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~ Thoughts on Red States and "Deplorables."

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Tag Archives: States Rights

The Mainstreaming of Secession

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by Jim Langcuster in American Federalism, Devolution, Federalism, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Federalism, Federations, Interstate Compacts, Jim Langcuster, secession, States Rights, Wilsonian Progressivism

texas-capitol

Texas: One of several states harboring a nascent secessionist movement. 

I’ve been bowled over the last few weeks reading the growing number of articles in which mainstream columnists are finally coming to terms with a reality that I embraced more than a quarter century ago: the likely, if not inevitable, transformation of the  American Union into a much looser federation or into a number of smaller nation-states.

Predictably over the last quarter century, I’ve even been labeled everything from a neo-Confederate and a racist to a secessionist and traitor for subscribing to such views.

Actually, far more prodigious intellects, notably, the late George F. Kennan,  foresaw this inevitability years before I did.

I, for one, and despite my conservatism, respect the right of California and other left-leaning states to experiment with different domestic policies. I hope when all the chips are down that these enlightened blue-coast cosmopolitans will afford their counterparts in the red American hinterland the same courtesy.  And lest we forget, that was the concept behind American federalism:  that states possessed the attributes of nationhood but had chosen out of a desire for self-preservation against Britain and the other maritime powers of Europe to delegate a comparatively narrow range of powers to a general government that operated on behalf of the states.

Aside from all the constitutional arguments, there just comes a point when people outgrow relationships, whether these are business contracts, civic groups, friendships or marriages.  And the simple fact of the matter is that America is simply too damned big and diverse to govern, at least, based on the cookie-cutter approach that Woodrow Wilson and the progressives devised for us roughly a century ago.  We have reached the point where cultural evolution throughout through Europe and America has outstripped the ability of the central government to keep pace with it.

I really believe that.  In fact, I think that this is one of the inherent flaws in federations: The constituent parts are often inherently fissiparous, with their own highly evolved cultures and political ideologies.  These constituent parts don’t stop evolving when they enter into a federation: Their cultural and political evolution continues apace, sometimes to the point at which they feel compelled to question the utility of their relationship with the other members of the federation. Maybe it’s time for us to take into account that incontrovertible fact whenever we undertake the design and execution of another federation.

How close is America to a crackup?  I’m not sure.  Even so, I do believe that in many notable respects, we are drawing close to where the beleaguered Soviet Union found itself in about 1990.  Either we find some way to renegotiate federal arrangements in the United States by devolving more power back to states and, most important of all, localities, or we face a situation where internal pressures build up to a degree that states and regions take it upon themselves to address these problems.

Deep-blue California’s nullifying tendencies vis-a-vis the policies of the Trump Administration are merely a taste of what is to come.

In fact, in an unusually comprehensive and informative column posted in the Intelligencer recently, one perceptive columnist, Sasha Issenberg, predicts that growing number of states may enter into interstate compacts to work through a number of intractable domestic problems.  In the end, the United States may comprise up to three de facto federations: blue, red and neutral, each conducting their own unique domestic policies, while remaining parts of the United States.

Yet, even this columnist concedes that these de facto arrangements will only work for a time before the internal stresses build up and rend apart these federations, forcing each to move close to becoming bona fide countries.

For his part Kennan offered a sort of middle way, one to which I’m sympathetic: a union of about 15 or so constituent republics, to which the bulk of domestic powers would be entrusted, leaving the central government to run a common market and defense pact.

Whatever the case, we are very possibly approaching a constitutional impasse in which large states, particularly California, increasingly will assume more and more powers on their own, drawing us closer to a Soviet scenario. By that I mean that, despite our attempts to stay ahead of the problem by introducing institutional reforms, the country inevitably comes apart.

 

A Different View of Patriotism

01 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by Jim Langcuster in American Federalism, Federalism, The Passing Scene, U.S. Politics, Uncategorized

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American identity, Civil War, General John Kelly, Jim Langcuster, President Trump, Robert E. Lee, States Rights

john-kelly

Gen. John Kelly

Gen. John Kelly has predictably ignited a media firestorm for summoning the temerity to state that Gen. Robert E. Lee was behaving like most Americans of his time by choosing state over national allegiance.

