No, this 2008 article was very popular back in its day. I liked it a lot because it repeated basically what every scifi future history writer had been saying for some time. The Russian did not have the division of America quite right, IMO. The American scifi writers (like S.J. Sterling, Turtledove, et al.) thought 6 or more new states would form. California by itself, of course, Washington-Oregon, the Idaho and East area, Texas alone, the Arizona-New Mexico-Nevada area, the Southeast, the Middle Atlantic, and New England. Then an area in between all that, Arkansas and Alabama, Tennessee, etc. Nine in this idea.Hmm, quoting a Russian! Should we really be surprised?
For the U.S. to be so big was never going to last. Seen that last anywhere else?? I have for years been amazed it has lasted as long as it has.
In answer to the OP question, yes, I think this is the beginning of the breakup. The population is way too heterogeneous to be able to cohere. Nation states have to be homogeneous ethnically or they never stand.
Diversity is our weakness.