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[Editor’s note: Make sure to read Daniel Greenfield’s masterpiece contributions in Jamie Glazov’s new book: Barack Obama’s True Legacy: How He Transformed America.]
California began a soft secession when it banned cooperation with immigration authorities. Since then other states run by Democrats, including Colorado, Illinois and New Jersey, have declared war on ICE. The movement to make it impossible for ICE, an arm of the federal government, to operate in Democrat states has largely been successful.
Some Republican states, like Tennessee, Texas and Florida, have responded by ordering law enforcement to cooperate with ICE. And while this is important in limiting the spread of illegal aliens in their states, it may also be time for them to consider their own forms of soft secession.
Democrat states targeted ICE, Republican states could single out other arms of the federal government that are ideologically alien and hostile to conservative areas for a policy of non-cooperation. Obvious examples are the Department of Education, the EPA and the IRS.
The Department of Education is being used to investigate schools that don’t expose their students to pornographic LGBTQ materials depicting sex acts by 10-year-olds. The EPA targets homeowners if they have a puddle on their land and the IRS is being ramped up to wage war on everyone from waiters to mothers reselling their children’s used clothes on eBay.
The EPA depends heavily on state cooperation. Its armed raids on everything from mining towns in Alaska to high-performance car shops in Pennsylvania have ushered in a reign of terror nationwide. Congressional legislation to stop the EPA’s goon squads will be permanently stalled under a Democrat Senate and may not even get past a future Republican Senate.
States however can take action by passing legislation to end all cooperation with the EPA and to cut off any state business to any company providing services to the EPA.
Nixon, who bears a good deal of responsibility for this disaster, claimed that the “spirit of cooperation between EPA and state governments is not new. In fact, it was imbedded into the very founding of the Agency.” That spirit of cooperation is the spirit of tyranny. It should end.
The Inflation Increase Act massively boosted both inflation and the size of the IRS. A newly ‘roided’ IRS is preparing to aggressively target the middle class to fund the corrupt inflationary spending sprees of the Biden administration. While states can’t get rid of the IRS, they can use Democrat state actions against ICE as a model for making it difficult for it to operate.
The IRS’s Office of Governmental Liaison maintains partnerships with states to share taxpayer data. Conservative states could end their partnerships with the IRS and also ban municipalities from participating in the IRS’s Municipal Agency Program. Deprived of local information, the IRS would need to dedicate far more resources to gaining data and would have less resources to devote to harassing taxpayers. States will however be reluctant to do this because they will lose out on the IRS information that allows them to pursue taxpayers for their own revenue collection, but they would need to prioritize values over collaborating for cash.
The Bureau of Land Management is equally loathed by the ranchers it terrorizes in the west. Its aggressive new former eco-terrorist boss is preparing to further weaponize it. Western states can and should legislatively take action against the other BLM to restrict cooperation with it.
And then, of course, there is the FBI.
In the wake of the growing politicization of the Bureau, states should rethink on what terms they want to continue cooperating with the FBI and with local federal prosecutors. Especially as they target conservatives while giving leftists a pass. Should states really cooperate with a system that sends armed SWAT teams to arrest non-violent pro-life activists while refusing to take action against the pro-abortion domestic terrorists operating under the name Jane’s Revenge.
The most pernicious components of the federal government are those dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion, and any component of civil rights law.
The Black Lives Matter race riots which devastated the country have their origins in the crucial backing that the Ferguson race riots administration received from the Department of Justice’s Community Relations Service. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is targeting schools that refuse to expose students to LGBTQ pornographic books.
These are only two examples of how the social justice organizations embedded within nearly every federal agency spread misery and destruction across the country. Ending cooperation with any social justice arm of a federal agency, as Democrat states ended cooperation with ICE, would help prevent future race riots and limit their ability to cause harm to local communities.
