America is, in my opinion, historically sensible enough that a transition from a constitutional republic to a set of allied, regional constitutional confederations based on the republican model would not seem that far-fetched. As was mentioned earlier, maybe a set of self-governing regions united by a common American heritage would allow our country to actually solve some of its most glaring problems.
He compares the current red-blue divide to a marriage that cannot be saved.
I think that a better form of breakup would be more virtual than real. If I could stay in Maryland but have a Texas government, that would be better than having to choose one or the other. Balaji Srinivasan puts it this way, in a podcast that I will comment on more in several days,
one of the Westphalian assumptions is that people who are geographically proximal are ideologically proximal. That, say, you live next door to this guy, therefore you share his language, you share his culture, you share the norms for the most part, you know them, you say hi to them, all the types of stuff, right. In the modern era, people live in these apartment buildings where they couldn’t recognize somebody who lives 10 feet away from them but they’re sharing the most intimate moments with people 3,000 miles away via Snapchat or Twitter or whatever, right?
. . .new kinds of polities will form. New ways of self-governing humans that are fundamentally network-based, rather than state-based.
But either virtually or geographically, Rexit would be really hard to negotiate. Think of the existing liabilities that have to be sorted out. The Rexiteers do not want to pay for teacher pensions. The Blue remainers do not want to let the Rexiteers off the hook for all of Social Security’s unfunded liabilities.
But the real split is urban versus rural within each state, not state versus state. And the breakup would be even harder and more divisive to negotiate than the marriage.
Why not make this just an argument for more Federalism within the spectrum of fairly wide disagreement about exactly how much Federalism our current Constitution permits?
This feels like the only sensible answer, and yet it feels like the answer that both parties are most unified against, along with most of their constituents.
Why is the the red vs. blue divide by precinct so important to you? If a vote was to actually occur, it would be at a state level vs. local level.
E.g. Most Londoners voted to stay, while the rest of the country voted to exit. And, here we are with exit.
Separately, I think that Arnold has it correct. Those unfunded liabilities make this a non-starter, but I’d throw in Medicare to the mix as well. Florida is never going to go for this unless they are compensated accordingly for all of the retirees down there.
I think any kind of breakup is extremely unlikely, but most of the unfunded pension liabilities are at the state and local level, not the national level — so unfunded teacher pensions would not be a sticking point. I’d expect any states that were breaking off to preserve current Medicare and SS programs (though they’d probably grow less generous over time), but those programs aren’t prefunded anyway (even the ‘trust fund’ will soon be exhausted).
I think a lot of people who would want Rexit would indeed be willing to pay a certain amount of jizya or Danegeld or the expected net present value of their pro-rated share of the liabilities, etc. if indeed it meant full accord and satisfaction forever and a regime of polycentric law within single jurisdictions could be established. Lump sum might be hard to swing, but financing would be available. Issues of national security and foreign policy would be a lot more difficult, as well as the question of who decides which levels get which powers or how that determination might change over time.
But there’s more than money at stake.
In reading about the reparations, some people opposed to the idea on multiple grounds were nevertheless willing to consider it, so long as it meant a permanent settlement and resolution of all disputes and the end of all racial tensions and prohibition of all racially-conscious laws and special programs in every sector.
In parallel, a black opponent of reparations payments said that he or she was against them precisely because white people would see things this way, and consider whatever debt or obligation they owed fully satisfied – MLK’s ‘promissory note’ paid in full with interest – and so would feel free to ignore the concerns of the black community henceforward.
Any red state which doesn’t lionize Lincoln might be a candidate.
Which red state lionizes Lincoln? In which one do most people agree with him that the Union is worth preserving at (almost) any cost?
When the Washington money pump fails, secession will seem like an idea whose time has come.
I disagree. In that hypothetical case, I expect “secession” would be either done, or a moot point.
If California were to secede, that would take care of 75% of the problem. The remaining USA would do just fine. California would turn into Brazil or would be annexed by Mexico.
