Was Heinlein's Friday a forecast?

Friday, one of Robert Heinlein's later novels, postulated a world where America had lost its way to such a degree that it had fractured into numerous balkanized regions, including a fascistic nation based in Chicago, a California-on-steroids, a free-wheeling no-holds-barred Las Vegas, etc. (Canada was shown to be in a post-secession state of tension with an independent Quebec). Paul Starobin sees something remarkably similar in America's actual future:

Remember that classic Beatles riff of the 1960s: "You say you want a revolution?" Imagine this instead: a devolution. Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society.

There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas with unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling, entertainment and conventioneer destination. California? America's broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nation-like state might be saved, truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout, but by a merciful carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world. And while we're at it, let's make this project bi-national — economic logic suggests a natural multilingual combination between Greater San Diego and Mexico's Northern Baja, and, to the Pacific north, between Seattle and Vancouver in a megaregion already dubbed "Cascadia" by economic cartographers.

Update, 20 June: James Bow writes:

Regarding . . . the possible break-up of the United States, this is actually an older subject. Even late in the Bush Administration, there was talk that California and Washington might go their separate ways. I could see this happening, but more in the context of the gradual folding up of the Nation State as a world institution. Similar movements are pulling power up (to Europe, NAFTA, WTO) and down. So Washington and Ottawa's days may be numbered, AND I might be able to drive from St. John's to Los Angeles without encountering a customs booth.

Here's my post on the subject here:
http://bowjamesbow.ca/2008/03/12/and-the-walls-c.shtml.