SOFT SECESSION

I just finished reading Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, Jonathan Karl, Dutton, 2021. Karl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and co-anchor of This Week with George Stephanopoulos. The depth and breadth of the incompetence, corruption, chaos, and malignancy in the administration is incomprehensible. Some of it I knew just by paying attention. Other parts I knew by being involved with the group of lawyers here in AZ who filed 22 complaints against the coterie of Trump lawyers flouting the law, lying blatantly to courts, and filing frivolous actions repeatedly. But it’s even worse than I could imagine. That’s the problem, we can’t imagine it because our minds could not even come up with these devious and cruel ideas. They do and imagine other people think like them. We don’t. That is why we keep getting caught short. But we also cannot turn into them or they have won. The most prominent word in the book is “madness” which is exactly where we are today.

In 2026, we celebrate 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. I think we need to read and think on the entire thing:

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

I especially liked the line about the “swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” You know they wanted to say swarms of locusts but couldn’t quite get there! Replace “King of England” with “commander-in-chief” and replace “Indian savages” with “masked ICE agents” and we are there. Trump has done most of the offenses listed in this document. That means, we are “absolved from all allegiance to the commander-in-chief…” In 2026, we must fight for our independence again.

It’s hard to believe that three times in my lifetime our nation has come to the razors edge of disintegrating. First was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 when I was 15 (and illegally driving), and we all thought it was over. Nuclear bombs were going to be flying, and we would never see adulthood. We did.

The second time was when Nixon was forced to resign in 1974. Three Republican leaders, two from AZ (Goldwater and Rhodes) told Nixon he had to resign. That kind of principled Republican seems in short supply these days. If you weren’t there you might not understand how much of the nation thought we were going to fall apart at that time. “The center cannot hold” was commonly believed. But it did.

Karl, in the book Betrayal, outlines how close we came to a coup on January 6, 2021. Now we face it again. It may have already started.

The Civil War was the first secession crisis we faced, and it still ranks as the war that killed the most Americans – nearly 700,000. Thankfully today we face a different kind of secession.

Since the 1990s, the far-right have worked hard to insert a wrecking ball into the U.S. by widening and deepening the divide between the parties and the people. They started out with the Contract on America in 1994 and making new rules that Republicans were not allowed to interact politically or personally with Democrats in Congress. They used to play ball together, go to dinner together, and stand up for each other at weddings and graduations. The division has been nurtured until we are where we are today. They divide; we build.

But division may be where we are headed with soft secession. Democratic governors hold encrypted video calls to coordinate resistance. We know that 22 Democratic Attorneys General can file coordinated lawsuits within hours of some idiotic federal order.

States are building parallel systems that the federal government is destroying e.g. health care, education, and emergency response. CA just hired two of the fired CDC employees. One state is stockpiling abortion medication. Colorado has promised to keep the weather and climate science center going.

California has the most money to withhold from the feds. California is a major global economic powerhouse, generally ranked as the world’s fourth or fifth-largest economy behind the U.S., China, Germany, and Japan. Illinois, the fifth largest state economy is investigating digital systems separate from the feds. Several states including Massachusetts have said loudly they will not cooperate with ICE. Four states have taken legal action against ICE for their violence and kidnapping. (CA, MA, MN, OR)

The feds cannot make the states do their bidding. The Supreme Cult case, Printz v. U.S. in 1997 says the federal government violated the Tenth Amendment when Congress required state and local officials to perform background checks on people buying guns. The NRA thought they were doing a good thing to stop states and locals from doing background checks. It may come back to bite them. Arizona, a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA, was one of the states that sued along with Montana. The district courts held it was unconstitutional but could be severed to allow a voluntary enforcement. But the Ninth Circuit, previously known for being liberal, found it was not unconstitutional at all, and local and state officials could be forced to do background checks.

The Supreme Cult reversed and held the act unconstitutional. Therefore there is no duty to do background checks. Since there is nothing written in the constitution about it (except for the 2^nd amendment of course that refers to militia not individuals), the court said we’ll look at history. That is always trouble given our true history and the refusal to acknowledge it.

