The movement to expand Idaho's border into Oregon

Fun fact: Idaho will turn into a middle finger if the eastern half of Oregon becomes part of Idaho. They will also rename Idaho to Udaho.

I've been a truck driver for almost a year and a half. It dawned on me the other day that there aren't really red or blue states, rural areas tend to be red and urban areas tend to be blue. A state being red or blue just depends on if there are more people in the city or the country.

The Idahoan empire won’t rest till it’s borders reach from sea to shining sea, this is only the beginning

For a moment I read the title as "Ohio expands it's borders" and I was like: "Oh God please not Ohio"..

Whilst I'm not advocating one way or another regarding changing state borders, as a lifelong resident of the Pacific Northwest it is clear to me that the divide created by the Cascade Mountains is HUGE. It is way more than just the red/blue political divide. Driving across the Cascades is like driving into a whole new world. The climate is the opposite with temperate rain forest on the west and high desert on the east, and the economic, cultural and other concerns are vastly different. You might be able to divide other states along red blue lines but that would be the only difference between them if you did. In Washington and Oregon the Cascades create two very distinct regions that go way beyond politics.

New combined state will clearly need to be named Ore-Ida

Wish they had spoken to some Idaho politicians about this.

I grew up in Oregon, I can confirm that like 95% of everything that comes out of Oregon or what is talked about Oregon is literally just describing Portland, the Willamette, or the coast

You forgot to ask the people of Idaho. In another interview I saw, the people of Idaho were all for it until they found out how much it would cost to purchase the land from Oregon and maintain all that rural area. Idahoans thought differently when they knew it would raise their taxes. They might share their values but not the bottom line.

In red states blue voters are ignored too. Happens all the time now in West Virginia.

This reminds me of a couple years ago when the people in Maryland's panhandle wanted to merge with West Virginia. Of course WV was all for it. But I believe they shut it down. I haven't heard it mentioned in a while. WV is very poor and Maryland isnt, so I wasn't sure if they were thinking about the financial part as much.

As a resident of upstate New York, I can painfully relate to this issue

Republicans regularly tell democrats to leave their states if they are unhappy. Why doesn’t this apply to them? 🤔

I think CBS did a pretty good job representing a thorny subject with conservative politics at its core. This struck me as pretty fair and balanced

I would love to see this happen! WA residents on the eastern side should consider doing the same! Heck maybe add them to Idaho.

Whenever I hear about these kind of things it always seems like there's an undercurrent of I'd prefer to be around people like me, I'd prefer to be around people that believe what I do, think like I think, act like I act... And I know I'm in the minority but that just strikes me so odd. Maybe it's because I've always felt like I'm surrounded by people that are different than myself, but I definitely find it to be a lot more interesting.

"Wait, it's all Idaho?" "Always has been."

I'm all for redesigning state borders so states are more sustainable and better represented, but it's quite ironic that the type people wanting their part of the state to secede and join another are same type of people saying "If you don't like it, then leave"

This is actually interesting as an outsider to study. It seems that it does highlight a problem with voting if nothing else though. A lot of eastern counties were republican, but the more populous western ones were democrat. So Oregon was democrat in the last election, which seems unfair to the guys in the east. But it seems that breaking away from Oregon has financial implications and maybe other things. So even if greater Idaho doesn't happen, they'd probably want to look at their voting system. Same thing could happen elsewhere in the US too.

Eastern Oregonians about to learn how financially insolvent rural development is and how hard densely populated cities are carrying their economy.