This is not a fully formed idea. It is simply something I've been thinking about off and on lately. Mostly I think of it when people refer to certain states as "Satanic states" or they talk about states "Seceding" when I happen to know that geographically speaking those places often don't fit that narrative EXCEPT in the massive population centers.
At the moment our problems largely stem from massive population centers. When you live in such an environment it is very easy to lose touch with reality. You may come to think that food on the grocery store shelves just appears there and will continue to appear there. You may see a protest due to someone managing to convince enough people to protest and you may think that is the majority. This is especially true if that is all the so-called news will show you.
The news, the laws, and so much are essentially being dictated out of these massive population centers. If you've lived in such places and THEN after that lived outside of them the differences are stark and evident.
It is not clearly a bad state, red state, blue state. The problem is that our government as it is structured is easy to manipulate and corrupt if you can convince those people in the large population centers of a narrative you craft.
Yet people in large population centers tend to become more COG like than people outside of them. The system in large population centers is built around the idea of convenience. If you need something you can easily find someone to provide those goods or services. You don't need to know how to do it yourself.
Outside of such locations the goods and services you want may not be near by. That may make them very expensive or not an option. You end up having to solve problems for yourself. You end up learning about what is truly important to your life and what is not. You become more responsible for yourself.
Yet the masses in the population centers overwhelm the states they are in and essentially strip the rights of people that may be nowhere near them. I witnessed this personally in Western Colorado the first half of my life. People in Denver voting away the water rights of people with land on the opposite side of the state. California of course loves that.
Recently I began thinking perhaps we need more states. We might want to turn any large population center beyond a certain population into a city state. If we do this we will need to change how senators and congressmen are apportioned. Otherwise it could make things worse.
What if each state could only have 2 senators, and maybe 5 congressmen/women? That may not work. Like I said I haven't thought it out. We would need to work it out so the City States still had representation and power in the government we simply need to make it so that power no longer overwhelms and enslaves the rest of the nation.
I think if we did that you'd quickly see an end to the calls for secession...
I also think you'd quickly see people identify where the problems really are. If the city states could still do their insane laws yet it didn't impact outside of them the difference in living in such places would likely become very apparent. They also could no longer force compliance from those outside of them that provide them with goods and services. It'd have to be voluntary.
I know this is far from perfect. For me it is just a seed of an idea I've started pondering. I wanted to put it out there and let the rest of you play with it in your own minds. Perhaps you can make something actually beneficial out of it.
The way the world is this may be too late. I am no prophet though so I share it anyway.