Thanks as always to Pirate’s Cove and Bacon Time for the Rule Five links!
According to Justin Murray of the esteemed Mises Institute, it’s not too late for Biden supporters (and the Left in general) to secede. Excerpt:
Despite the Biden victory, the Democrat Party at the time of this writing not only failed to change the makeup of the Senate, they lost ground in the House and even lost a governor to the Republicans. Further, the Biden win was not delivered by an outpouring of support by the coveted minority demographics, which Trump won in larger numbers across every ethnic category compared to the prior election, including an astounding doubling of the LGBTQ vote, but by a shift in the voting patterns of white men. Couple this with the complete lack of any real enthusiasm for the prospect of a Biden presidency, and it’s apparent that the Democrat president-elect didn’t win on the strength of the Democrat platform but because enough people were put off by President Trump’s abrasive behavior.
In other words, the Blue Wave not only failed to manifest, it turned into a slightly lower tide.
Because of these trends, short of something major happening over the next four years or the Republicans nominating another Donald Trump–style candidate, a Biden presidency is looking to be a one and done, with a Republican likely finding his way back to office in 2025.
But why is it I’m here, raining on your parades? Simple, it’s to give you advice on how to blunt the pain of this inevitability.
Decentralize
The best way to remove the pain of a future political opponent controlling the machine is to shut down the machine. And by this I mean radically decentralize. As it stands, very little done at the level of DC cannot be done, and done better, at the state level. As it stands, most federal spending is little more than collecting taxes from states and sending it back with instructions on how to use it. Nothing needs to be recreated since the state organs manage the day-to-day operation of all the various programs, and there would be an immediate benefit once the federal bureaucracy has been removed from the equation. All they’re doing, after all, is tumbling the money the state could collect directly itself and skimming off the expenses for all the bureaucrats.
To put it in one word: Federalism.
I take issue with the Institute’s characterization of the 2024 election: Because of these trends, short of something major happening over the next four years or the Republicans nominating another Donald Trump–style candidate, a Biden presidency is looking to be a one and done, with a Republican likely finding his way back to office in 2025. I think it very likely that the 2024 candidate will be none other than Donald Trump himself, and four years of a Biden/Harris administration will give him plenty to work with; he is at his best when campaigning as an outsider. But that’s as may be. Here’s the gist of Mr. Murray’s argument:
The United States is already uniquely situated for a clean split as governance structures exist at the State level. As noted above, States are already handling nearly everything done at the DC level, so the institutions exist to handle this. Breaking up into ten to twelve different nations would not only be a relatively smooth process, it would lead to a happy electorate, as they’re no longer having to compete with culturally different people all over the continent for central policy. California will no longer have to hope that a friendly administration in DC will keep high-speed rail funded while losing the local funding it could have used to the federal maw.
Further, this idea is no longer a radical notion pushed by a few Texans or weird “The South Shall Rise Again” types. It’s gaining traction on all segments of the political spectrum, so it will be just that much easier to gain agreement on a mutual split.
Sure. I’ve mused over this possibility before, essentially a Balkanization of the United States. Bear in mind that no nation lasts forever, and I still think such a Balkanization is the most likely end for ours. But it won’t end the way a lot of people think. The way it will likely end is with a fractured continent, and a huge power vacuum in the world, to be filled by… who? China? That’s not clear, as China has their own problems, including a demographic crisis and an inability to project power. Russia? Double the demographic crisis and add in a moribund economy. Today’s Russia is essentially a giant gas station with an aging population and some nuclear weapons.
However: Consider the fact that a leftist West Coast nation would almost certainly not spend a shekel on defense, leaving them wide open for anyone who would like to set up a presence in North America. Alaska could probably go it alone, for a while, but a lot of that would depend on what’s left of the United States. And even Canada would likely suffer, as they are under the U.S. defense envelope.
The kind of divorce put forth here may make some folks happy – for a while. But that happiness wouldn’t last. Nothing, of course, ever does.