While states could not stop them from entering localities, conducting investigations and persecuting ordinary Americans, they could terminate partnerships and force local companies that they contract with to choose between doing business with the state or a D.C. office.
States can’t shut down federal agencies, but California Democrats have shown how they can starve them of resources, cut them off from cooperation with local law enforcement and make it difficult for them to operate on the ground.
Republican state governments are even now trying to apply some of the anti-ICE lessons to coping with the coyotes of HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement. While crippling ORR should be a major priority for any Republican majority of administration, there is a lot states can do. Texas’ pressure on the Refugee Services of Texas, the state’s biggest refugee resettler, helped force it to shut down last month, but its ability to unilaterally stop resettlers from smuggling in illegal aliens for the federal government has run up against legal obstacles. That’s where legislative fixes come in.
Cutting ties with federal agencies isn’t just the right thing to do on principle, but can benefit states. While the federal government bribes states and localities for cooperation, the long term costs of that cooperation are ultimately higher than any of the short term financial incentives.
Soft secession can make the people living in states happier, safer and better off.
National divorce, an idea growing in popularity, along with various forms of secession have been seen as all or nothing ventures, but soft secession shows that it does not need to be.
States can begin reevaluating the terms on which they want a relationship with the federal government. This is not a new process, but one that has defined the nature of federalism. Rather than a radical break, soft secession tests the waters by reducing the negative impact of federal authority on a state level while allowing states to relearn how to do things themselves.
Soft secession rolls back the scope of federal authority while envisioning a more constitutional nation, one in which states have more authority rather than being cogs in a federal machine. Not a national divorce, but an open marriage, soft secession makes the more onerous parts of federal rule more expensive and difficult. And conservative and leftist states will have the ability to pick and choose which parts of the federal government they want to cooperate with.
And which parts they don’t.
Soft secession can be a healthy alternative to a national conflict. By democratizing federalism, they create channels for dissent and limit the power of the administrative state. They also show how states can reclaim the authority they have given up to make local power more meaningful.
Federalization has accelerated America’s crackup. Elections have become national zero sum games. The more everything local has been nationalized, the more explosive politics has become. Soft secession may be the one thing that can save America from coming apart.
And it can begin right now.
The problem here is what happens when/if Democrats take control of GOP-controlled governor’s mansions and state legislatures? Regardless of the fact that usually once that happens it’s 99.9% permanent, then the states that seceded come back to the fold.
There can be no “soft secession” unless somehow it’s permanent. That is, secession must be the precursor to declaring independence as a new nation-state.
Unless and until the Democrat-Progressive-Left is completely removed from all political, economic and societal influence and power, then America will not be restored. In short, it’s us or them insofar as remaining intact as a single nation.
And if there is a national divorce, it is highly unlikely that the DC-centered Leftist junta will ever accept that. The targeting of Donald Trump for destruction is proof positive of that.
The whole point of soft secession is that it’s something states can begin doing now to push back.
And when done properly, it can significantly reduce the ability of Dems to seize those states. Like state campaign finance reform that keeps out of state money from entering local politics. And ends cooperation with federal election monitoring.
I’m not pretending that it’s a whole answer. It’s something that states can begin doing tomorrow.
As opposed to waiting for some big solution that may never come.
Soft secession seems like the only practical solution. Hard secession would be nearly impossible, due to all the hoops one would have to jump through, like the counties in Eastern Oregon trying to join Greater Idaho, a story I have been following.
Things become easier at the barrel of a gun
The transgender madness is the one thing that the majority of Americans are furious about. It rid Virginia of a Democrat governorship as even liberal parents in the DC area voted for Youngkin. These drag queen story hours for small children are OUTRAGEOUS and the radical left Democrats may have overplayed their hand on this one.
If I were Trump, I would be bringing this up nonstop. It’s why DeSantis is in second place. He stood up to Disney.
C’mon man, we are building bridges, we don’t need even more division, Kamala won’t be happy, don’t upset her she’s black and good at starting riots.