I dont get it. CA is the #1 exporter, #1 GDP, #1 population, etc etc etc. They would be in the G7.
Throw in Oregon and Washington
Regardless, these splits will not occur without violence. The progs are bent on control, and they will have it, come hell or high water. A split means the progs giving up control.
I agree with this. Moreover, one of the quotes in Arnold’s post mentions “unified by a common American heritage.” One who believes in constitutional governance shares no common heritage with one who believes that the whole structure is racist.
“But either virtually or geographically, Rexit would be really hard to negotiate. Think of the existing liabilities that have to be sorted out. The Rexiteers do not want to pay for teacher pensions. The Blue remainers do not want to let the Rexiteers off the hook for all of Social Security’s unfunded liabilities.”
In other words, the exploiters don’t want the exploited to escape.
Texas will be paying for MS, AL, LA, and AR instead of California.
Kling’s libertarian ideas of exit and models of opt-in governance are the right direction to go in.
He’s also right that the political left has no intention of letting people opt-out of their authority. He understates this. Janet Yellen is advocating a global tax, which is the opposite direction: even if you flee the physical country, the political left wants authority over you.
Ideologically, those asking for “exit”, autonomy, and opt-in governance have the moral and rhetorical high ground, but so far they seem to be losing any battles for real power.
Just because a marriage cannot be saved does not imply that it will not persist.
–“If I could stay in Maryland but have a Texas government, that would be better than having to choose one or the other.”–
This seems very hard to pull off in practice.
The roads will have to be built at the state and local level, and traffic law likewise will need to be as well. You can’t tell the state trooper that going 75mph down the 55mph highway was okay because you’re actually a Texan.
If you have a dispute with your neighbor, you can’t have one of you be under Texas law and the other under Maryland law.
If a state wants to regulate things like drugs or guns, it will want to do so for those in the geographic area, not for those who don’t consider themselves to be part of Texas.
Police, fire, EMS are all local. As much as schools can technically be done virtually, if you value the daycare aspect of public school then your kids will still need to be at a local school. Perhaps you could have a building with babysitters but have them livestream from a Texas teacher, but that would be a bit of a mess if you had kids who are virtually from 37 different states attending the school.
From a tax/spend perspective, generous states will be at risk of being blown up by high income individuals choosing to be under low tax jurisdictions whereas the poor will want to associate with high benefit jurisdictions.
Probably too low brow for this blog, but here is related commentary from Tucker from last evening. Fast forward to the 17:30 mark for the ADL’s take on the issue.
https://youtu.be/h0e4QjoJ4wc
Tucker Carlson deserves a standing ovation for that monologue.
Tucker fairly quotes the ADL, the ADL demonizes defames and pressures for Tucker to be fired.
Carlson’s commentary isn’t necessarily low brow, but taboo in Kling’s intellectual circles.
I will definitely try to draft Tucker Carlson on my Fantasy Intellectual Team.
“Tucker Carlson deserves a standing ovation for that monologue.”
Shhh! I don’t want anyone to be accused of being anti-Straussian or engaged on mood affiliation on this blog.
(But yes, it was amazing and kudos to him for the cojones to express it. About time.)
REXIT would not arrest the red-to-blue shift because the red-to-blue shift occurs as conditions change within the jurisdiction; shift from agriculture and open space to industry and urban density.
Compare Reagan’s CA of Newsom’s CA. Compare San Francisco’s anything goes 1960s to today’s left authoritarianism. The Northeast has been authoritarian blue for decades. Watch as the blue of Austin spreads to all of TX in the next 10 years.
As government invests in infrastructure (roads, water, sewer, public schools, public anything) and government employment expands (to administer, perform, maintain, etc. the infrastructure) government employees become the most salient political force. (So long farmers.) People within government have aligned incentives and similar psychological preferences while those outside of government have more disparate preferences and competing incentives.
