot of time and money put into it that I am not fully sure Idaho would like to do given the population of eastern Oregon and from what I have seen of Idaho's own issues with infrastructure and quality of life in it's more sparsely populated areas. I wholly agree that rural populations NEED a bigger voice especially in Oregon where it might as well be an entirely other state once your cross over the mountains. Places like Bakers city are just very different from places like Tillimook and need different considerations. If we didn't have an electoral college I would honestly support something like that movement you always see for California to be broken up into multiple states since it's in a similar boat with various regions and populations that do have different needs and considerations. Just given eastern Oregon climate, population and the density of it. It's a hard sell on them being independent either. I think the path forward is more considerations from the state and more power given to each county to determine what is needed.
"Accessibility to healthcare." State funded healthcare is always a terrible idea. Obamacare essentially tried to bankrupt me by forcing me to pay $400 a month for insurance when I'm on a $1k/month salary. Well below the poverty line. And I was forced to pay taxes every April for services I didn't want, or (ironically) pay for. Oregon is governed almost exclusively by Portland and even that city has had violent insurrectionist Communists demanding the dissolution of the united states and establish a systemic hatred of whites. You people either need to support a statewide Electoral College system as a compromise so you won't be dominated by Commies, or let West Oregon leave peacefully.
@@General-F And next you're going to tell me that Biden is a coherent genius. You literally have black block terrorists with Communist insignia running around many parts of Portland.
Please don't take this the wrong way @Politics with Paint, but this is my first video watched on your channel and when I first heard your accent, I thought to myself: "Oh god, another European whos going to butcher the pronunciation of my State and tout a bunch of false "facts". Ughhhhhh...." Well, I was wrong. You nailed it sir! I have been following the Oregon/Idaho border movement for many years now and it is fascinating to me. I kind of hope it passes because it would really change things for the better. You've earn a new sub my friend.
I'd argue anything less then a super majority should be ignored. I get it boo hoo the big cities are different then us; I don't care. If you can get 66% of the population to vote for it, and get both states populations to agree to it then whatever you guys do what you want. But something tells me 66% of Oregon and Idaho won't vote to approve simply because of the mess it'd be to negotiate the exchange. 52.9% of Oregon is owned by the state. Idaho would have to buy that land off Oregon to get their consent and that's assuming Oregon is remotely willing to sale it. People never seem to think about this aspect of the issue. Idaho would be debt ridden for decades to afford this idea.
As an Idahoan, I support the greater Idaho movement for reasons related to the Department of Fish and Game mostly. To fish on the Idaho side of Hell's Canyon, you have to have an Idaho fishing license; to fish on the Oregon side of Hell's Canyon, you have to have an Oregon fishing license. Not so with greater Idaho. Also, there is some GREAT country to hunt Elk and Deer in Oregon, but I couldn't convince my father to buy an out-of-state hunting license to go hunting there with me.
Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana are full of white colonizers who want to set up euro-settler ethno state, a bunch have moved there since the ‘80s.
Everyone in these comments talks about the reasons why Oreg9n wouldnt allow it due to a loss of political power, but frankly Idaho's also not going to go for it, as it would likely involve assuming the debt of these Eastern counties, who are far less financially solvent than even their more rural Western counterparts like Tillamook County. Its a bad business decision, and the ideology of conservativies to "run things like a business" would sink the concept before it began.
Western Oregonians need to exercise their 2A rights against the *tyrannical* Eastern Oregon oppression of Western Oregon rights. But seriously, this is no difference than when West Virginia seceded from Virginia. They were separated from Eastern Virginia by geography and culture.
They were separated by the fact that Virginia voted to secede from the United States and area of West Virginia did not want to and was then assisted by a federal government that by that point had become quite antagonistic to secessionists. I see a lot of differences between that and Oregon.
Interestingly enough the "Left Coast" of Oregon has little problem with the Eastern counties leaving to join the state of Idaho. The real drive behind this is "Demographics", the Eastern counties have been shrinking continuously for several decades, at the same time their politics have been shifting significantly Right Of Center. As a result the influence the Eastern counties have in the Oregon Legislature has been decreasing significantly, add to this rate of population growth in the very Liberal, Young, Urban centers of the Western side of the state has been exacerbating this problem. These Eastern Oregon counties will never actually make this move, even if they had a real chance of making such a shift happen. While their tax structure will go down, their materials and services they currently have will also go down as well or possible more, as the overall economics of Idaho does not have the same GDP as the state of Oregon. Lastly there are the Idaho-ians themselves, and while a sizeable number of the existing Idaho counties would vote for such a merger, the College Centers, and Urban more Liberal areas of Idaho would not, they are dealing with their own Liberal / Conservative divide as well, and the addition of more Ultra-Conservative Republican White Christians would be problematic. Should the issue ever come to Congress, it would be considered a "...tempest in a teapot..." be even Tea Party Ultra-Conservative Republicans.
"A new kind of segregation based on political ideology." It's not new, it's one of the reasons behind federalism. The idea is that if a single set of policies is adopted across a big republic, no matter how democratic that republic is, the common people will lose control over their lives because their concerns will be drowned out by the competing concerns of too many other citizens. Federalism is meant to unite states on foreign policy while allowing the people to be segregation based on political ideology and regional concerns.
I’m from eastern Washington, in middle school we were taught a similar idea. Instead of join in h Idaho we wanted combine with the pan handle of Idaho to create a new state “Colombia”
That's even less likely to happen then this. I mean obviously it never did but I know what you're talking about. It's hard enough to convince a state to allow so much of it's territory to leave it but the moment you try and carve out a new state everyone at the federal level will give push back, or at least 1/2 of everyone since things are so political. Think about it, this new state would get it's own senators, will get be red or blue aligned? If either the otherwise will oppose the idea. At least this idea makes it simpler by simply moving counties to another state, sure their representatives might move with them weakening Oregon but those people were already voting red so nothing really changes except the electoral college value of the two states. The problem is the Government/State of Oregon owns about 52.9% of the land in that state, they're the ones who built the roads and other infrastructure that wasn't built using federal or county money. Idaho would basically have to buy all the state roads, the state land, etc off Oregon to have a chance of absorbing the 300,000 or so people and the territory they live in that seem to be about this idea. Idaho is currently six billion dollars in debt at the state level, how could they afford to buy 1/4 of Oregon or more at fair market value? Don't expect the people in Portland to be charitable to those leaving, they'll want to make a profit off this sale.
That definitely won’t happen unless it’s pure politics, it’s basically two senate seats for the conservatives and a couple more safe electoral college votes. Update the Great Compromise and get rid of the hilariously outdated electoral college and we could have states that more accurately reflect reality, but until then there are federal problems.
I've always wanted to have eastern Washington and Oregon join together by moving the border from the Colombia to the Cascades. While there would be a strong economic downturn for awhile, a few years with conservative policies could help the state bounce back. Nothing is worse than knowing you might as well throw your vote away since you'll never be represented on a state or federal level all while living with policies that are made for urban communities.
"Tax Slaves" voting to increase their taxes by joining a higher taxed state... Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Yep, Trump loves the uneducated.
You really don't understand economics. Portland pays for the entire state of Oregon. All of Eastern Oregon depends on funds and extra money coming from the wealth of Portland. If Eastern Oregon went to Idaho, it would be far far poorer
Peter Zeihan is someone to look up on these topics. His entire thing is using geography to identify geopolitics and how to build better nations and states to stabilize regions and build wealth for locals
I'm a grumpy old cynic and "follow the money" is my mantra. Who is funding this movement? While I can sure understand why folks in eastern Oregon do not feel well represented in Salem, that has been true for a long time. What has changed in the last decade or so? I would suggest the large lithium deposits under the southeast corner of Oregon are a factor. Look up McDermitt caldera, lithium deposits, and the fight over legal protections of the Owyhee Canyonlands. Is it really the people of eastern Oregon who want this, or is it very rich developer folks who want fewer restrictions on extracting the lithium and feel that Idaho legislators will be more receptive than Oregon legislators?
That's just stupid and will cause a lot of civil unrest, asswhoopings, murders and hate and division. There should be at least 70 States in the US. Superstates are the dumbest most uncontrollable states with the most vast economic disparities. There's a reason Marthas Vineyard is only Democrat surrounded by poor people. It's not good for democracy, if we wage wars over other peoples democracies we should work to make ours s efficient and fair as possible. Who cares about the cost, our neighbors voice is worth it.
Idaho would have to spend 10 billion dollars for Oregon assets in eastern Oregon. Minimum wage in Idaho is the federal minimum and weed is still illegal in Idaho
Besides states being redrawn along political lines feels very 1860ish, states have changed their internal alignments and likely will again. It wasn't long ago that Democrats contested rural areas quite well, but had to concede the suburbs to the Republicans. That reversed in a matter of decades, and could again when the times change.
To be fair the eastern Oregonians have a solid point, there are quite a bit of natural resources in that area (some quite lucrative ones at that) that they are unable to exploit, primarily due to the environmental laws dictated to by the western half. Said resources could make one hell of a profit to, similar to the boom of the Rust Belt with coal and steel, so while Idaho acquiring that area would be a net loss economically in the short term, the long term benefits are fairly lucrative. That said I don't think joining Idaho would be the way to go, there are similar sentiments among eastern Washingtonians as the eastern Oregonians, I think the better option would be to have both states realign along the division of the Cascades so western Washington and Oregon would be their own state, while eastern Washington and Oregon would be their own state. Effectively both states would be swapping land for people, the western region for both states is the most populace, while the eastern half does have more territory but less people and it does not economically disenfranchise one or the other in the long term. I find that to be the more amicable solution for both current and long term stability overall, I likewise think it would calm political tensions in that part of the nation as well, given that the friction stems from both sides butting heads over every issue, if the left does their thing on their side and the right does their thing on their side, then nobody is going to be throwing fists across the aisle so to speak.
Edit: HE later discussed exactly what i said. I live in the valley of western Oregon, I support the idea of Greater Idaho, but it would suck for Idaho. As it stands eastern Oregon is just a tax sink for the rest of the state, it would be the same for Idaho I don't see why they would want to take them in. But so long as we keep the cascades and Bend I'll vote for it if they want.