“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man,” Kelly said in an interview with Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham. “He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

Sorry if I offend some of you, but I proudly and zealously place state and region over country. I happen to believe that the federal government is a constitutional republic conceived with sharply delineated powers and commissioned by the people of initially 11 (later 13) republics to operate as their common agent.

Modern Americans may even find it astonishing to learn early 19th century students at West Point, including the future Gen. Lee,  studied a constitutional textbook written by  attorney and legal scholar William Rawle and titled “A Constitutional View of the United States” that acknowledge the right of secession.

Of course, many of the nation’s premiere historians are weighing in on these intemperate statements, wondering how a man of Kelly’s immense accomplishments and responsibilities could harbor such antiquarian views.

“This is profound ignorance, that’s what one has to say first, at least of pretty basic things about the American historical narrative,” said David Blight, a Yale history professor. “I mean, it’s one thing to hear it from Trump, who, let’s be honest, just really doesn’t know any history and has demonstrated it over and over and over. But General Kelly has a long history in the American military.”

As for the views of these historians, I call on all of you to consider how all facets of American education, for better or worse, have been transformed within the last 60-plus years, largely as a result of the infusion of federal money and the expansion of federal patronage that has followed.

This has been accompanied by what I have come to call a miasmic orthodoxy that has settled on all levels of American education. Under the circumstances, can you see how pluralistic thinking among scholars, especially within the humanities, has been undermined?

 

Calhoun’s Spirit Alive and Well in California

05 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by Jim Langcuster in American Federalism, American History, Brexit, Devolution, Federalism, U.S. Politics, Uncategorized

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California, Catalonia, Decentrism, European Union, James Madison, Jim Langcuster, John C. Calhoun, Nullification, Sanctuary State, Spain, States Rights, Thomas Jefferson

Elites are apparently having a hard time coping with the phenomenon of “identity awakening.”

In a recent column, Ramón Luis Valcárcel, vice-president of the European Parliament, follows a predictable path: Catalonian nationalists are “undemocratic” – they even evince authoritarian traits – and threaten the peace of Europe (even though they aspire to be a part of the European Union). Indeed, he goes so far to contend that secession doesn’t even constitute a legitimate undertaking in a state that meets all of the hallmarks of a democratic one (Spain, in this case). And, of course, add to that the suspicion of Russian collusion – the secessionists are “aided by pro-Russian bots of the stature of Julian Assange.”

I was also a bit taken aback by the use of “deplorable” early in the text.

Finally, the writer conveniently forgets that the vaunted Spanish experience, while purportedly democratic now, carries the painful memories of Francoism, during which Spanish national identity was rammed down Catalan throats.

Yet, I suppose we can derive some solace from what has just transpired in blue-state California, where Gov. Jerry Brown just signed a bill into law establishing California as a sanctuary state.

It appears that decentralist tailwinds are sweeping all over the world.

The greatest of all national centralizers,  Old Abe Lincoln,  must be rolling in his grave. With the signing of this bill, America seems to have come full circle to the spirit of Jefferson, Madison, and yes, perish the thought, John C. Calhoun, the ultimate red-state deplorable and the philosopher of nullification doctrine.

But that’s okay.  Old habits die hard, and despite all the best efforts and fervent wishing of the European and American ruling classes, the basic human passion for local affinity and identity invariably trumps – no pun intended –  centralism.

As a close friend of mine brilliantly observed, sooner or later everyone eventually embraces his or her inner Calhoun.

 

 

The Belching, Flatulent Elephant in the American Living Room

09 Friday Dec 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in Federalism, U.S. Politics

≈ 5 Comments

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C, Donald Trump, Election 2016, Jim Langcuster, Sanctuary Cities, Sanctuary States, States Rights

elephant

Photo Courtesy of Mister-E.

The editorial chutzpah of the mainstream media – The New York Times,  The Washington Post, and CNN, in particular – never fails to amaze me.

Earlier this week, a New York Times editorial writer discussed the “last ditch effort” that would involve electors stepping up to deny Donald Trump the presidency – remarkable talk in the pages of a news entity that purports to be the national newspaper of record.

