Where will the capital city for a federation of US red states be after a unilateral, peaceful National Divorce?
A peaceful secession would probably result in a map in which the blue states remain whole, except hopefully there will be “mostly peaceful” state splits in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Arizona. Downstate Illinois votes a Republican as Indiana & Missouri. The southern tip is near the center of the federation and is located at the confluence of the two most important rivers in the federation.
We expect the red states to have a loose federation, so the capitol will only need to deal with issues of military, intelligence, & foreign affairs. If any other authority is given to the central government, they’ll likely want to spread the government offices among multiple states anyway. The tariff or tax authority and the supreme court, for example.
We’ve thought of a few criteria for choosing:
- Central location among those who might drive there is important. The densely populated part of the federation is the eastern part of the federation, which is anywhere that’s due north of any part of the Gulf of America. The center-of-population of this area appears to be in the western half of Tennessee. Visitors to the capital from the Western states will want to fly anyway.
2. The number of commercial passenger jet flights per day is important, along with having non-stop connections to a lot of red states. This allows legislators, citizens, and lobbyists to visit easily. The whole purpose of a capital is to be a place where the people of the states meet to coordinate. Flights allow bureaucrats to remain connected to their home states, rather than becoming too parochial, which makes it easier to attract bureaucrats from each state.
Unfortunately, the only cities near western Tennessee that have an adequate number of flights are Nashville and Atlanta. Even St. Louis falls short, and St. Louis won’t even be an option if downstate Illinois is still a part of Illinois when the capital is selected.
Flight frequency will be increased somewhat when the city becomes a capital though – not only because of government needs, but because of the increase in population caused by government, government vendors, media, tourism, lobbyists, etc.
Georgia is a purple state that might have Democratic leadership when the National Divorce occurs. Or the massive metro area of Atlanta might revolt at some time, making it a risky choice. No saboteur’s drones can be allowed near the airport. So Nashville seems to be the only choice. The Nashville area is pro-Trump. As shown at the end of this article, only Cincinnati is a more populous red-state metro district that voted as pro-Trump as Nashville did (58%) in 2024.
3. A federation’s capital should be near a state line or two, so that legislators, bureaucrats, and their families can live under the jurisdiction of another state’s government in case the home state’s government becomes inhospitable, intimidating, or applies pressure for political reasons. Unfortunately, the two cities with adequate air traffic aren’t that close to a state line. Nashville Airport is 43 minutes from the Kentucky state line. Atlanta’s airport is 67 minutes from the Alabama state line.
Memphis is near two other states, but has few flights, has racial & political objections to our future government, and has a quality of life that would make recruitment of quality employees harder. Other cities near state lines but with inadequate flight traffic are Huntsville, Chattanooga, Louisville, Cincinnati, Kansas City. St. Louis would be on a state line if downstate Illinois is annexed by Indiana and/or Kentucky (but not Missouri). But St. Louis lacks non-stop connections to 12 red states. Nashville only lacks 3.
Another option is to federalize a section of the metro area, creating an analogue to Washington DC, which was built not far from Baltimore. The government buildings could be built on the outskirts of the metro area, not too far from an airport. In the case of Nashville, perhaps on the north side of town, which is closer to a state line. The state legislature could agree beforehand to cede the territory and let the federation select the mayor and city council without local elections, so that crime is not allowed to fester.
4. The capital should not be so close to an international border that air defense is complicated. For example: if it seems that Georgia or North Carolina might one day secede from the red-state federation, then the capital should not be too close to them. Fortunately, purple states will get redder after joining the red-state federation as liberals & welfare dependents move out and blue-state conservatives & entrepreneurs move in. Texas & Florida are big enough in themselves to be independent, so they’re slightly risky as locations, if they join at all.
Do you agree that Nashville, or an outskirt of Nashville, should be the capital? Or can you suggest other criteria for choosing a location?
Red states have some big cities
Atlanta really does have 2600 commercial passenger flights per day, according to Grok. That’s twice as many as all Washington DC & Baltimore airports combined, thanks to Delta’s massive hub. In 2025 its airport had more passengers per year than any other on Earth.
Most red-state citizens are not rural. They live in towns & cities. In fact, we have some world-class cities that attract corporations that need wide & deep labor pools. We also have the ports that handle the most volume (by ton, not dollar value) in the US. The red-state federation’s economy will be one of the richest and biggest in the world, and grow rapidly.
Many urban blue-state conservatives will move to the red states during a National Divorce. Already, Texas and Miami are attracting a lot of corporate HQs and billionaires, as they flee the threats of the California wealth tax, the new socialist mayor of NYC, and the biased courts of Delaware. Texas now has more finance employees than New York. Miami is attracting many of the biggest investors. Atlanta has attracted much of the film industry from Los Angeles. Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Miami can compete with the blue states, which have only 3 metro areas that are larger (NYC, L.A., Chicago).
We can’t be sure which cities will join the red state federation, but we believe that most states will not split.
What are the most conservative American metro areas? We tabulated the %Trump vote for each area within roughly 60 miles of downtown, and the number of Trump votes (in millions, 2024). The most conservative cities were Tampa (56%), Cincinnati (58%), Nashville (58%), and Jacksonville FL (59%). The most anti-Trump metros: Atlanta (45%), Austin (46%), Raleigh (41%). The population numbers below are for MSAs, not 60 miles.
Here are the largest US metro areas that voted for Trump in 2024 (not sure what definition of metro they used):
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Interesting, but why do you assume industry, economics, and airlines will remain static while the national and state boundaries become fluid? Maybe United cancels some flights because Tennessee won’t let trannies abort their babies, or something? Whole industries are moving over taxation issues, you don’t think something like national divorce will have companies changing locales and factories? Soy boy’s and D’artavious won’t be running the auto plants, CNC factories, and steel mills in the reliably blue-voting rust belt.
Many of these corporations are merely moving their HQ offices. Many are multinationals already, so they’ll simply split their US operations into 2 operations. Certainly, one airline can substitute for another. But I see your point that if one airline with a hub were to, for some reason, stop serving the red states, that another airline might not keep that hub in the same place. And I agree that white male industries will grow due to the migration, especially since white males have a lot of the experience, competence, conscientiousness, reliability, determination, skill, and intelligence.