Vive La Resistance?! "Soft Secession"

 

Vive La Resistance?! “Soft-Secession”

“I’m not a dictator… but I can do anything I want. I’m the President of the United States.”

Donald Trump, August 26th, on the deployment of federal and federalized troops in cities he cites as crime ridden.

Our constitutional guardrails were specifically designed to prevent a monarch from replacing King George III in the experiment in democracy that began 1776. But those guardrails made several unwarranted assumptions that have plagued our “democracy” ever since, in particular: first, that the men (no women at the beginning) elected to federal office would be of good character, placing their loyalty to the republic and the Constitution above all else, and, second, that the words in the Constitution and the implementing statutes would have common sense, natural meanings. Indeed, every federally elected and appointed official and every member of armed forces takes an oath to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States. It didn’t work out that way.

There is no legal mechanism in the Constitution or our body of laws that creates any path for any state or other geographical unit of the United States to secede, even with a majority vote of the rest on the nation. That last significant attempt to implement secession was our mid-19th century Civil War, where Southern States (the “Confederacy”) rejected what they felt was impingement on their internal rights, most significantly the federal government’s rejection and ban of slavery. In the war that followed, more American soldiers died than perished in all of our other wars combined. As the South surrendered, many assumed that the lesson of the impossibility of secession was firmly embedded as the bedrock of our nation.

Even if secession were possible, as I have pointed out before, there are so many questions that make such a transition practically undoable absent a full-on, repeat Civil War. How would the military be divided, especially the nuclear and other sophisticated weapons and systems of war? Who would succeed to the massive federal database, the satellites launched, and how would that be determined? Who will be responsible for the national debt, what currency(ies) would be internationally accepted? What happens to all the treaties and alliances we have made? How would vested entitlements, like Social Security and Medicare, be divided or completely abandoned? How is cross border water access determined? How would other nations react to this unraveling, particularly our immediate neighbors?

Make no mistake, unless Congress or the Supreme Court exercise their constitutional obligations, those essential “checks and balances,” which has not happened yet and does not appear likely in the foreseeable future, the steps into a militarized, police state, helmed by a man who believes he is the law, will be cemented into an unyielding, thought controlling autocracy, far worse than the decimation to our Constitutional rights to date. As gerrymandering, permitted by the Supreme Court so far, permanently rigs our elections into what looks more like a banana republic than a representative democracy, people will not even be able to vote against the dictatorship. See also my August 16th Rule of Law vs Rule by Law blog.

But is there an alternative, if somewhat chaotic, part. Passive resistance, ignoring federal intrusion and creating alternative systems of governance at a state level is already on the drawing board of some very frustrated Democrats. Writing for the August 18th The Existential Republic, Chris Armitage explains the notion of “soft secession,” which is embraced by several large-population blue state governors: “Behind closed doors, blue state leaders are planning. They’re war-gaming scenarios where federal agents show up and continue to transgress further and further past what is “legal.” Daily the courts are showing that that something is legal when Trump wants it to happen, and illegal when he doesn’t. How does a government function under these circumstances?

“For many state Attorney Generals and Governors, the legal briefs are already drafted. The strategy sessions have been running since December. “We saw this coming, even though we hoped it wouldn’t,” former Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum told The 19th days after Trump’s inauguration.

This is what American federalism looks like in 2025: Democratic governors holding emergency sessions on encrypted apps, attorneys general filing lawsuits within hours of executive orders, and state legislatures quietly passing laws that amount to nullification of federal mandates. Oregon is stockpiling abortion medication in secret warehouses. Illinois is exploring digital sovereignty. California has $76 billion in reserves and is deciding how to deploy it. 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. Twenty-three Democratic attorneys general now gather on near-daily Zoom calls at 8 AM Pacific, which means the East Coast officials are already on their third coffee. They divide responsibilities and share templates for lawsuits they’ve been drafting since last spring.

“California Governor Gavin Newsom called state lawmakers into a special session later this year to protect the state’s progressive policies, while Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker launched Governors Safeguarding Democracy, seeking to unify state-based opposition to Trump’s agenda. Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, describes preparations so thorough that challenging Trump’s birthright citizenship order required only to “cross the T’s, dot the I’s, press print, and file.”

“Currently, Massachusetts sends $4,846 more per capita to the federal government than it gets back. New Jersey and Washington are in the same position, bleeding thousands per person annually. Over five years, New York alone contributed $142.6 billion more than it received. Meanwhile, red states pocket $1.24 for every dollar they send to Washington. Blue states are essentially paying red states to undermine democracy.

“This economic reality gives blue states leverage they’ve only begun to explore. California has accumulated $76 billion in reserves. The Bank of North Dakota, profitable every year since 1919, offers a model for state banking that could reduce federal dependence. When Trump threatened to cut funding from Maine over transgender sports policies, Governor Janet Mills had 22 other Democratic governors ready to stand with her, collectively representing the majority of America’s economic output.”

Would the surviving dictator, likely Donald Trump or his anointed successor attempt to federalize National Guardsmen with a large supplement of the nation’s active military simply to shut down the relevant blue state governors and legislatures? It is and will continue to happen, but it is a dangerous tightrope walk that could result in that ultra-violent shooting war, amplified by the over 340 million guns in civilian hands… did we really learn the lessons of 1861 America? As long as we outsource decisions, in an admittedly complex world, to egotistical biased leaders, the risk of dictatorship always rises.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I sincerely hope that Americans wake up to the risks at hand and figure out how to invigorate a failing democracy.