Mr. Greenfield, you are too nice. I know that you are trying to ‘handle’ all of this political division in our country as amicably as possible. But sometimes, people must be blunt. I think that it is fair to say that the Marxist Democrats are doing everything within their power to politicize the Federal Judiciary. If the Marxists succeed in doing this, what happens when the Federal Courts begin ORDERING, in one lawsuit after another, that Red States (NOT Blue States) begin doing X, Y, and Z? Only rarely has our country seen the kind of political division that we are now witnessing. I think that this political division is not far away from becoming INTOLERABLE! And when I say intolerable, I mean INTOLERABLE! At some point, I expect our country to break apart like shattered crystal. The BIG question in my mind is, can this division occur without civil war? The last war between the States was an unmitigated disaster for all. For those who are not students of American History, Washington was FOR a United States. Patrick Henry was NOT. Henry argued that the political differences between the Northern Colonies and the Southern Colonies was too great for their peoples to ever live peaceably together in the long-term (and he was not just talking about slavery either). Washington won the political argument, but many would now say that Henry has been proven right. Scripture asks, Can two walk together unless they be agreed?
I agree on the big picture.
The point here is something we can do now rather than anticipating a possible big breakup to come.
What happens when the politicized Federal Courts start ruling on various ‘soft secession’ actions by Red States, saying YOU can’t do THIS, or YOU can’t do THAT, or YOU can’t do THIS OTHER? Politicized Federal Courts (as the Marxist Democrats envision them) will NEVER order the Blue States to do such things–it will be a one-way street only involving just the Red States. Then what?
My point is, I don’t think that a politicized Federal Judiciary (appointed by the Marxist Democrats–I do not see a Federal Judiciary, appointed by the Republicans, to be politicized because Republican appointees will be Judges who will try to honor and uphold the U. S. Constitution) will allow the ‘soft secession’ that you envision. With a politicized Federal Judiciary, it will be all or nothing! When the time comes, if it comes, the Red States must be prepared to tell a politicized Federal Judiciary: Go Take a Hike, Buddy! And then be prepared to make it ‘stick’!
Very good. Yes, people get along peacefully when they have similiar values. This is why multiculturalism is designed to get everybody fighting.
Some of the BLM employees are reasonable, and the ranchers really appreciate them.
That’s the same argument people use to justify the FBI. But the supposed good apples don’t speak up or resist, but just keep their heads down and collect their salary and pensions. The time has come where every unconstitutional activity and agency has to be wiped out so liberty lovers can start fresh.
Great idea, exactly consistent with the principles laid out by Madison and Jefferson in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. In fact, as part of this strategy every Red State should put the central tyranny in DC on notice by copying the principles in those resolutions and declaring, as those documents did, the state’s intention to not only refuse cooperation with the Fed’s unconstitutional actions but to actively thwart such actions. Such policies could cripple the Feds, because the state-level opposition can fairly extend to every federal policy, agency, and program that is not supported by an enumerated power in the Constitution—that is, most of how the central tyranny does business.
We will always be dreamers, hoping for peace on earth !
Return to the creation of LIFE !
Each and every form of life took from the preceeding life.
Note the result of a male lion entering the domain of another male lion !
There will never be an agreeable giving up what we have to someone
who wants what we have !
This debate (?) is eternal !
Good luck dreamers….YES, I’LL KEEP DREAMING…….AND …….HATIKVA…….Eddie
Eliminate Federal Grants or rewrite the terms to eliminate Fedral control. Solutions are simple. It is the politics destroying us and the US.
Attacking federal control is the big one. But not going to happen under Biden and a Dem Senate.
But it ought to be a priority. Unfortunately I’m skeptical that even if Republicans take the White House and Senate in 2024, that it’s happening.
