I am willing to bet $100 that none of the above scenarios will happen. The paralle with the USSR was simply short-sighted and ignored the differences between the two in order to acheive tiny frissons of futurism.

There was an effort at secession in the early 19th century, but there was no secession in fact -- at most, the CSA got recognized by one or two nations, and only broefly at that. The effort was throughly kiboshed.

God spare us if the Republicans abuse the nation to the point of causing any segment of it to try to secede.   If Bush were running the Civil War, he'd quickly forget about "being from Texas", and would turn Atlanta into another Kabhul.

A