This whole idea is dead on arrival simply because of the whole debt transfer aspect. From what I found the most generous calculations would still see Idaho's state debt being increased by like a third of what it currently is, while the population would only increase by 15% or so. More thorough transfers of the debt would see Idaho's state debt nearly being doubled. No legislature will ever be able to take a deal like that.
Dang, this movement is still going? As a non-Oregonian, my opinion doesn't matter, of course, but I don't really see any problem with the citizens of a state, unsatisfied with their representation, "seceding" to another state which they feel DOES represent them.
Easter Oregonians don't understand how subsidized they are by Western Oregon. When they understand and Idaho is asked to pay the bill on this land grab, they will say no. Idaho does not have the capital to make a fair exchange. And Eastern Oregon will suffer significant economic hardship when the $ from Portland & Eugene is cut off.
Two things: First, as an Idahoan, I am not sure it is as good as the Eastern Oregonians think. In the last few years I have become rather appalled by the amount of corruption I've found in Idaho. Second, look up "The State of Jefferson". I probably have some of the details wrong, but it was a movement to create a new state out of southwest Oregon and some of Northern California (I can't remember if it included eastern Oregon or not). It was actually making good progress until Pearl Harbor derailed it. I think it was actually set to go before the state Congress a few days after P. H. but with the war it got canceled and sort of fizzled out. My point is that an Oregon Separatist movement has existed for close to a century and has had substance. I personally would like to see a State of Lincoln in Eastern Washington and Idaho panhandle, Greater Idaho for southern Idaho and eastern Oregon, and Jefferson for the Oregon/California border. In that case I would absolutely move to Jefferson. I want to live on the Oregon coast, but the far left state politics and insane land prices are stopping me.
As one of the few that has lived in both Eastern Oregon (one of the really isolated counties) and Portland, Eastern OR definitely has a vibe more similar to Idaho. In the 80's a law was enacted restricting the timber industry in OR and I think WA too. Right now those countries really struggle and some of them really are falling into disrepair. Nowadays automation might not mean timber will be as prosperous, but it might be something.
6:18 This seems like a bit of a mischaracterisation to me, bcuz whilst Oregon has higher state taxes; the bulk of the taxes in Oregon arent levied on the poor citizenry, but on those with more wealth... Bcuz Oregon has **no sales tax** (except on alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis), and that makes it much more likely to draw in more progressives than conservatives; bcuz conservatives are more likely to want lower taxes on the wealthiest and corporations Oregon has quite high property tax, but many an Oregonian nvr has to pay a cent of property tax. Even if ya got a 5% sales tax, thats still hittin **everyone** and that makes the tax burden often higher for the poorest citizens in states like Idaho when compared to Oregon But ofc, the bulk of those ppl in eastern Oregon who want to leave, esp those incentivised to get others behind the movement, are overwhelmingly gonna be ppl impacted by property taxes or corporate taxes or just affected by the income tax and gullible enuf to believe that lower income tax plus sales tax wud be better 9,9 Oregon has "relatively high" state taxes, bcuz folk all too oft forget how much of an impact sales tax has; and in the conservative states, they dont mind fleecin the poor so they can pay less themselves
Speaking as a former Idahoan. The eastern oregon population has no idea how good it has it. Idaho is the closest thing to a theocracy in the U.S. Their laws are written by a group of christian sects. If you are oregonian, you are not gaining independance. You are changing masters and your new one is not benevolent at all.
The problem with this movement is that it looks at recent politics and doesn't really look far down the road to shifts in political views. It's a very dangerous idea inmo.
@@mgkcjkRight they can always move to the other side. But it feels like it's segregating the sides based on political difference. They'll pretty much be no elections on the state or county level as it will always be Dem or Rep based on the side your living on. Then when the presidential election happens it will be truly the only election that matters and that could be dangerous.
@@BobectorGamesBobector segregating sides based on political differences is the point, that is the end goal. Ideas are the only thing that truly divide collectives, it is only appropriate that each individual collective gets its own land to call home. And the office of the presidency and the vast majority of federal administrations should be abolished by the end of the transition. Turning the US into a confederation rather than a federation.
Movements like this spring up in NY a lot. Personally I believe in transferring the Southern Tier (border regions) to Pennsylvania, and making Hudsonia (most of the rest of Upstate) its own state
IIRC a majority of idahoans would accept the territory if it were free, but the main hurdle is that the government of Idaho would have to buy billions of dollars in Oregon State assets from the govt of Oregon, and that simply isn't popular in Idaho
But that would ceace the decade its part of Idaho. The Portland things you dont like in eastern Oregon are as such because they must follow Sealem law.
@@johnsmiff8328 Just agree that again the states are nothing but administrative divisions. Its government asses which the federal government has deligated to a more local government. If the local government changes who administers the assets changes. No echange of money required
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 you can’t just steal things, sorry! It’s Oregon property! The fed can’t take it from Oregon for free. We have these cool things called property rights in America.
It’s an interesting topic but there’s no way in hell it ever happens. The Oregon state legislature isn’t going to give away 60% of their state to Idaho. And losing 300k residents would probably cause Oregon to lose a House seat and electoral vote (with Idaho gaining both). Which would also cause democrats in congress to vote against the move since it helps republicans nationally. Also one thing the video didn’t mention- Idaho would have to pay Oregon for all state owned land and property in eastern Oregon. And that’s in the billions of dollars. Idaho doesn’t have billions laying around and I doubt Idahoans would be interested in paying higher taxes to get part of Oregon.
Want to stir a pot? Tell a serious Republican that Idaho can have most of Oregon's east, if Texas gives away 1/15 of it's Reddest voters to Oklahoma (everything North of I20, and west of Dallas/Ft Worth. Which would almost instantly swing Texas blue. That area is 2-3 million of Texas' 30 million population, and INTENSELY right-wing. So, if Eastern Oregon "belongs" with right-wing Idaho, shouldn't Texans in that area identify more strongly with Oklahoma too? Idaho steals a vote from Oregon. Oklahoma gets 2 votes from Texas. But suddenly Texas' remaining votes are blue votes. Because Texas is VERY close to being a swing state these days. Last election saw 11 million votes cast. If about 8% of the right-wing vote (that area votes 80-90% right wing) vanished into Oklahoma, instead of a 5.8 to 5.2m vote gap, it'd be about 5.3 to 5.2m. That's no longer Reliably Red like Texas has been. Offer that to Congress, alongside Greater Idaho, and you'd see plenty of Democrat representatives willing to do both, because it would be Republicans shooting themselves in the foot - which is the strongest reason that redistricting Oregon into Idaho is a terrible idea. Because the moment you start re-drawing lines, it's going to devolve into an absolute cluster-fuck. And the left would win. Because the right wing votes are propped up by HUGE areas of right-leaning voters being just barely enough to override major urban centers in enough remaining states. Let those cities "excise" themselves from their rural states, and group themselves together, and you'll quickly see what the popular vote has been telling us for 30-40 years. The USA, by popular vote, is closing in on 60% liberal. The only reason Republicans are still winning at the national level is the mechanics of the electoral college, and votes being "stolen" from the left (the same way as Eastern Oregon's votes are being "stolen" BY the left in Oregon).
It is not just east of the Cascades. We literally have two or three counties dragging the entire state into one bad policy after another. Many of the folk in these more populous counties aren't even from Oregon, at least not within the last two or three generations. They are fleeing statest that they have already ruined, for greener pastures. Imagine telling someone in an abusive marriage that a divorce would further an emotional divide in the relationsship. Then tell them that they need their abuser's permission to leave. It really paints things in a new light. And make no mistake, the relationship has become abusive. I don't think a division is realistic, but I support the movement's illumination of the problem.
@@AndrewStarling-kx6mm Thank you for illustrating what is commonly referred to as the "tyranny of the masses." There are protections against this at the Federal level, it is a shame that idea is not universal.
@@craigmcclanahan8693 ok and? genuinely, if there is any kind of democracy in state, then you are either going to end up implementing policies the majority of people agree with, or policies that a minority of people agree with. surprise surprise, literally every person who isn't a lead poisoned microcephalic addlepate who was too busy fucking their cousins to learn how to read, thinks that majority rule is more democratic than minority rule
I live in Oregon. My elected representative in the state told me, in person, that she DID NOT represent me. In fact, she told me that if I so much as emailed her office, she'd have me arrested. She didn't know what I was there to talk to her about, she just knew that I was at some "right-wing" event. I was there to talk to her about blind kids in school … because having been one of those myself, it was kind of an important issue to me. She didn't know my name or email address, of course, and she'd have had no basis to make good on her threat. But she knew she recognized that albino that was with "them" that day. The fact is I have no loyalty to "the right" or to "the left". I find them both pretty distasteful, but I do care about issues that matter to me (which these days are largely right to repair and reining in corporations that think they're above the law. But I still don't think out of control government is any better than out of control corporations. I'm an issue voter, not a party voter. Nonetheless, I live in Portland. Walking to the pharmacy, someone shouted that I, "that blind guy" was "one of them". (Back to that segregation language…) Only instead of shouted threats that got me chased by literally a dozen armed, masked, black-and-read weapon-swinging psychopaths. A surveillance camera caught one of them aiming for my skull chopping with a crowbar like an axe. Two inches closer would've been a lethal chop through my brainstem. My hat bears a gouge from the claw, and my backpack was ripped open, spilling its contents on the pavement. Of course this happened in Portland where I live. There was no real investigation. No arrests were made. Of course some of the folks in that cell were arrested over the next several years for their "peaceful protests" which included explosives, gun crimes, arson, property destruction literally exceeding a million dollars in 20 minutes, smashing a man over the head with a cinderblock and kicking him in the face while he lay unconscious in the street (he was a Bernie Bro, whoops!), hospitalizing several people, giving one brain damage, and a host of other things. Charges against every single "protester" not voting for the DA's politically opposing party were dropped. No wonder Eastern Oregon wants the hell out of Oregon! I wish I could follow. I don't travel much because I have a compromised immune system and my chemotherapy meds cause chronic pain. But if the wrong asshat wins the 2024 presidential election, I expect that's the only thing that might keep me from being murdered in the streets. We're way the hell past "segregation" in Oregon.