Alaska is going to make sure that they cant close down the Gun Stores over National Emergency which Liberal Democrats(Like the Former may of New Orleans Ray Nagin tried to do)and stop Biden and his fellow Globalists from disarming Alaskans
Lincoln is to blame for this. Jeffersonianism as a political entity died under his presidency. The concept of states’ rights ended with him, and the right to secession, which had been cited by multiple Founding Fathers including Jefferson, ended with him.
Lincoln viewed himself as the heir to Alexander Hamilton, and argued for centralization of government power his whole career. He backed what Hamilton called the American System: high tariffs and taxes, government subsidies, internal improvements program, and a national bank.
It’s why there was no great “party switch” either.
What we call a “party switch” was really former Whigs moving to the South, changing their allegiance to Hamiltonian Democrats to get elected.
Who then instigated the Civil War, and successfully blamed it on the Jeffersonian Democrats.
Lincoln was a former Whig himself, and the GOP are the heirs to the Hamiltonian Whig tradition. He is the closest one can get to imagining what an Alexander Hamilton presidency would have looked like.
Lincoln is something of a sacred cow, it is taboo to criticize him, despite all the disastrous things he did.
Anyway, my favorite angle is his military incompetence. He nearly lost the war before stumbling on U.S.Grant, one of the strangest cases in military history. Lee had a deep education and experience in classical military theory, while Grant was untutored, but had some kind of practical insight which amounted to genius. Not that I favored his side, don’t get me wrong, which is why I hesitate to ever bring this topic up.
Lee might have won the war anyway, if he hadn’t lost Stonewall Jackson.
“Lee might have won the war anyway, if he hadn’t lost Stonewall Jackson.”
That’s a very astute observation.
It’s highly unlikely that Jackson would have approved of Lee’s tactics at Gettysburg. He probably would have sided with Longstreet and the two together would have prevailed on Lee to to flank the Union troops instead of a frontal assault that ended with the doomed Pickett’s Charge.
But the downfall of the South came in the form of WT Sherman.
Sherman was a real killer in every sense of the word.
And when his doctrine of Total War was accepted by Lincoln and Grant………….the end was no longer in doubt.
Thanks DC, excellent points!
When you think of Sherman, you should think of him as a slow motion atomic bomb. He had a similar effect on the South that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on Japan.
Lee said he could beat the Union generals because he understood them. He expected that he would lose once Lincoln found a general he didn’t understand. That man was Grant. Grant’s only real genius was realizing that he needed to continuously engage Lee’s army regardless of his own casualties. He could replace his loses; Lee could not. From the beginning of the Wilderness campaign through Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Grant replaced about 90,000 of his 125,000-man army while Lee’s 65,000-man army dwindled away due to casualties, sickness, and desertions. Outnumbering Lee two-to-one gave Grant massive advantages that offset any deficits he may have had in experience compared to Lee.
The South could never have won the Civil War. They had virtually no industrial capacity, no real money, and had to bring virtually everything needed to fight a war over from Europe. This last was severely complicated by having no navy with which to break the Union’s blockade. But, the clincher was manpower. At the beginning of the war, the Union had a population of about 22.1 million while the Confederacy had only about 9.1 million of which 3,500,00 were slaves. The Union fielded 2,200,000 men during the war with a peak number of 698,000 men at one time. The Confederates fielded only 750,000 – 1,000,000 men with a peak strength of only 360,000. The Union could probably have fielded many, many more if they had needed to..
All true and not widely known/recognized. The Cult of Lincoln has whitewashed Lincoln’s contributions to posterity to better fit their politics . It’s been going on for a long time; probably beginning with Lincoln’s assassination Thank you for acknowledging some very pertinent historical facts.
I may be quite naive to this discussion, but I can see merit to Daniel’s idea and approach. His article may die with this posting, sadly, unless it is shared widely by those of us here. Will you join me in submitting it to your conservative states’ local and federal officials? Dare we hope to ignite a spark of agreement, then action, from those seated to hear us?
