On a somewhat related note, if we folded the federal government and signed a free-trade and migration pact between the 50 states, would we miss anything?
Likewise, there are large-scale benefits to having a cross-country highway system, even if it goes through states that couldn't afford it on their own.
As much as I love me some Founding Fathers, when they lived, 40 minutes got you a few miles away if you traveled with all available speed. Today, the other side of the world is only 40 minutes away on a ballistic trajectory. (And I'm not even counting information warfare where it's less than a second away.)
I think that was just like a shock tactic to really get people's attention at the presentation. It might be more of good presenting (start with a bang so people will be interested) than actually taking delight in America dying to that extent.
(That said, some of his comments make it seem that maybe that is why he made the map.)