This again? No. No, they won't. Idaho has a lower minimum wage and far less money to spend on them and their 'infrastructure', which isn't that big when you look at the amount of land in that area that isn't actually Federal land or Tribal land.
Oregon resident here: this movement of changing the border pisses me off. These are the same people that say "if you don't like it then leave" yet they're not willing to take their own advice. They expect numerous states to make immense changes because they're throwing a temper tantrum. If you want to move to Idaho then go ahead.
The eventual goal is to have every citizen living in a state that aligns with their culture and ideology. The easiest way to do that is to have the least amount of people move as possible, so then only the minority collectives in each county are the ones who have to move if they so wish
Right. If it is so terrible then they can leave as they have been yelling for decades. Better yet. They can move back home to Russia with their orange master
Another state this could happen in is Illinois. A Chicago separation seems likely Since most downstate are extremely spiteful of Chicago leading the state into a Progressive direction.
Wouldn't it be nice if the people living there had the choice. But because Portland and Eugene control Oregon, Eastern Oregon will always be held captive by those two cities.
Eastern Oregon is extremely poor from decades of mismanagement. If we joined idaho we'd just be dominated by them. I'm a leftist and I'll admit that there are grains of truth in this movement. Having lived here most of my life, I can tell you that people here just want stability. They want protection from wildfires. They want something to be done about the drug, poverty, and unemployment crises. They don't care if they're in Idaho or not, they just want representation.
@@user-ConnorKaroThompson It's funny that a country founded upon a revolution in favor of more representation, ends up having less representation for the majority of the common people.
Even IF the populations of Eugene and Portland suddenly decided to agree to let Eastern Oregon go, they still wouldn't be allowed to join Idaho. Because Idaho would first need to pay for the loss of the land. Then they'd need to foot the bill for the poverty striken areas they've just taken on. Very unlikely. And even if by some miracle Idaho agreed to that, it then goes to Congress where both House and Senate need to pass it with a majority vote. Which will never happen. It's not just Eugene and Portland "holding them captive". Which, considering most of the welfare that goes there is generated from those cities is a bit of a rich claim. But be as that may, they're held captive by every single state with a stark divide between liberal and conservative where one side has a majority control and isn't eager to allow the areas that don't allign with that to secede. That includes California, Texas, New York, Florida, and dozens of others. Not a single one of those states would allow it because then they have to allow the portions of their own state that want to control their own fate to do the same.
@@kyletucker3811 i agree with most of this, not the welfare. I lived in Eastern Oregon for a long time. Yes, there's a lot of food stamps benefits and education benefits, But practically no money is put to addressing the actual issues. There is no work, there is no opportunity, and this spreads poverty. And poverty spreads a whole variety of other issues. It doesn't matter if you can get education if the education quality is awful. what use is unemployment if you still can't pay any bills? My father lives out here too, he recently lost his job. The only help he gets is food stamps. It's entirely possible he'll have to move soon, because he can't pay his mortgage. He doesn't even have a car, and that's not uncommon. That's why Eastern Oregon has such expansive community transport. But even with the county shuttling you places it's still hard to travel and actually do anything. Many Eastern Oregon communities have a rigid sort of class system that has developed as well. A few wealthy landowner families that have been out there for generations own almost everything. If they don't like you, you're SOL. These families often have ties to gangs or cartels.
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You forgot to pin the comment
Oregon would be a republican state if Multimah county didn’t exist
@@Oregon-2024. But Multnomah county does exist. Did you just intend to make an obvious statement? was that it?
@@PendeltonWhiskey ????
@@Oregon-2024. Was that too complex for you?
Year: 2027.
The Idaho Empire has invaded Brazil.
brother we aren't playing hoi4 you cant be violating other countries neutrality with your idahoan forces.
@@piedude333ify Try all you want, Greater Idaho stops for no man
@@piedude333ifyboohoo you're boring
@@steviechubbs5238 The Greater Israel will not stand idle in the face of your aggression. We want a piece as well!
Gets guaranteed by The Uk.
So, basically, they need to convince Oregon they're a major burden, while also convincing Idaho they're a major asset. That sounds difficult.
Not really? Cause the reason they are a burden is because stupid taxes and regulations that makes it hard to be profitable in a rural setting
@@libertine5606 People liek you are the reason they want to leave...
@@libertine5606 they want to have nothing to do with people like you and its pretty easy to see why😊
@@robertpicklesnickle Yep, that's why I say they had better load up the 5th wheel and get to Idaho proper before it's too late!
@@libertine5606 too late for what? What are you gonna do?
The central problem really comes down to something I've observed living here in Portland, and it's this: "Whatever Portland wants, Oregon gets". If every single citizen in the state of OR voted against a measure, doesn't matter what it is, and Portland votes yes, it passes. There's no balance other than relying on Portland to 'play nice'.
What percentage of Oregon’s population is the city of Portland alone? 30%? 35%? It’s not like Portland has 51% of the states population. There are other parts of the state that also votes Democrat.
@@brandoncameron2686 It depends on how you count it. Portland *technically* isn't that big. The Portland *Metro* area, however, as of March of this year is 2.5 Million people. That's including the cities have all built up into each other, like Gresham, Hillsboro, Beaverton, Tigard, Troutdale, Wood Village and more that everyone understands as part of Portland life.
Think of it like NYC only listing Manhattan as their population without including the other burroughs.
@@dragonstryk7280 Even the surrounding areas of a big city are not gonna be as left-leaning as the voters in the city limits itself. For example, Philadelphia. Philadelphia county votes 81% Democrat. However, the counties that surround it (Montgomery, Chester, Delaware, Bucks) may vote 55 to 65% Democrat. No Democrat in Pennsylvania can win a statewide election with just the Philadelphia metro area alone. And Pittsburgh is not even that big. There are blue votes adding up all over the state to contribute to the Philadelphia metro region. In Wisconsin, Joe Biden didn’t win by just carrying Madison and Milwaukee alone. He got a ton of votes from red counties that Trump won. I think Biden got over 700,000 votes from red counties in Wisconsin. So we can’t even just blame Madison and Milwaukee for putting Biden over the top. Red county Democrats greatly contributed to the statewide vote. We concentrate so much on the urban vs rural divide that we forget that there are Democrats in red counties voting, and there are republicans in blue cities voting. Trump did get quite a bit of votes out of the Chicago area. Hell, Trump got a lot of votes from the Houston area. Harris County gave Trump plenty of votes.
@@brandoncameron2686 That's Pennsylvania, this is Oregon. Yeah, Im from NY originally, and yeah, it's MUCH more pronounced. Look at the Population Density Map for Oregon. There's the Greater Portland Metro, and then it's just the reservations and Wasco, really. Wasco has about 10k, and it drops off hard from there.
Shaniko, OR, for instance has a population of 30. Thirty. Yeah, this ain't NY, and it's not PA.
@@brandoncameron2686 Do you seriously believe that a bunch of red states randomly decided to vote en masse for Joe Fricking Biden?
And we are SURE they ain't faking it just so they can change Idaho's borders into a middle finger for the memes?
Supposedly one of Canadas provinces almost joined the US which would have made the entire union look like a middle finger.
I mean... I know a TON of people that voted Trump in 2016 for basically that reason. I voted Kanye in 2020 for basically that reason. I live in Eastern Oregon. I know ALOT of people who voted for this for the PURE REASON of "our government sucks, it would suck if it were left, it would suck if it were right, they just hate us so let's vote for anything that rocks the boat" -- voting to "separate" is mostly symbolic for these people and they'd vote to join Oregon if the situation was reversed. It's not about politics REALLY, it's about a middle finger to whomever happens to be in charge. You are basically 💯-- most peope I know voting for this are just voting for this for the collective middle finger - although it's slightly more metaphorical than making the borders look like a middle finger 😅
@@robnoberti read all of that but NO ONE CARES
Even if they don’t, we will still have the border with Montana that looks like Joe Biden sniffing Idaho….
@@robnobert Thanks for giving a 2nd meaning to it, although again, the joke will remain with my original meaning: A Map joke
If they can do that, can we all vote to remove one of the Dakotas?
No one ever asked for or needed two Dakotas
As in this video, both states would need to agree on that.
Not really. North Dakota is far better off without South Dakota. North Dakota is the only state with a state bank, quite a left-leaning institution despite a Republican-majority legislature since years. South Dakotan Republicans who are far more easily lobbied would dissolve the bank.
@@flmisThat's interesting.
I thought their was a rule against removing states to create a bigger state. Also the fact the us senate would be completely out of balance. Republicans would lose 2 senate seats so... i dont think it will happen ever.
Respect the Treaty of Fort Laramie and return west South Dakota to the Great Sioux Reservation.
To be clear here, as an Oregonian. None of the counties as voted to leave. They have voted to form committees or to direct county leadership to explore the option.
@@SirManfly
Beleive it or not, the sticking won't come from getting approval, but in negotiating. Idaho won't pay the likely billions of dollars to Oregon for state owned land and facilities.
@SirManflydumb ideas should be shut down by the adults in the room
@@stevennelson8479If that were Oregon’s reigning philosophy, then Portland’s residents and businesses wouldn’t be fleeing the city like shoplifters from a Nike store.
@@nathandirkmaat5049They aren't. That's a narrative that's largely made up by people that aren't actually there.
@@kyletucker3811 It took me all of 30 seconds online to find that Portland’s population is DECLINING at a loss of 1.21% annually. That fact alone, for a city of that size, is proof that, no, we aren’t imagining things when it comes to Portland’s problems.
