“Soft secession” is increasingly bandied about in the social media sphere as an idea whose time has come. But what is it, exactly?
That depends on who you ask, because there is no generally accepted definition. One thing all thoughts have in common: this is not 1861 with violence at the center of the movement. Instead, it is a series of cooperative state actions that exercise state’s rights (federalism) with refusal to follow federal government orders.
It’s a kind of separation that the Supreme Court has legalized, first with the Fugitive Slave Act before the Civil War (a precursor to sanctuary cities). In 1997, Justice Antonin Scalia followed with an opinion that the federal government cannot “issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers … to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program.”
Authoritarian scholar Tim Snyder refers to a collective response to President Trump’s “show of force.” In this context, Snyder portrays Trump’s presidency as a reality TV show and our “refusing to be co-opted into the ‘show’.” He specifically refers to the National Guard and ICE deployments across blue cities.
In fact, these urban deployments are the political equivalent of a lit fuse. By sending troops to city after city, the Trump administration is creating the statistical likelihood of an incident — a service member’s suicide, a friendly fire incident, the shooting of a protester — that can be used to manufacture some greater crisis.
Democratic governors and attorneys general confer, almost daily it seems, on how to respond to Trump’s attacks on cities, on voters, on health care. And California Governor Gavin Newsom has made it clear that blue states which contribute far more in tax dollars than they receive back from the federal government are not going to sit idle.
When Trump first said he was gutting federal funding to California’s public universities, a system that is the envy of the world, Newsom responded: “Californians pay the bills for the federal government. We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back. Maybe it’s time to cut that off, @realDonaldTrump.”
We’re talking real money: “Were California to secede, almost 15 percent of America’s GDP would go with it, and the US could slip behind China as the world’s biggest economy.”
As shown in Tables 1 and 2, states such as New York ($89 billion), California ($78 billion), New Jersey ($70 billion), and Texas ($67 billion) contribute far more in federal taxes than they receive in federal grants. In contrast, states such as Alabama ($41 billion), Arizona ($40 billion), and South Carolina ($37 billion) receive more from the federal government than they contribute. These budgetary imbalances give “donor” states potential leverage over federal policy, as some leaders have suggested using this fiscal influence to counter what they perceive as punitive actions by the Trump administration toward their states, as well as preferential treatment of conservative “recipient” states. Note that with the exception of Texas, the donor states are all blue states, and with the exception of Maryland and New Mexico, the recipient states are all red states.
In June, Aziz Z. Huq and Jon D. Michaels wrote in the LA Times that state governments should work together, “to pool resources,” such as “re-creat[ing] public-health and meteorology forecasting centers servicing member states.” California, Oregon and Washington, later joined by Hawaii, did just that on vaccine recommendations.
As Clara Jeffrey writes in Mother Jones:
With Trump provocatively sending troops into blue cities, and using recision and the shutdown to claw back congressionally appropriated funds from blue states, it’s time to turn the tables on him. Soft secession, powered by the presidential ambitions of multiple blue-state governors, could, should it come to that, be the proving ground of a new confederacy. Hopefully the threat of CalExit or a new Union will be enough. But that extreme measures might be necessary to ensure that American democracy shall not perish from the Earth is becoming more self-evident with every passing day.
Amen.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com