Secession is an idea whose time has definitely come.
I have been predicting its eventuality and pushing for it for 15 years.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union is the template for how it can occur in the US.
This may have been Daniel’s best ever article.
“Soft secession,” as you describe it here, is in fact intercession, or non-enforcement of a federal law or mandate, which is step ONE in John Calhoun’s three-part mechanism to effectuate his idea of a “concurrent majority.” Intercession is inspired by Madison’s 1798 Virginia Resolutions. His step TWO is formal nullification, whereby the State legislature formally declares a federal statute null and void within the State. It is inspired by Jefferson’s 1798 Kentucky Resolutions. This second step is supposed to trigger a national convention on the issue that inspired the statute. If 3/4 of the States uphold the federal statute, the State must decide whether to comply or to follow the next step – step THREE of secession, with the possibility of return to the union if the statute is amended or withdrawn.
There is no need to fabricate a new term, especially when the existing term has a more meaningful historical context.
Everybody should be reminded: it was the states that created the federal government, not vice-versa.
Fantastic idea. Finally something that is actually doable. Except that most red states are governed by RINO squishes who would never take such bold steps. Certainly this is the case here in Idaho, with its Republican party establishment.
Exactly, Daniel! Exactly!
But, amidst the now very obvious internal enemies and Bolshevik Communist anti-American activists of the current Democrat party, we MUST consistently continue steps to achieve full secession. It is surely the only way to ultimately save our freedoms from the Communist Bolsheviks.
The historical model I have been proposing for four years is the model that became the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
When Lech Walesa and Solidarnosc began their labor strike at the Gdansk Poland shipyard………….the Communist Bloc countries began to distance themselves from Moscow and their defiance of centralized Soviet power increased throughout the 1980s.
Poland, Hungary, Romania, East Germany and Czechoslovakia all told Moscow to take a hike.
The next step was when the internal republics of the USSR pushed for independent status from the Soviet Union.
Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Georgia etc. wanted freedom from Moscow as well.
Whereas the USSR rolled the tanks into Hungary in 1958 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to maintain unity………by 1980 the USSR was a spent force.
In 1992 the vaunted Soviet Union had dissolved.
THIS is the model for the US.
Red states need to resist Washington DC……………and over time say goodbye to the Communists of the blue coasts.
The coming economic collapse will make secession much easier ; like what happened in 1989-91
Also, the soviets were broke; they had no foreign currency reserves and the western countries would have cut off loans if the soviets would have resisted their satelites. Does anyone see the similarities coming to a country near you?
Thank you, Daniel Greenfield. Obviously we are in dire need of solutions to our national crisis.
Ultimately, people’s hearts and minds need to be changed, hopefully without bloodshed. But the traitors and their enablers must be brought to justice.
In addition to other actions, we need to pray for our nation!
Instead of ‘soft secession’ why not call this new pioneer spirit to save, protect and strengthen America from the bottom up, state by state, the ‘doctrine of self-sufficiency’?
The current administration has mocked, perverted and discarded the self evident truths of the Declaration of Independence and replaced it with its Declaration of Dependence.
It seems to have been deliberately creating social, economic, moral and international havoc – a premeditated constant state of emergency and devised crisis necessary to take control of and break the American psyche.
This government wants another civil war. To accomplish that, it is waging a treasonous psychological war against the American people so that they destroy themselves. The government has contrived, and we are living through, the Great Suppression.
Hard secession is long overdue! Soviet Republics did it at the first opportunity in 1991. It’s a shame that American states have fewer ambitions and aspirations for freedom than the Soviet Republics.
Seen from Europe, which is not the same as the EU, the US has only seen the beginning. First to leave the Union will be Texas as The Republic Of Texas, next will be The Republic of California with absolutely opposite political reasons as Texas. Then will follow The Republic of Florida, unless de Santis becomes next president. The US we knew and admired is not existing anymore, and will not come back. Just like Sweden.