I'm really impressed how well you represented each side. You gave pros and cons brought up by both sides without imputtung your own opinion. This is what history/news needs to be more like
The ones who advocate for changing state borders are right tho. Big countries are federations for the purpose of giving autonomy to local groups and regions so they wouldnt be disenfranchised or too powerful in the central government. The US states dont give autonomy to anyone, they where in a hury drawn as streight lines over what was for the most part uncharter teritory. This leads is a great deal of polarization as people get state laws forced on them which they dont like and with no hope of winning on a state level many of them chose to work together with people of different states to try to enforce their views on everyone on a federal level.
Give me the power and Id redrawn US states to be more similar in size and population to each other, more homogenus internally and with their borders trying to follow natural borders so these new states would stand the test of time and not be demendant on short term political whims.
Every time I visit this comment, there's comments that I saw previously that aren't there anymore. Happens more on this channel than any other channel I visit BY FAR so I'm sure it's not RUclips being RUclips. I get the feeling this creator is censoring comments he doesn't like that don't agree. Which ironic AF considering what you just said. If it's true, I'm basically speaking into the void now I guess. Hi void. How you doing old friend?
@@robnobert I do think its YT being YT, to me it happens here as much as everywhere else and it happened under my comment which has 1 like so is unlikely to have been seen by the youtuber himself.
@@robnobert nope, its youtube, i get about 50% of my comments shadowbanned because I'm a bad goy
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Absolutely none of your blather is true
A warning to Michigan from Wisconsin:
We're taking the U.P.
We won't tell you when,
But we're taking it. That is OUR land.
100% support from this Wisconsinite. Lets annex it and get it over with. We love the UP way more than Michigan.
Much like western Oregon I'm sure Michigan would love to get rid of the dead weight part of their state.
Good Luck! You don't want to mess those UP people. They are unique and I don't think they take well to anyone being charge. The UP-side of the issue is that it would likely turn Wisconsin Red.
Up should be its own state
@@OregonCountry1836 It's just too small. But those of us in the lower half of Michigan are proud to have it. My son went to NMU and Marquette. A great place! The UP has so many wonderful treasures.
If I lived in a rural part of my state, and people who've never seen a cow in person try telling me how to take care of my cow, I'd be pretty pissed.
I was born and raised in Eastern Oregon. This is almost exactly how we look at it
Not only that, but they effectively don't have the right to vote thanks to the electoral college. I know how they feel in that regard, I live in California as a conservative. My vote means nothing and the massive population of California is counted as 100% left-leaning in elections despite that not being true at all. It's incredibly frustrating and I would 100% support a movement to split California or at least change the boundaries to join Nevada. I hope eastern Oregon farmers get the chance to finally live in a place where their values are respected, and I hope more states follow suit. Conservatives would also unlock so many electoral college votes in that case lol, we'd never lose again.
@legogenius1667 I think changing the rules from Winner Takes All to a point by point basis would settle a lot of these issues. If a candidate wins (hypothetically speaking) 10 points from California and another wins 15, then they should get those points instead of one getting all 25. It's not a fair system at all and doesn't properly represent our voice.
@@Mr2915Officialmaine does this
@@legogenius1667 I suspect Democrats feel the same way in Texas and all of the other Republican dominated states.
There would be a change in congressional seats and state senators seats. Oregon would loose power and Idaho would gain. But would be easier to govern the state itself tho
Yes, this would definitly impact Oregon's federal representation, which is another reason for the state legislature's aversion to the idea. The question is how big that impact would be. There is a pretty complex math to how congressional seats are calculated and there is the possibility that under the right circumstances, a secession of Eastern Oregon with its small population would have a negligible impact on the representation of Oregon, especially if immigration to Oregon's urban centres contributes to off-setting the impact. I'm no expert on the US political-system though, so take this with a grain of salt.
@@PoliticswithPaint yeah, most of eastern Oregon is empty + one congressional district
I do not believe there would be a change in senator seats, as the constitution explicitly states each state is to receive two senators. So unless Oregon is completely devoured, the number of states will be the same, and both states will only have two senators.
@@randomknight2585 yeah, but they meant state senators
The power shift really would be negligible bc one congressional district leaving Oregon isn’t big and the senators stay the same
States are sovereign, counties are not. The only way this could happen is with a statewide referendum in both Oregon and Idaho, and Congress approving it. Neither state's legislature would do it themselves.
Idaho would do it
@@Gryphind0rIdaho has the will. Oregon miiight, but likely won't.
If the right to secession was a property of sovereign states the civil war wouldn’t have happened. States are not “sovereign”.
I don’t Idaho is interested in those counties, the costs far outstretches the possible benefits.
Idaho approves, Oregon's government wants to maintain political control over those people
Oregon native here. Eastern Oregon has been trying to leave since before WWII
Long time, no see. Glad to hear something from you!
Yeah its been more quiet than usual unfortunately. Had a few things to sort out, but I'm back in the game!
@@PoliticswithPaintsorting paint?
All fun and games until blue western Mississippi sees this and tries to create a state of their own
It would cause too much chaos if this happened, which is why it never will.
@@MatthewTheWanderer likewise if it happened in any other case
@@1antag0nist53Not in the case of Oregon and Idaho.
@@MtiuliBichi ESPECIALLY in the case of Oregon and Idaho. The legal mess would be catastrophic.
@@1antag0nist53 Not at all. It is the easiest and most painless case. Eastern Oregon is different demographic, different culture, and geographically separated from the rest of Oregon.
I have a better idea. Allow electoral voting districts to vote independently. Set it up like Maine and Nebraska nationwide. There are countless communities that are unheard because of our current system setup.
There's actually a counter movement in Idaho saying they don't want to take on the debts and responsibility of Eastern Oregon because Idaho doesn't have the financial capability to suddenly add 300,000 individuals smoothly. And I'm sure Oregon doesn't want to have to pay the offset cost.
Idaho has an unstable government, tons of well armed people in militia groups, and you’d be hard pressed to squeeze an additional 9,000 dollars out of every single Idaho resident to pay for it.
@@hueyg206You say that like it’s a bad thing
@@jaredwilliams2357 You can't fund your retirement with NRA fetish fuel.
@@jaredwilliams2357
Rule by armed gangs is a bad thing.
@@markwilliams2620Thinking that militias and gangs are the same thing is a prime libtard moment.
As an Oregonian, this perhaps one of the best deconstructions I have found on the matter. Our state continues to be a prime example of geopolitical division in the US. I’d be curious if you’d be interested in exploring another fascinating movement (the State of Jefferson) that directly influenced the Greater Idaho 2022 revision that you mentioned here 7:17. Excellent video! Keep up the good work!
Your geopolitical division is stupid because your laws are also stupid. You're worse than Texas and California. You're the Jack in the box of America.
If both went through Oregon would be like connecticut and if Washington lost land to Idaho/Lincoln it'd be the new mass
Eastern Oregon residents really haven't thought this through, though. Joining Idaho means losing legal marijuana, funding for highway and road maintenance (Idaho's roads are terrible and terribly funded), and will have to start paying sales tax (Oregon is currently 0%). Also, the minimum wage will basically be cut in half. That's honestly just the start-- they'll immediately want to go back to Oregon.
As someone who actually lives in Oregon, this is a really good summary of what's happened so far and why Greater Idaho becoming reality is so unlikely.
You vastly, vastly underestimate the revolutionary sentiment bubbling within the US. If it happens, it won't happen legally. It doesn't have to. Same goes for many aspects of the US. "Rule of law" has gradually stopped having meaning. Nobody cares about the law created by a tyrannical government that cares so little about its people.
If it doesnt become a reality the USA should prepare for a crisis of the third century when the Roman Empire realized its administrative divisions wherent up to the task of governing the much expanded population the hard way.
fr
Indeed, I am in Oregon too. I acknowledge that movement for Greater Idaho is but an distant pipe dream. It's time for people in Eastern Oregon to realize this cold, hard facts and move on.
Or, if they don't like it, they can move to Idaho instead.
@@Helezhelm You don't actually give a reason to move on. Something being unlikely to succeed isn't a reason to not work for that outcome. There's little worthwhile that is ever easy.
What do you mean what would happen to the reservations????
Literally nothing. Reservations are separate from the states.
I don't know about that, Republicans hate having to give reparations to Natives.
I wouldn't be surprised if they start treating the reservations like Israel treats Gaza.
Especially with all of the anti-immigrant and now the "illegal citizen" talk going on. You get a MAGA crowd that now has jurisdiction over a minority of people they see as inferior...
Hell, we saw a militia group assault a man in the middle of new york city live on TV because he was brown in skin and spoke a little spanish...
Idk what state you live in but you clearly haven’t been taught correctly by your school system.
@@Bighaid91 are you always this confident when you're wrong? 🤣
Also of note; The most profitable Cannabis shop in Oregon? Seven miles from the border with Idaho.
yep. Ontario really isn't that far from Boise lol. Its funny to see all the 1A and 2C plates at the cannabis shops there if you drive by.
@@nerdicus6458 I’m thinking that a good number of Idaho residents would be pissed if they had to drive three extra hours to get their stuff!
@@Napalmdog paradoxically, that might increase support for legalization in Idaho.
This could also have the knock-on effect of increasing support for the Libertarian Party. With such a safe Republican state, it would be difficult for them to argue that supporting the LP would help the Democrats (though the duopoly has done much to stunt the public imagination).
Then again, California is a completely safe Democratic state (Trump lost by a 2:1 margin the last two times) and that hasn't gotten through to people enough to boost the Greens or Peace and Freedom (the socialist party on the ballot) by a statistically significant degree, so...
Right. Next you're gonna tell us there's always been an active and booming gay scene in the church too.
Oh wait
@@custos3249 more likely a very quiet and passive one!
