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Tag Archives: Conservatism

Flummoxed by Secessionism

20 Saturday Feb 2021

Posted by Jim Langcuster in American Federalism, Federalism, Imperial Decline, secession

≈ 1 Comment

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American Breakup, American Empire, American Federalism, Conservatism, Dan Bongino, Jim Langcuster, Ronald Reagan, secessionism

President Ronald Reagan at his inauguration in January, 1981. Shortly thereafter he made an impassioned call for returning to federalism but faced opposition even from GOP governors.

To repeat a phrase that I have employed several times in this forum, the American Empire simply is too big to succeed.

Indeed it is the reason why an awareness of the increasing likelihood of secession is becoming the proverbial elephant in the living room, certainly among the growing numbers of us ordinary Americans in the red heartland who perceive what our malignant ruling class ultimately has in store for us.

Yet, I have been intrigued by how mainstream conservative commentators, recently Podcaster Dan Bonjino, have been absolutely flummoxed by this emerging  phenomenon. It undoubtedly is as readily evident to them that secessionist sentiment is spreading, yet they hold steadfastly to the same hidebound argument that a return to federal principles will resolve all of this.

Notions of American exceptionalism inevitably will die hard, but then, conservatism in America is deeply rooted in this mindset. And given that so much of what passes for conservatism on this side of the Atlantic is rooted in propositional nationhood, this really isn’t all that surprising.

Interestingly, conservatives seem to have forgotten that previous attempts to restore old-time federalism have proven futile. Incoming President Reagan, way back in 1981, undertook a concerted effort to return to bona federalism, offering to return welfare policy back to the states. Virtually all the governors balked, stressing that  their states lacked the revenue base to support a safety net that dates all the way back to the New Deal and that people, blue and red alike, expect as matter of course.

That is why I am convinced that the political dynamics in this country ultimately will necessitate a secessionist movement that ultimately takes on regionalist rather than state unilateral action, as the late diplomat and political thinker George F. Kennan portended in his own writings.

We will likely see states banding into regional compacts, forming what could be described as incipient federations. These conflicts ultimately will prove essential to preserving some facet of the social safety net to which virtually every American has grown accustomed over the past century.

Whatever the case, to borrow a line from the late Betty Davis, “Fasten your seat belts – it’s going to be a bumpy ride!”

An Alternative George Wallace

06 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by Jim Langcuster in American History, Conservatism, Southern History, U.S. Politics

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Tags

Alabama, Conservatism, George Wallace, Governor of Alabama, Jim Langcuster, Politics, Southern History

George-Wallace-Portrait1An image of George Wallace turned up on my Facebook news feed yesterday. Seven years ago, I posted a photo along with speculation about how George Wallace’s political career would have turned out of he had somehow managed to chart a different course during the segregationist era. He was a moderate Democrat at heart with no serious animus toward blacks and no seriously vested interest in segregation – at least, no more than the average white Southerner of the time.

I’ve written many times about the Wallace legacy – I find him one of the most fascinating and enigmatic political figures in Southern and U.S. history – and I’ll probably keep thinking and writing about him for the rest of my life.  He was not only a gifted politician but also an uncharacteristically intelligent one.  He was also a visionary who transformed American politics despite coming from what was considered by pundits to be a provincial backwater.

He started out no conservative. His former close friend and fellow University of Alabama law student, U.S. Judge Frank Johnson, once related that arguing with Wallace essentially amounted to debating a New Deal socialist.

As a student at the University of Alabama, Wallace was an outsider.  His idol was Carl Elliott, a wonder kid from my native Alabama county of Franklin who worked his way through Alabama and eventually was elected student body president, beating the student establishment know as “The Machine,” which exists to this day.   Elliot is remembered as one of Alabama’s most progressive-leaning Alabama congressmen.

Wallace was a Democratic Party stalwart who refused to bolt the 1948 Democratic Convention over the party’s proposed civil rights plank in the party’s platform. As an Alabama circuit judge, he cultivated a reputation for affording black litigants courteous treatment in his courtroom. His bitter defeat in 1958 at the hands of John Patterson changed all of this, driving him to become an ardent segregationist.

In a very real sense he sold his political soul for the sake of political expediency.

I’ve always wondered how differently the Wallace legacy would have been if our 45th Alabama governor had somehow managed not to carry the segregationist legacy.

Moreover, I have also wondered about how differently Wallace’s fortunes may have turned out if he had avoided an assassination attempt. Would he have brokered some sort of John Connally-style arrangement with Nixon, perhaps even serving in a cabinet post? Could he have prevented Jimmy Carter’s assent in 1976? All of these historical what if’s are the grounds of lots of fascinating historical speculation.

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