We are a divided nation, the product of decades of the “divide-and-conquer” strategy employed by the GOP, the religious right, the oligarchs, and seized upon by Trump, all in the service of accumulating and preserving power for themselves and themselves alone. Whether he is acting deliberately as a Russian asset, or is simply a “useful idiot” (or both), Trump is well on his way to fulfilling Putin’s dream of revenge on the US for, as he sees it, being responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union. He is also advancing the dreams of the oligarchy to own the country outright, and feeding the hunger of the Christian fanatics to be able to jam their theologies (yes, plural) down our collective throats. All of these (and a few other players) have put their weight and bet their fortunes on Trump because of the well-documented truism that “everything Trump touches, dies.”
A number of people here and elsewhere have suggested that eventually the “blue states” — that is, those parts of the country still committed to governing on the basis of reality and reason — will have to break away from the rest of the country and become independent, join Canada, form a new union; in any case, to make a complete political break from the ruined republic and thereby inoculate ourselves from the MAGA infection. An equal number of people (often the same ones) point out the difficulties of doing so, ranging the illegality of secession (perhaps becoming a moot point given Trump’s disregard for the law), to the reality that we are outgunned by the feds, to the problems of preserving assets that still do belong to the states and its citizens, such as Social Security.
And regardless of the damage Trump is doing, there is the existential flaw in the founding of the United States that is built into our Constitution: the smaller, rural, more conservative states have outsized power to dictate to the larger states how they shall spend our money, how they shall limit what rights our citizens (especially women, minorities, children) may enjoy, what thoughts they will allow us to think. By 2030, somewhere around 30% of the population will control as many as 70 seats in the Senate. And that’s without voter suppression.
How then, shall those who remain be able to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity in spite of Trump and his horde? One possible approach is suggested in a Substack article I just read by Chris Armitage: It’s Time for Americans to Start Talking About “Soft Secession” (Aug 18)
Three sources on those daily Zoom calls between Democratic AGs say the same phrase keeps coming up, though nobody wants to say it publicly: soft secession.
Not the violent rupture of 1861, but something else entirely. Blue states building parallel systems, withholding cooperation, and creating facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders.
The infrastructure for this resistance already exists.
Put one way, they plan to fight Trump by ignoring him. That sounds trite, and is a highly imperfect description, but in addition to preserving state action, it has the added benefit of further infuriating the muddled Mussolini — narcissists hate to be ignored.
California: “Newsom called state lawmakers into a special session later this year to protect the state’s progressive policies”
Illinois: “J.B. Pritzker launched Governors Safeguarding Democracy, seeking to unify state-based opposition to Trump’s agenda.”
Massachusetts: “Governor Maura Healey told MSNBC her state police would “absolutely not” help Trump’s deportation efforts.”
Armitage notes the irony that this is all derived from conservative legal theory:
The legal foundation for soft secession was written by conservative justices who never imagined blue states would use it. Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken calls it “uncooperative federalism.” States don’t have to actively resist. They can simply refuse to help. And without state cooperation, much of the federal government’s agenda becomes unenforceable.
Armitage concludes:
The infrastructure is built. The legal precedents are established. The money is there. Blue states have spent two years sharpening these tools. Next week, the governors meet again. . . . As blue states prepare to deny federal agents access to their databases, their highways, maybe even their airspace, the soft secession isn’t coming. It’s here.
Others agree: Soft Secession: How Blue States Are Rewriting American Federalism (MIchael Pardus, Aug. 26):
This isn’t secession with bayonets and barricades. It’s soft secession: states refusing to enforce federal directives, rejecting cooperation, and constructing realities where D.C. has little say. It’s rooted in legal precedent—ironically, written by conservative justices—and reinforced by a money map that shows blue states paying billions more into the system than they get back. . . . The question is no longer if this quiet separation will deepen, but how far it will go—and how long it will hold.
Secession is here: States, cities and the wealthy are already withdrawing from America (Michael J. Lee)
I have studied secession for 20 years, and I think that it is not just a “what if?” scenario anymore. In “We Are Not One People: Secession and Separatism in American Politics Since 1776,” my co-author and I go beyond narrow discussions of secession and the Civil War to frame secession as an extreme end point on a scale that includes various acts of exit that have already taken place across the U.S.
He calls it “scaled secession” that is used as much by the right (Musk pays no taxes, white communities create their own gated communities and schools) as on the left.
From this wider perspective, it is clear that many acts of departure – call them secession lite, de facto secession or soft separatism – are occurring right now. Americans have responded to increasing polarization by exploring the gradations between soft separatism and hard secession.
And it doesn’t even involve the DNC!