Eastern Oregonian from Wheeler county here. Everyone knows this won't happen. But one can dream right? Eastern Oregon is very poor and it's mainly run by the few wealthy families that exists in each county, usually the main landowners. These families are almost always very conservative. I'm a leftist but even I can understand parts of the movement. Western Oregon is completely different culture and the politicians there do not look out for Eastern Oregon at all. It's sad to see nothing being done about the poverty, unemployment, or drug crises in Eastern Oregon, let alone the wildfires. I just find it ridiculous that people think our local government leaders and the state of Idaho will treat us any better.happy to see any attention being paid eastern oregon tho
"Western Oregon is completely different culture and the politicians there do not look out for Eastern Oregon at all." This is nonsense. The west side heavily subsidizes eastern O. Go check the numbers. West side should quickly agree to surrender it's interests to idaho and let them handle the burden. Remaining Oregon territory could cut it's taxes by 30%
@@rcpmac It's their own fault there's any ongoing issues then. Just throwing money at the problem doesn't make it go away. If you don't fix the root cause, then nothing really changes. This is one of the main tenants of fighting poverty. You've ever been to Eastern Oregon? I can guarantee it's not the same hippie, leftist dream of Western Oregon. I want to hear from your perspective why Eastern Oregon is so poor.
@@rcpmac Not sure why my comments to you always get deleted. Throwing money at the problem doesn't fix anything. You need to solve the route issues. If Western Oregon really was trying its hardest than why is Eastern Oregon so poor and behind in terms of services and infrastructure?
@user-ConnorKaroThompson Cause they're idiotic conservatives who hate anything and everything besides white people And even then, not all white people, it has to be other white people who also purposely choose to live a lower quality life on a beat down farm, thinking that they're too good for the city.
Oregon would become an Oregon Donor
They should consider change those awful flags first.
Although they have their advantages...with those flags, I never have to label them because they already labelled themselves
Oregon's flag has two sides. The reverse side is much simpler and would make a good flag on its own
Oregon has the BEST state flag but no one ever gets to see it bcuz every other state flag is single sided; so they nvr show the fact that Oregon's flag is way cooler on its back!
No other flags are dbl sided like Oregon's and that makes Oregon's the best; even if a shite committee designed the other side of it
@@dustinDraig Also on the reverse of Oregon's flag; its a bit of an optical illusion of sorts. Bcuz if you look at it the right way, you can instd of seein a beaver on a log; see a turtle reachin their neck down for a big sip of water
@@SylviaRustyFae I was skeptical but they have a beaver on the back of there flag what idiots would put a beaver on there flag just to hide it on the back?
The government in Boise is not going to take on the debt of those eastern counties and the gov't in Salem will not let them walk away without taking that debt.
They might.
The government in Boise is worried about, well, Boise, and as Boise grows the demographics of Idaho shift from rural to urban. Adding a bunch more rural is something they’re interested in.
Deschutes county and Bend would be really unlikely to separate from the Willamette valley, so the rest of Eastern Oregon would be joining ID as an economically unproductive tax drain
@@Justanotherconsumer Maybe you don't realize how big the debt would be. Do you seriously believe the hardcore anti-tax politicos in Boise will try to foist a rather large increase on their citizens if only just this once?
Deschutes would likely stay Oregonian, with a small chance some of the smaller conservative towns like Redmond or Prineville are merged into Crook or Jefferson county
@@masonchristensen1392 sounds like a losing move for Idaho
Midwestern Urbanite transplanted into Eastern Oregon here. The real reason Eastern Oregonians want to leave is very simple and childish. They just hate Portland. They hate it. They can’t stand the thought of living in the same state as Portland even while being hours away from it.
Here is the kicker. Portland pays for everything in Eastern Oregon. All of the schools and libraries are funded by Portland taxpayers. I say let Eastern Oregon leave and watch it become poorer than West Virginia.
Portland smells and is full of drugs and crimes. Its a black mark on a beautiful state.
Almost every movement like this has an actual numbers minded component, and a raw resentment minded component. Same with the unrest in the industrial belt over what NAFTA caused. To some, it's: bring back community-based economics. To others (most, I'm sorry to say), it's a conflation of the fair trade idea with racism, xenophobia and general disgust over things like the way people dress these days.
*I edited this comment so you won’t know how I got so many likes*
lol
Earth being hit by a meteor and wiping all life out before I get a gf is expected.
Would you getting a girlfriend reduce political fighting and polarization in America? No.
Would Oregon being a costal progressive state and Idaho being a mauntain conservative state reduce the political fighting and polarization in America? Yes.
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Hahahah you're funny guy.
That ain't happening, bucko. Idaho is broke as shit, has unstable government and no sane governor or legislation from both states will ever agree to this. Heck, not even Congress would approve it, not without a good reason.
"Greater Idaho" is dead in the water, period.
Stars will will be a thing of the distant past before greater idaho.
I feel this would be bad for Idaho on an economic lvl. The state of Idaho currently has issues taking care of its own people and infrastructure. The people in Eastern Oregon are benefitting from Oregons large gdp. Idaho has less than 1% of Oregons gdp. If eastern Oregon left they would lose many jobs and income due to the differences in state laws. If there were a merge Idaho would not take care of roads, bridges, or much rural infrastructure at all.
I grew up in rural Oregon and moved to Portland. People in rural Oregon love to complain about cities not understanding rural needs, yet they also make no effort to understand urban needs and spend too much time focusing on culture issues.
It goes the other way too of course, but rural citizens really lean into their self-righteousness from what I’ve seen.
I don't feel like learning about fentanyl use and property crime. Seems detrimental to my health
@@twiggledy5547 You’re delusional if you think Fentanyl is isolated to urban areas.
Idaho does not have the money to absorb eastern Oregon. Eastern Oregon is dependent on Western Oregon for schools, roads and other basic services. Washington is the same. The eastern part of both states are basically free-loaders.
This same concept has happend on a much smaller scale in Baton Rouge where Georgetown separated from Baton Rouge due to poor management by baton rouge and over taxation.
It's worth noting that at least half of the population of Eastern Oregon live in Deschutes county which is the one county that has been consistently excluded in the greater Idaho movement.
There's no way the elites would permit the loss of any of their counties, no matter how much we would prefer to join Idaho.
The rest of the state is tired as being treated as serfs by Portland, mostly.
Eastern-Washington would do the same thing and join Idaho, except it has insisted it needs to be an independent state since the early 1900s.
just see the comments, many people who are not conservatives/libertarians are see themselves in relation to conservatives in the same way as serfs see peasants, they want their rule, their resources and their obedience and the serfs want more freedom and to preserve local customs and rights, yet, many people don't see them as locals because they have european ancestry, but many migrant tribes until they settled never were too much native or their land
just see west virginia and virginia, even if at the 1860's virginia and west virginia were similarly conservative in relation to societal issues, they were divided in relation to slavery, in 2024 virginia is a democrat public worker state and west virginia an republican impoverished state, and both are different to this day, honestly, the geography of west washington/oregon are different and in reality, they just don't want more states to be antiabortion, since the abortion question is something that defines if you are conservative/liberal and left/right wing person, even among libertarians who despite personal choices agree on free weed for those who want, free guns for those who want and no taxation for all, and the issues about migration, drug use, lgbt issues, and so on who even if existed in the past and were registered in documents, were seen bad by rural population, just see the ethiimology designated to call someone bad(see the "bad" ethymology), ie, the urban-city divide will continue until the fall of an civilization and the reset of the zeitgeist of the local people and neighbours
Every single state has one or more separatist movements
Let's hear it for the free city of Chicago...Good riddance.
I'd support north California splitting
@@12b_engineerSame. I'm tired of not having a vote here.
It's come and gone here in Western Virginia. Several counties wanted to join West Virginia, but that mainly happened back when Northam tried instituting a gun ban and all the local police everywhere outside of NOVA said they wouldn't enforce it.
@@12b_engineerthen say goodbye to the money from blue California. You would be as poor as rural Mississippi
It's emblematic of the growing rural/urban divide. I've seen it here in Oregon, and in Colorado and in Minnesota and Wisconsin. There's a lot of resentment. Rurals, in particular, really want to be left alone. The way of life is vastly different between both groups. And because of the concentration of power in urban areas, rurals feel completely ignored politically, or worse, lectured. I don't have an answer other than government greatly shrinking its scope of influence, which probably isn't happening in my lifetime.
I would like to see voter turnout for the secession votes in those counties. Due to how unlikely it is to ever happen I think many of those that would vote against greater idaho would not show up, similar to the Catalonian independence referendum. If these votes are taken more seriously I think we would see less support.
That was my first thought as well. Even the much bigger Brexit referendum suffered from the low turnout issue.
Oregon has mail in voting, and some of the highest voter turn out of any state in the country.
@k9wolf07 the last one approved in Crook county only had a turnout of 37%
@@shortystomper3656 That's normal, some elections will have lower turn outs and usually the lower ones are in more rural counties but overall I believe the state averages in the 60%-70%. I was just pointing out that Oregon doesn't have the issue of needing to take time off work or school to go wait hours in line to vote like other states. Possibly the OP is correct that maybe the ones against secession in the eastern counties didn't bother to vote.
What bugs me is that some counties appear to have voted on this multiple times. As with Brexit, you don't get to vote over and over until you get the result you want. Vote on it once, and if it fails, wait a good amount of time (say 10-20 years - enough time for a significant percentage of people who never got to vote on it to become eligible to vote) before you vote on it again.
Voter turnout isn't really an issue. Mathematically, in a perfectly randomized vote sample, the tally from just 10,000 votes is likely within 1% of what you'd get if all 4 million Oregonians voted. What maters more is bias in voter turnout - if there are factors which make people who wish to secede more likely to vote, or less likely.
You’ve got a great voice for narration, and your scriptwriting is balanced and relatively unbiased. Subscribing!
12:05 I was only able to finally figure out at the end of the video that the image on the flag was of greater Idaho vs a thumbs up emoji 👍
Good eye
More like a middle finger
Best video about this subject that I have seen yet. I live in western Oregon and it's almost impossible to even discuss this without people having a meltdown
The real reason this will never happen is because if eastern Oregon is allowed to do this, hundreds of other republican counties that are in blue states would try to do the same thing. Eastern California would want to join Nevada, all of Minnesota besides the twin cities would want to join the Dakotas. Southern Illinois would want to merge with Missouri and Kentucky. It’s sad that the rural minority isn’t fairly represented in these states, but this split would cause dramatic divides across the country.
