It’s Biden? Let’s Secede
By: Terry Schwadron
Tags: Elections, Secession, Congress, Joe Biden, Donald Trump

Terry H. Schwadron

Dec. 15, 2020

The last time we had secession, we had a four-year Civil War, and the decades of formal political warring that followed.

With state Electoral College delegations meeting throughout the day yesterday — some under police protection in Michigan from what were said to be credible threats of violence — to confirm election results that made Joe Biden president-elect and Donald Trump a loser, even the Trump forces are down to their last-ditch efforts to overthrow the popular vote.

In the end, any contentiousness in the Electoral College vote vanished, leaving the way clear for Biden to declare formal victory and praise democracy, despite promises of more Trump obstacle-making.

Trump announced the departure of Atty. Gen. William P. Barr, who had said no evidence could be found to support claims of election fraud, and raising questions of whether Trump would now push a replacement to find something immediately or clear the way for Trump to pardon his family and himself without a fight.

Stephen Miller, the immigration whisperer acting as a Trump campaign adviser, promised an alternate slate of electors in contested states, to set up a confrontation in Congress in Jan. 6 when the Electoral College votes formally arrive. Republican members in Congress led by Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama are threatening yet another last stand against unproved widespread election fraud.

Otherwise, we can look forward to the formation of some would-be tweeting government in exile at Mar-a-Lago, or some action that acknowledges renewed calls to take secession seriously coming from among his most fervent supporters.

Calls for Secession

Conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh amplified the call last week as 18 attorneys general from Trump-leaning states were putting their hopes for overturning the election results in the case that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected out of hand. Then the head of the Texas GOP, Allen West dismissed the high court’s ruling, saying that “law-abiding states” should “form a Union of states that will abide by the law.”

More than 106 Republican congress members signed on to the failed lawsuit — though so far, they have not offered to resign in protest — and Team Trump was back in the streets this weekend to shout: “Stop the Steal.”

Even as Electoral College delegates were gathering in different state houses, Team Trump was filling the tweetosphere with continuing bombasts about never-shown fraud or claims that mail ballots were illegitimate despite 56 court decisions or rejections that say otherwise. In darker corners of the internet, lists of home addresses of electors, legislators and state officials seen as unkind to Trump were being circulated, and the weekend’s scattered incidents at political rallies showed that potential for violence remains real.

Trump made clear that he will not stop his efforts, though the Electoral College decision undoubtably provide cover for more Republican lawmakers to say enough already, that the appeals have run their course. Numbers in the Congress alone say any last efforts there will prove a failure for him.

But what does seem to be succeeding is a further diminishment of trust in government, in the value of truth and in the processes of voting and democracy themselves. Indeed, what is at stake here is any idea of community and agreed-upon rules.

Break It Up

What is left, then, is some kind of secession — either literal or imagined, an ingrained resistance to any kind of government in which Trump is not the dictating force, with just enough political juice for him to make defectors pay at future ballot boxes.

West’s comments drew immediate criticism from Democratic opponents who noted that the Civil War had provided a definitive answer to legal secession. Yet, with divisions running as deep as they are, it is impossible to put that notion entirely aside.

The first problem is in declaring secession.

Actually, the U.S. Constitution never addresses secession, though there is a U.S. Supreme Court case called Texas v. White from 1869 that says a single state cannot decide to withdraw from the Union by itself. The Court ruled that, legally speaking, Texas had remained a state despite joining the Confederacy and being under military rule at the time of the decision in this case involving the sale of bonds.

The next might be who’s doing the seceding. During the Civil War, the Union was divided more or less along geographic lines. Twenty-one northern and border states retained the title of the United States, while the eleven states with legal slavery rules formed the Confederate States of America. Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery.

But to make any sense of separating Trump-leaning areas would be to distinguish cities from suburbs from more rural areas, or declaring some states blue or red by some means like elections (ironic if you take election fraud as a given) and prompting more hot air than practical sense.

Practical Matters

Of course, secession of select states would not work for the nation’s economy or tax collection or even ownership of national parks. But it is interesting to consider just exactly how it would all supposedly work.

But suddenly, Blue America might wear masks, and Red America might insist on individualism in mask-wearing. Nor would it work well for education, abortion, environment and the whole long list of normal national agenda items. It might work for football, though you’d get argument there.

Indeed, you could just flip the cards have 50 totally independent states and give up a federal government altogether. Of course, North Korean, Iranian, Russian and Chinese leaders might like that idea a lot.

With secession, Red America might need a visa to do business in New York or Los Angeles, and Blue America might need a trade deal to assure enough grain and soy beans. Each could maintain a separate view towards foreign affairs, including each other, immigration and sort-of-national-security. Each could have its own Army, though with Blue domination on the coasts, only Blue America might want a Navy.

Eventually, we could have further breakdowns.

My apartment might become its own nation with its own budget, tax, jobs program and freedoms of religion and assembly, forgoing gun rights.

Think silly, and you get silly.

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www.terryschwadron.wordpress.com