This court said only state judges can be required to follow federal rulings, not law enforcement. Without states consent, the feds cannot force state officers to do federal responsibilities. We have “dual sovereignty” i.e. each government has jurisdiction only in the area carved out specifically for it but in that area, its authority is supreme. “The Federal Government’s power would be augmented immeasurably and impermissibly if it were able to impress into its service-and at no cost to itself-the police officers of the 50 States.”

Enter immigration. It is entirely a federal responsibility. Therefore the feds cannot require the states to work for or with them. That is why the states do not have to carry out federal enactments or orders unless it is an area over which the feds have exclusive authority. That is why they must enter the 287g agreements and why we fight so hard not to.

States have refused federal directives before. In 2007, 25 states refused to carry out REAL ID laws, and they didn’t go into effect until nearly 20 years later. AZ still refuses and we must get other ID if we want to fly. In the nincompoop-in-chief’s first term, Democratic AGs filed over 130 multistate lawsuits with an 83%-win rate. They have “brief banks” and complaint drafts for immediate use as the Northern states did during the fight against the fugitive slave laws.

Blue states are the ones paying for the federal government.

That transfer was more than $1 trillion from 2018-2022. We need to stop. The Red states think people should stand on their own two feet – let them. Blue states can withhold funds from the federal government if the federal government withholds funds from them – which it has.

“Meryl Kornfield and Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post reported today on a court filing by lawyers for the government that claims it is legal for the administration to distribute federal money only to Republican-dominated states, withholding it from Democratic-dominated states. The government admitted that it withheld grants from the Department of Energy according to “whether a grantee’s address was located in a State that tends to elect and/or has recently elected Democratic candidates in state and national elections (so-called ‘Blue States’).” Without evidence, the government claimed that such discrimination “is constitutionally permissible, including because it can serve as a proxy for legitimate policy considerations.””

Red states have a history of rejecting federal law by refusing to enforce school integration not to mention federal gun restrictions. Every legislative session, this one no different, Arizona legislators introduce laws to disregard this or that federal law and to mandate enforcement of this or that other one depending on their own personal dictates.

On Dec. 9 CIVICUS, an international group that advocates for civil liberties, downgraded the U.S. for the second time from “narrowed” to “obstructed.” The U.S. was added to the global human rights watchlist this year – that is how far we have fallen. Camelot, the shining city on the hill, has now become a fallen democracy to be watched globally as the next step down is “repressed” with “closed” the final burial. The U.S. was last downgraded in 2020 under Trump 1.0 but was upgraded during Biden’s term only to be downgraded again with Trump 2.0.

However, civic liberties in countries like Senegal, Gabon and Mauritania have improved while liberties in major world powers like France, Germany, Italy and major countries like Argentina, Israel, and Switzerland have all been downgraded. With the recent election in Chile moving from a left-wing government to a far-right wing government, it will no doubt follow soon. Apparently enough people have died or forgotten Pinochet.

Given the chaotic and disastrous state of the federal government, the responsible states must take care of their own – just like it’s up to us the people to turn this ship around. When this nightmare is over, we don’t want the same country we had – we want a better one. So build that now. I’ve seen African American communities start their own banks and issue home loans, open their own schools to avoid discrimination in the public ones, join in health congregates to provide care for their own people etc. We all need to do that. Make your own area and life better. I’m working with my neighbor about a parking problem and with the neighborhood association about regularly scheduled bulk trash pick-up since the city ended it. Randolph has provided their community with fire protection they never had before and doing quarterly community clean ups. When we get out of this, we want to quickly step into a better United States, if we have one. So let’s build it now under their noses and then we are ready to go when this monster crashes. Even if we split apart and become two or three different countries, it won’t be a disaster; it will be more like Europe. Every empire falls – this one will too. If we remain intact, it will be because we remember the reason we were formed – read that Declaration of Independence again. We formed to be free and independent and carve our own path not shuffle behind some tin horn dictator tooting hogwash daily.

And a boomer who remembers what we stood for and fought for.