I am in full support of the US raising a giant middle finger towards everyone looking at maps.
But it will look like thumbs up 👍 than middle finger 😅😅
Idaho core territory
I've been saying for ages that we just need to move the "Welcome to Idaho" signs a few miles west every year.
Dating pool thinning out at the family reunions huh
@@stevennelson8479owch
This is how the Idaho empire begins. Soon it will stretch across the world. No gods, no kings only Idaho.
@@stevennelson8479
You're thinking of utah. There's quite a few mormons that look into their family tree and find out it's a little too interlinked. Sometimes it's their wife that turns out to be distantly related.
As an Oregonian, I appreciate you pronouncing Oregon correctly. I'm not sure why so many people say "Or-E-gone" who are from other states.
Im from Crook County. The problem is mentalities. Eastern Oregon is all country folk, and we're tired of city folk making our laws and taxing us for projects we will never use.
It's called a "democracy". It's a very simple concept that Republicans don't understand. If no one is representing you, vote them out and and get someone else.
then move to idaho, the portland metro has the vast majority of the state’s voting population,
essentially you’re mad that people vote & land doesn’t, literally move to a rural-dominated state if you want pro-rural policies, dummy
It should be mentioned that the geopolitical situation is similar for eastern Washington. Back in the 80s, I read a book called "The Nine Nations of North America" that grouped the coastal parts of California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and Alaska into a country the author called "Ecotopia" while the rest of BC, Washington, Oregon, Northern California and Idaho joined most of the interior intermountain west in what he called "The Empty Quarter."
It also should be pointed out that any state with one or two large cities and a lot of sparsely populated rural areas has some of the same political tensions.Virginia, for example is divided into the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC and the rest of the state - AKA "the real Virginia."
It's not unique to US states. Pretty much any political jurisdiction comprised of a single economic region inevitably has this issue with it's core/hub city once the technology is advanced enough that it's size isn't limited by transportation issues and plagues. It might initially have more than one, but over time they'll either merge or one will eclypse the others.
For many of the western states, borders were drawn this way on purpose. The people pushing for statehood often had mining interests in the territory, but the federal government made sure to include farmland in the state borders as well. That way those states had more diverse economies and weren’t completely reliant on mining.
As someone who voted for the separation in Union County OR, this video misses how much lopsided Covid responses triggered many of these counties flipping their votes.
And as it turned out in the end, the redder counties suffered from lower masking & vaccination rates, which led to higher covid death rates in those places. The scatter chart is available if you look for it.
@@surelyyoujokemeinfailure7531 I’ll believe the studies forty years from now, maybe.
The amount of disinformation that flew around during Covid (and to this day tbh) was/is unreal.
@@surelyyoujokemeinfailure7531 I smell BS, no way a land mass of 300k people with very low population density had the same amount (you're claiming worse, which is even more unbelievable) of death as a high density population area with millions of people. Social distancing is practically built into these areas since they are so depopulated, you don't need to wear a mask when your neighbor down the road is literally a mile away from you.
As a former Oregon resident who was identifies as very politically left but was raised in a very conservative part of rural western Oregon. I mostly get the grievances of the greater Idaho movement. I don't really support the idea largely because I don't think Idaho's management would fix a lot of the issues, primarily infrastructure and accessibility to vitals like Healthcare. A looser grip on regulations would allow for more industry to move in sure but it would require a lot of time and money put into it that I am not fully sure Idaho would like to do given the population of eastern Oregon and from what I have seen of Idaho's own issues with infrastructure and quality of life in it's more sparsely populated areas. I wholly agree that rural populations NEED a bigger voice especially in Oregon where it might as well be an entirely other state once your cross over the mountains. Places like Bakers city are just very different from places like Tillimook and need different considerations.
If we didn't have an electoral college I would honestly support something like that movement you always see for California to be broken up into multiple states since it's in a similar boat with various regions and populations that do have different needs and considerations. Just given eastern Oregon climate, population and the density of it. It's a hard sell on them being independent either.
I think the path forward is more considerations from the state and more power given to each county to determine what is needed.
I'm an independent who currently lives in Idaho and agrees with you. I think Greater Idaho is a terrible idea.
"Accessibility to healthcare." State funded healthcare is always a terrible idea. Obamacare essentially tried to bankrupt me by forcing me to pay $400 a month for insurance when I'm on a $1k/month salary. Well below the poverty line. And I was forced to pay taxes every April for services I didn't want, or (ironically) pay for. Oregon is governed almost exclusively by Portland and even that city has had violent insurrectionist Communists demanding the dissolution of the united states and establish a systemic hatred of whites. You people either need to support a statewide Electoral College system as a compromise so you won't be dominated by Commies, or let West Oregon leave peacefully.
@@JimmyCougar There's no Communist.
@@General-F And next you're going to tell me that Biden is a coherent genius.
You literally have black block terrorists with Communist insignia running around many parts of Portland.
@@JimmyCougar
the Democrats are right-wing, not communist
Please don't take this the wrong way @Politics with Paint, but this is my first video watched on your channel and when I first heard your accent, I thought to myself: "Oh god, another European whos going to butcher the pronunciation of my State and tout a bunch of false "facts". Ughhhhhh...." Well, I was wrong. You nailed it sir! I have been following the Oregon/Idaho border movement for many years now and it is fascinating to me. I kind of hope it passes because it would really change things for the better. You've earn a new sub my friend.
I'd argue anything less then a super majority should be ignored. I get it boo hoo the big cities are different then us; I don't care.
If you can get 66% of the population to vote for it, and get both states populations to agree to it then whatever you guys do what you want. But something tells me 66% of Oregon and Idaho won't vote to approve simply because of the mess it'd be to negotiate the exchange. 52.9% of Oregon is owned by the state. Idaho would have to buy that land off Oregon to get their consent and that's assuming Oregon is remotely willing to sale it. People never seem to think about this aspect of the issue. Idaho would be debt ridden for decades to afford this idea.
Is it owned by the state or by the federal government? Cause those are very different.
As an Idahoan, I support the greater Idaho movement for reasons related to the Department of Fish and Game mostly. To fish on the Idaho side of Hell's Canyon, you have to have an Idaho fishing license; to fish on the Oregon side of Hell's Canyon, you have to have an Oregon fishing license. Not so with greater Idaho. Also, there is some GREAT country to hunt Elk and Deer in Oregon, but I couldn't convince my father to buy an out-of-state hunting license to go hunting there with me.
Eastern Washington, Idaho and Montana are full of white colonizers who want to set up euro-settler ethno state, a bunch have moved there since the ‘80s.
Idaho is too poor to take over Eastern Oregon. They won’t be able to maintain the roads or forestry.
Never underestimate the human propensity to act in direct opposition to their own interests.
Dems aren’t voting to give up their power. Neither would repbs
Everyone in these comments talks about the reasons why Oreg9n wouldnt allow it due to a loss of political power, but frankly Idaho's also not going to go for it, as it would likely involve assuming the debt of these Eastern counties, who are far less financially solvent than even their more rural Western counterparts like Tillamook County. Its a bad business decision, and the ideology of conservativies to "run things like a business" would sink the concept before it began.
1:39 Oh no, the two center right parties are fighting, surely something will actually change if the democrats win…
Western Oregonians need to exercise their 2A rights against the *tyrannical* Eastern Oregon oppression of Western Oregon rights. But seriously, this is no difference than when West Virginia seceded from Virginia. They were separated from Eastern Virginia by geography and culture.
They were separated by the fact that Virginia voted to secede from the United States and area of West Virginia did not want to and was then assisted by a federal government that by that point had become quite antagonistic to secessionists. I see a lot of differences between that and Oregon.
Interestingly enough the "Left Coast" of Oregon has little problem with the Eastern counties leaving to join the state of Idaho. The real drive behind this is "Demographics", the Eastern counties have been shrinking continuously for several decades, at the same time their politics have been shifting significantly Right Of Center. As a result the influence the Eastern counties have in the Oregon Legislature has been decreasing significantly, add to this rate of population growth in the very Liberal, Young, Urban centers of the Western side of the state has been exacerbating this problem.
These Eastern Oregon counties will never actually make this move, even if they had a real chance of making such a shift happen. While their tax structure will go down, their materials and services they currently have will also go down as well or possible more, as the overall economics of Idaho does not have the same GDP as the state of Oregon.
Lastly there are the Idaho-ians themselves, and while a sizeable number of the existing Idaho counties would vote for such a merger, the College Centers, and Urban more Liberal areas of Idaho would not, they are dealing with their own Liberal / Conservative divide as well, and the addition of more Ultra-Conservative Republican White Christians would be problematic. Should the issue ever come to Congress, it would be considered a "...tempest in a teapot..." be even Tea Party Ultra-Conservative Republicans.
@Ronankg Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night. You know, Trump is a filthy criminal.
Half of the counties in Illinois have voted for a similar separation from the Chicago dominated Illinois.
"A new kind of segregation based on political ideology."
It's not new, it's one of the reasons behind federalism. The idea is that if a single set of policies is adopted across a big republic, no matter how democratic that republic is, the common people will lose control over their lives because their concerns will be drowned out by the competing concerns of too many other citizens. Federalism is meant to unite states on foreign policy while allowing the people to be segregation based on political ideology and regional concerns.
HE WOKE UP CHAT
I live in eastern Oregon and have been watching this gain popularity since 2019
I’m from eastern Washington, in middle school we were taught a similar idea.
Instead of join in h Idaho we wanted combine with the pan handle of Idaho to create a new state “Colombia”
That's even less likely to happen then this. I mean obviously it never did but I know what you're talking about. It's hard enough to convince a state to allow so much of it's territory to leave it but the moment you try and carve out a new state everyone at the federal level will give push back, or at least 1/2 of everyone since things are so political. Think about it, this new state would get it's own senators, will get be red or blue aligned? If either the otherwise will oppose the idea. At least this idea makes it simpler by simply moving counties to another state, sure their representatives might move with them weakening Oregon but those people were already voting red so nothing really changes except the electoral college value of the two states.
