It is amazing to contemplate the red states and the blue states on the political map of the United States. If also shown, the purple or swing states do not change the picture very much. In essence, the country is divided into rural and urban areas, of which the former vote for the Republicans and latter for the Democrats. This is especially obvious on a map showing political divisions by county rather than state. Urban counties including inner suburbs are blue whereas the rural ones including outer suburbs are red. The urban-rural divide is also gaining strength over time. While I was living in the States in the Seventies and Eighties the divide was there, all right, but its political impact was much less palpable than it is today. The polarization of the two sides only grew in the Nineties and in the first decade of this century. What can be expected of it in the future, though? Although the enmity between the urban and rural populations is likely to grow, the main question is which of the two populations is likely to grow in turn. Given the ravages of climate change, which can only increase over time, and the global economic crisis, which edges toward a protracted global depression, the rural population is likely to grow faster than the urban population. Chances are that the United States will thus turn increasingly Republican. That is, conservative rather than liberal or moderate. And this is likely to affect the political map of the entire world. The American divide can only spread to other continents.