Imagine for a moment if the tables were turned and Hillary had won the presidency under similar circumstances – an Electoral College victory but with a popular vote deficit. Any talk of denying her the presidency through some Electoral College ploy would be  laughed right out of an NYT Editorial Board meeting as muddle-headed right-wing idiocy and  condemned as the rankest expression of  hate mongering and authoritarianism.

But there seems to be a lot of  surprising talk among the mainstream media in recent weeks, notably regarding state sovereignty issues.

Today, for example, the NYT Editorial Board expressed its solidarity with California’s desire “not to be an accomplice to deportation.”

Amazing, isn’t it? Now that the tables are turned, frank discussions about federal power are remarkably in vogue – in the “national newspapers of record, of all places –  but only so long as they relate to the grievances of blue states.   I caught myself simultaneously laughing out loud and shaking my head in disbelief watching California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren bemoan the Electoral College outcome in a recent congressional hearing. She even conceded that secession has ascended to respectable levels of discourse  now that citizens in respectable blue states such as California and Oregon were contemplating it.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I am hoping fervently that this blue-state resistance against President Trump unfolds with zeal.  It has the potential to open up a serious national dialogue about the future of federalism.

Moreover, these recently expressed blue state grievances reflect what a deeply divided nation we are. If all this acrimonious discussion talk about standing up to a Trump presidency reveals one thing, it’s that  we are far too big and diverse a nation to be governed any longer by a federal model conceived more than century ago in the Industrial Age by progressive centralizers.  To put it another way, imposing a one-size-fits-all domestic policy on a country characterized by this much ethnic, cultural and political diversity is sheer madness.

 There, I’ve said it.

But let’s not forget that there would be little, if any, discussion of these issues if Hillary Clinton had emerged the victor last month.

That’s the disturbing part to all of this as I see it.   Federalism, until now, at least, has remained off  limits, simply because the “right” kind of people – the political leadership in the blue states – have been unwilling to discuss it.  But I am holding out hope that Americans on both sides of the great political divide have finally begun to see the federal impasse for what it is:  the big belching, flatulent elephant in the American living room.

Finally, an End to the Culture Wars?

26 Saturday Nov 2016

Posted by Jim Langcuster in U.S. Politics, Uncategorized

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Culture Wars, Donald Trump, Federalism, Jim Langcuster, State Sovereignty, States Rights

black-lives-matterI’ve speculated more than once on this forum that at least part of the interminable anger and chest beating among Hillary supporters in the election’s aftermath stems from the realization that they were so close to closing the ring on  all of us dumb, reactionary red-state yokels.

The cultural war had ended, our national overlords assured us. History would remember Hillary’s resounding  victory as a confirmation of that fact.  All of us Deplorables would finally be brought to heel.  Figuratively speaking, the dog collars would be attached and all of us would be marched down from the mountains onto the broad, enlightened urban coastal plains.

Of course, an unexpected thing happened on the way to oblivion:  Trump’s remarkable electoral upset.

Some cultural skirmishing apparently remains.  A few pundits even speculate that the Trump upset could mark a turning away and perhaps even an abandonment of the culture war.  Some think that Trump may turn out to be a political realist, concluding that it’s time to put an end to all this disharmony.

Perhaps Trump may even end up affirming an insight that our Founders conceived almost a quarter millennium ago: namely that we are simply too diverse a nation for a culture war to have been started in the first place. Cultural issues are best resolved at the state and local levels. Perhaps he will even conclude that we are all better governed by 50 different social policies rather than by a cookie-cutter policy imposed from Washington.

Simply put, maybe the end of the Culture War will require a looser American Union.

Granted, ending the culture war will not make all Americans happy, particularly those among our ruling class who are deeply invested either professionally or financially in this protracted struggle. It will not be an attractive option at all for many deep-dyed blue Americans who live in red states and, conversely, for ruby-red Americans who live in blue states. Moreover, returning genuine sovereignty to the states ultimately  may lead to a much looser federal union – perhaps even one from which New York, New England and “Cascadian” America may leave to federate (or, at least, work out forms of post-sovereignty arrangements) with parts of Canada.

 As I said, none of these options come anywhere close to a panacea.  But maybe Americans in time may conclude that to live and let live is preferable to a country in which tens of millions of Americans are, rhetorically, at least, at each other’s throats.

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