The problem is the Government/State of Oregon owns about 52.9% of the land in that state, they're the ones who built the roads and other infrastructure that wasn't built using federal or county money. Idaho would basically have to buy all the state roads, the state land, etc off Oregon to have a chance of absorbing the 300,000 or so people and the territory they live in that seem to be about this idea. Idaho is currently six billion dollars in debt at the state level, how could they afford to buy 1/4 of Oregon or more at fair market value? Don't expect the people in Portland to be charitable to those leaving, they'll want to make a profit off this sale.
That definitely won’t happen unless it’s pure politics, it’s basically two senate seats for the conservatives and a couple more safe electoral college votes.
Update the Great Compromise and get rid of the hilariously outdated electoral college and we could have states that more accurately reflect reality, but until then there are federal problems.
No, you obviously want to switch states, now with all the gold Ore gone.
I've always wanted to have eastern Washington and Oregon join together by moving the border from the Colombia to the Cascades. While there would be a strong economic downturn for awhile, a few years with conservative policies could help the state bounce back. Nothing is worse than knowing you might as well throw your vote away since you'll never be represented on a state or federal level all while living with policies that are made for urban communities.
I'm from South West Washington, can Colombia bring us in too?
The western Oregonians would never relinquish their tax slaves. That aside shifting borders should be a thing.
"Tax Slaves" voting to increase their taxes by joining a higher taxed state...
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Yep, Trump loves the uneducated.
You really don't understand economics. Portland pays for the entire state of Oregon. All of Eastern Oregon depends on funds and extra money coming from the wealth of Portland. If Eastern Oregon went to Idaho, it would be far far poorer
Peter Zeihan is someone to look up on these topics. His entire thing is using geography to identify geopolitics and how to build better nations and states to stabilize regions and build wealth for locals
I'm a grumpy old cynic and "follow the money" is my mantra. Who is funding this movement? While I can sure understand why folks in eastern Oregon do not feel well represented in Salem, that has been true for a long time. What has changed in the last decade or so? I would suggest the large lithium deposits under the southeast corner of Oregon are a factor. Look up McDermitt caldera, lithium deposits, and the fight over legal protections of the Owyhee Canyonlands. Is it really the people of eastern Oregon who want this, or is it very rich developer folks who want fewer restrictions on extracting the lithium and feel that Idaho legislators will be more receptive than Oregon legislators?
Benefits of Oregon will not transfer to Idaho. If you want to leave for Idaho, pack you shit and go. Oregon is Oregon and Idaho is Idaho.
That's just stupid and will cause a lot of civil unrest, asswhoopings, murders and hate and division. There should be at least 70 States in the US. Superstates are the dumbest most uncontrollable states with the most vast economic disparities. There's a reason Marthas Vineyard is only Democrat surrounded by poor people.
It's not good for democracy, if we wage wars over other peoples democracies we should work to make ours s efficient and fair as possible. Who cares about the cost, our neighbors voice is worth it.
Just bc you do not mesh with one portion of your state’s populace, doesn’t necessarily mean you belong to another state.
Idaho would have to spend 10 billion dollars for Oregon assets in eastern Oregon. Minimum wage in Idaho is the federal minimum and weed is still illegal in Idaho
We're trillions in debt because of our commitment to the democracy of Shariah Law countries, if it's important to us we should show it.
No, it won't. And we don't want em.
They must not realize Idaho doesn't have indoor plumbing.
You know what else would get the people of eastern idaho more representation? Disbanding the electoral college
Besides states being redrawn along political lines feels very 1860ish, states have changed their internal alignments and likely will again. It wasn't long ago that Democrats contested rural areas quite well, but had to concede the suburbs to the Republicans. That reversed in a matter of decades, and could again when the times change.
To be fair the eastern Oregonians have a solid point, there are quite a bit of natural resources in that area (some quite lucrative ones at that) that they are unable to exploit, primarily due to the environmental laws dictated to by the western half. Said resources could make one hell of a profit to, similar to the boom of the Rust Belt with coal and steel, so while Idaho acquiring that area would be a net loss economically in the short term, the long term benefits are fairly lucrative.
That said I don't think joining Idaho would be the way to go, there are similar sentiments among eastern Washingtonians as the eastern Oregonians, I think the better option would be to have both states realign along the division of the Cascades so western Washington and Oregon would be their own state, while eastern Washington and Oregon would be their own state. Effectively both states would be swapping land for people, the western region for both states is the most populace, while the eastern half does have more territory but less people and it does not economically disenfranchise one or the other in the long term.
I find that to be the more amicable solution for both current and long term stability overall, I likewise think it would calm political tensions in that part of the nation as well, given that the friction stems from both sides butting heads over every issue, if the left does their thing on their side and the right does their thing on their side, then nobody is going to be throwing fists across the aisle so to speak.
Edit: HE later discussed exactly what i said. I live in the valley of western Oregon, I support the idea of Greater Idaho, but it would suck for Idaho. As it stands eastern Oregon is just a tax sink for the rest of the state, it would be the same for Idaho I don't see why they would want to take them in. But so long as we keep the cascades and Bend I'll vote for it if they want.
From my understanding thats the layout plan.
This whole idea is dead on arrival simply because of the whole debt transfer aspect. From what I found the most generous calculations would still see Idaho's state debt being increased by like a third of what it currently is, while the population would only increase by 15% or so. More thorough transfers of the debt would see Idaho's state debt nearly being doubled. No legislature will ever be able to take a deal like that.
idahos small population tax base could not afford this!
Dang, this movement is still going? As a non-Oregonian, my opinion doesn't matter, of course, but I don't really see any problem with the citizens of a state, unsatisfied with their representation, "seceding" to another state which they feel DOES represent them.
Easter Oregonians don't understand how subsidized they are by Western Oregon. When they understand and Idaho is asked to pay the bill on this land grab, they will say no. Idaho does not have the capital to make a fair exchange. And Eastern Oregon will suffer significant economic hardship when the $ from Portland & Eugene is cut off.
Two things:
First, as an Idahoan, I am not sure it is as good as the Eastern Oregonians think. In the last few years I have become rather appalled by the amount of corruption I've found in Idaho.
Second, look up "The State of Jefferson". I probably have some of the details wrong, but it was a movement to create a new state out of southwest Oregon and some of Northern California (I can't remember if it included eastern Oregon or not). It was actually making good progress until Pearl Harbor derailed it. I think it was actually set to go before the state Congress a few days after P. H. but with the war it got canceled and sort of fizzled out. My point is that an Oregon Separatist movement has existed for close to a century and has had substance. I personally would like to see a State of Lincoln in Eastern Washington and Idaho panhandle, Greater Idaho for southern Idaho and eastern Oregon, and Jefferson for the Oregon/California border. In that case I would absolutely move to Jefferson. I want to live on the Oregon coast, but the far left state politics and insane land prices are stopping me.
As one of the few that has lived in both Eastern Oregon (one of the really isolated counties) and Portland, Eastern OR definitely has a vibe more similar to Idaho. In the 80's a law was enacted restricting the timber industry in OR and I think WA too. Right now those countries really struggle and some of them really are falling into disrepair. Nowadays automation might not mean timber will be as prosperous, but it might be something.
6:18 This seems like a bit of a mischaracterisation to me, bcuz whilst Oregon has higher state taxes; the bulk of the taxes in Oregon arent levied on the poor citizenry, but on those with more wealth...
Bcuz Oregon has **no sales tax** (except on alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis), and that makes it much more likely to draw in more progressives than conservatives; bcuz conservatives are more likely to want lower taxes on the wealthiest and corporations
Oregon has quite high property tax, but many an Oregonian nvr has to pay a cent of property tax. Even if ya got a 5% sales tax, thats still hittin **everyone** and that makes the tax burden often higher for the poorest citizens in states like Idaho when compared to Oregon
But ofc, the bulk of those ppl in eastern Oregon who want to leave, esp those incentivised to get others behind the movement, are overwhelmingly gonna be ppl impacted by property taxes or corporate taxes or just affected by the income tax and gullible enuf to believe that lower income tax plus sales tax wud be better 9,9
Oregon has "relatively high" state taxes, bcuz folk all too oft forget how much of an impact sales tax has; and in the conservative states, they dont mind fleecin the poor so they can pay less themselves
Speaking as a former Idahoan. The eastern oregon population has no idea how good it has it. Idaho is the closest thing to a theocracy in the U.S. Their laws are written by a group of christian sects. If you are oregonian, you are not gaining independance. You are changing masters and your new one is not benevolent at all.
Awesome video, i never looked into the impact of the movement other than the impact on myself so watching this video has been amazing thank you
Let me guess … weird people are behind this
The problem with this movement is that it looks at recent politics and doesn't really look far down the road to shifts in political views. It's a very dangerous idea inmo.
Very much disagree. The views will probably stay the same or amplify as the population from both states gradually exchange over ideology
@@mgkcjkconservatives havn't governed in Generations. They're utterly incapable and have to be babysat. Y the adults to stop them from hurting people
@@mgkcjkRight they can always move to the other side. But it feels like it's segregating the sides based on political difference. They'll pretty much be no elections on the state or county level as it will always be Dem or Rep based on the side your living on. Then when the presidential election happens it will be truly the only election that matters and that could be dangerous.
@@BobectorGamesBobector segregating sides based on political differences is the point, that is the end goal. Ideas are the only thing that truly divide collectives, it is only appropriate that each individual collective gets its own land to call home.
And the office of the presidency and the vast majority of federal administrations should be abolished by the end of the transition. Turning the US into a confederation rather than a federation.
@@mgkcjk So instead of a 2 party system we get a 1 party system essentially. Less choices isn't a great thing. It just caused division
If this succeeds, I'd imagine Upstate NY would consider breaking from Albany and NYC.
Movements like this spring up in NY a lot.
Personally I believe in transferring the Southern Tier (border regions) to Pennsylvania, and making Hudsonia (most of the rest of Upstate) its own state
What about nyc, where like 80% of the population lives
And the rest of New York?
You know that stuff was originally ours!
And we get to stop sending tax dollars upstate
@@FunnyGuy-n8z Stay New Yorkish
Most of what I've heard on the Idaho side of this is that "East Oregon is still too much Portland for us to want them."
IIRC a majority of idahoans would accept the territory if it were free, but the main hurdle is that the government of Idaho would have to buy billions of dollars in Oregon State assets from the govt of Oregon, and that simply isn't popular in Idaho
They'd accept it for free but wouldn't wanna pay for it? I thought conservatives were against handouts /s
But that would ceace the decade its part of Idaho. The Portland things you dont like in eastern Oregon are as such because they must follow Sealem law.
@@johnsmiff8328 Just agree that again the states are nothing but administrative divisions. Its government asses which the federal government has deligated to a more local government. If the local government changes who administers the assets changes. No echange of money required
@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 you can’t just steal things, sorry!
It’s Oregon property! The fed can’t take it from Oregon for free. We have these cool things called property rights in America.
I’m from southern Oregon, while I like the idea of Greater Idaho I’d much rather see the State of Jefferson.
It’s an interesting topic but there’s no way in hell it ever happens. The Oregon state legislature isn’t going to give away 60% of their state to Idaho. And losing 300k residents would probably cause Oregon to lose a House seat and electoral vote (with Idaho gaining both). Which would also cause democrats in congress to vote against the move since it helps republicans nationally. Also one thing the video didn’t mention- Idaho would have to pay Oregon for all state owned land and property in eastern Oregon. And that’s in the billions of dollars. Idaho doesn’t have billions laying around and I doubt Idahoans would be interested in paying higher taxes to get part of Oregon.
Want to stir a pot? Tell a serious Republican that Idaho can have most of Oregon's east, if Texas gives away 1/15 of it's Reddest voters to Oklahoma (everything North of I20, and west of Dallas/Ft Worth. Which would almost instantly swing Texas blue. That area is 2-3 million of Texas' 30 million population, and INTENSELY right-wing. So, if Eastern Oregon "belongs" with right-wing Idaho, shouldn't Texans in that area identify more strongly with Oklahoma too?
Idaho steals a vote from Oregon. Oklahoma gets 2 votes from Texas.
But suddenly Texas' remaining votes are blue votes. Because Texas is VERY close to being a swing state these days.
Last election saw 11 million votes cast. If about 8% of the right-wing vote (that area votes 80-90% right wing) vanished into Oklahoma, instead of a 5.8 to 5.2m vote gap, it'd be about 5.3 to 5.2m. That's no longer Reliably Red like Texas has been.
Offer that to Congress, alongside Greater Idaho, and you'd see plenty of Democrat representatives willing to do both, because it would be Republicans shooting themselves in the foot - which is the strongest reason that redistricting Oregon into Idaho is a terrible idea.
Because the moment you start re-drawing lines, it's going to devolve into an absolute cluster-fuck. And the left would win.
Because the right wing votes are propped up by HUGE areas of right-leaning voters being just barely enough to override major urban centers in enough remaining states. Let those cities "excise" themselves from their rural states, and group themselves together, and you'll quickly see what the popular vote has been telling us for 30-40 years. The USA, by popular vote, is closing in on 60% liberal. The only reason Republicans are still winning at the national level is the mechanics of the electoral college, and votes being "stolen" from the left (the same way as Eastern Oregon's votes are being "stolen" BY the left in Oregon).
I am NOT joining Idaho bro.
It is not just east of the Cascades. We literally have two or three counties dragging the entire state into one bad policy after another. Many of the folk in these more populous counties aren't even from Oregon, at least not within the last two or three generations. They are fleeing statest that they have already ruined, for greener pastures.
Imagine telling someone in an abusive marriage that a divorce would further an emotional divide in the relationsship. Then tell them that they need their abuser's permission to leave. It really paints things in a new light. And make no mistake, the relationship has become abusive.
I don't think a division is realistic, but I support the movement's illumination of the problem.
3 counties that make up almost 50% of the entire states population...
@@AndrewStarling-kx6mmwhich county do you live in?
@@AndrewStarling-kx6mm Thank you for illustrating what is commonly referred to as the "tyranny of the masses."
There are protections against this at the Federal level, it is a shame that idea is not universal.
@@craigmcclanahan8693
ok and?
genuinely, if there is any kind of democracy in state, then you are either going to end up implementing policies the majority of people agree with, or policies that a minority of people agree with.
surprise surprise, literally every person who isn't a lead poisoned microcephalic addlepate who was too busy fucking their cousins to learn how to read, thinks that majority rule is more democratic than minority rule
I live in Oregon. My elected representative in the state told me, in person, that she DID NOT represent me. In fact, she told me that if I so much as emailed her office, she'd have me arrested. She didn't know what I was there to talk to her about, she just knew that I was at some "right-wing" event. I was there to talk to her about blind kids in school … because having been one of those myself, it was kind of an important issue to me. She didn't know my name or email address, of course, and she'd have had no basis to make good on her threat. But she knew she recognized that albino that was with "them" that day.
The fact is I have no loyalty to "the right" or to "the left". I find them both pretty distasteful, but I do care about issues that matter to me (which these days are largely right to repair and reining in corporations that think they're above the law. But I still don't think out of control government is any better than out of control corporations. I'm an issue voter, not a party voter.
Nonetheless, I live in Portland. Walking to the pharmacy, someone shouted that I, "that blind guy" was "one of them". (Back to that segregation language…) Only instead of shouted threats that got me chased by literally a dozen armed, masked, black-and-read weapon-swinging psychopaths. A surveillance camera caught one of them aiming for my skull chopping with a crowbar like an axe. Two inches closer would've been a lethal chop through my brainstem. My hat bears a gouge from the claw, and my backpack was ripped open, spilling its contents on the pavement.
Of course this happened in Portland where I live. There was no real investigation. No arrests were made. Of course some of the folks in that cell were arrested over the next several years for their "peaceful protests" which included explosives, gun crimes, arson, property destruction literally exceeding a million dollars in 20 minutes, smashing a man over the head with a cinderblock and kicking him in the face while he lay unconscious in the street (he was a Bernie Bro, whoops!), hospitalizing several people, giving one brain damage, and a host of other things. Charges against every single "protester" not voting for the DA's politically opposing party were dropped.
No wonder Eastern Oregon wants the hell out of Oregon! I wish I could follow. I don't travel much because I have a compromised immune system and my chemotherapy meds cause chronic pain. But if the wrong asshat wins the 2024 presidential election, I expect that's the only thing that might keep me from being murdered in the streets.
We're way the hell past "segregation" in Oregon.
Which rep?
Sus comment ngl
Crazy if true
This again? No. No, they won't. Idaho has a lower minimum wage and far less money to spend on them and their 'infrastructure', which isn't that big when you look at the amount of land in that area that isn't actually Federal land or Tribal land.
Monsieur Z has made several videos that in which he gives in my opinion very valid reasons why this would be a thing to do all over the USA.
Oregon resident here: this movement of changing the border pisses me off. These are the same people that say "if you don't like it then leave" yet they're not willing to take their own advice. They expect numerous states to make immense changes because they're throwing a temper tantrum. If you want to move to Idaho then go ahead.
The eventual goal is to have every citizen living in a state that aligns with their culture and ideology. The easiest way to do that is to have the least amount of people move as possible, so then only the minority collectives in each county are the ones who have to move if they so wish
Right. If it is so terrible then they can leave as they have been yelling for decades. Better yet. They can move back home to Russia with their orange master
Another state this could happen in is Illinois. A Chicago separation seems likely Since most downstate are extremely spiteful of Chicago leading the state into a
Progressive direction.
I am a Pennsylvanian, and I approve this message.
Wouldn't it be nice if the people living there had the choice. But because Portland and Eugene control Oregon, Eastern Oregon will always be held captive by those two cities.
Eastern Oregon is extremely poor from decades of mismanagement. If we joined idaho we'd just be dominated by them. I'm a leftist and I'll admit that there are grains of truth in this movement. Having lived here most of my life, I can tell you that people here just want stability. They want protection from wildfires. They want something to be done about the drug, poverty, and unemployment crises. They don't care if they're in Idaho or not, they just want representation.
@@user-ConnorKaroThompson It's funny that a country founded upon a revolution in favor of more representation, ends up having less representation for the majority of the common people.
Even IF the populations of Eugene and Portland suddenly decided to agree to let Eastern Oregon go, they still wouldn't be allowed to join Idaho. Because Idaho would first need to pay for the loss of the land. Then they'd need to foot the bill for the poverty striken areas they've just taken on. Very unlikely. And even if by some miracle Idaho agreed to that, it then goes to Congress where both House and Senate need to pass it with a majority vote. Which will never happen. It's not just Eugene and Portland "holding them captive". Which, considering most of the welfare that goes there is generated from those cities is a bit of a rich claim. But be as that may, they're held captive by every single state with a stark divide between liberal and conservative where one side has a majority control and isn't eager to allow the areas that don't allign with that to secede. That includes California, Texas, New York, Florida, and dozens of others. Not a single one of those states would allow it because then they have to allow the portions of their own state that want to control their own fate to do the same.
@@kyletucker3811 i agree with most of this, not the welfare. I lived in Eastern Oregon for a long time. Yes, there's a lot of food stamps benefits and education benefits, But practically no money is put to addressing the actual issues. There is no work, there is no opportunity, and this spreads poverty. And poverty spreads a whole variety of other issues. It doesn't matter if you can get education if the education quality is awful. what use is unemployment if you still can't pay any bills? My father lives out here too, he recently lost his job. The only help he gets is food stamps. It's entirely possible he'll have to move soon, because he can't pay his mortgage. He doesn't even have a car, and that's not uncommon. That's why Eastern Oregon has such expansive community transport. But even with the county shuttling you places it's still hard to travel and actually do anything.
Many Eastern Oregon communities have a rigid sort of class system that has developed as well. A few wealthy landowner families that have been out there for generations own almost everything. If they don't like you, you're SOL. These families often have ties to gangs or cartels.
There is this magical thing called moving.