To win election every politician must signal adherence to the psychological preferences of the standard government administrator; distrust of private enterprise and private action of any kind.
All actual government policies must guarantee tax harvesting sufficient to meet government pay and pension expectations which expand faster while the private sector contracts.
More “Seeing like a state” less living like a communal peasant. More central, less local.
The current regime marks the end of the capacity of the Electoral College to hold back the inevitable shift nationally despite a largely empty geography.
Plan to exercise your right of exit.
What a bizare world it would be if everyone could say “I’m leaving and you can’t come along.”
Short answer: you’re invited, but your friend can’t come (1993).
We don’t need any more blue voters in red states. Please stay right where you are. It’s uninhabitable for you anyways.
https://youtu.be/-qBg1cWpaEE
States change a lot and even red or blue states have fairly narrow margins in the grand scheme of things.
The single greatest change in the power structure I can think of is making all school boards town based wherever possible. The smallest unit of control as possible, so that those on the board have kids attending the schools effected. Such boards should have as much control as possible on curriculum, discipline, etc.
Back where I grew up, that’s how it went. But down here everything is at the county level, and there is a big difference in culture between one half of the county and the other. It’s led to a lot of acrimony and 5/8 votes based on geographic lines that we all have to live with.
“States change a lot and even red or blue states have fairly narrow margins in the grand scheme of things.”
I’m not so sure. In Texas in 2020, Cornyn won by 10 points and the controversial orange boogeyman won by 6 points. In 2018, Abbott won re-election by 13 points. Not that close.
Also, down here in Texas, the schools are in fully independent districts (ISDs). Not accountable to the county or city and the school board members are elected independently.
When Slovakia and Czechia split in the Velvet Divorce (of ’93, after the Velvet Revolution of ’89), it was fairly clear what the new states would be.
Most of the Slovaks in capital Bratislava were against it, and against the nationalist leader of the time. Split was not the first choice of most Slovaks, but few Slovaks wanted to continue in a Federation of 2/3 Czechs (10 mln vs 5 mln) – they wanted “equality”. Similarly, few Czechs wanted to split, but fewer wanted equality with Slovaks.
The world knows how to do boundary splits of jurisdictions, based on the land. We don’t know how to do multiple jurisdictions in the same land.
And we won’t be finding out soon.
On “federalism”, which I strongly support, about 5/9s of the voters do NOT want states to decide on abortion, despite the clear Tenth Amendment that, since it’s not a power given to the Feds, it should be a states issue.
Most states, including Texas, have cities that are far more pro-abortion than the countryside.
Who pays how much for what is almost totally a distraction. Govt influence & control of the culture is what the current polarization is about. And Wokism, like most universal religions, is on a cosmopolitan snob elite “Elect” jihad against wrongthink. It is the Democrats who refuse to “live and let live”, or rather “think and let think”.
BLM rioting and looting are the spearpoint tip of violence in favor of magic thinking. Giving into such unrealism will fail to solve the racial gap differences, as well as the male-female gap differences. Treating these group avg differences as if they are “problem that can be solved” is like trying to make a perpetual motion machine.
Ain’t gonna happen.
More federalism might, but likely only after some significant negative event.
Expect a Black Swan.
The real problem is that demographic transformation — partly driven by legal and illegal Latin American immigration is the Democrats’ method of pushing all states to cease to be Red eventually. Even those that are nominally Red will have to hold onto mixed policies caused by the racial hate mongering that has been institutionalized.
I think Balaji is right that the trend is towards decentralization. Look at the ratings for 2hr long YouTube podcasts vs the garbage legacy news. I don’t think that translates to Rexit or Leftit or whatever, though. That seems like a simplistic segregation that MSM and politicians try to divide by. I think the clustering is much more complex than Democrat/Republican.
I doubt that exit scenarios will occur in a complete way as in total new country within the borders. Regulatory accommodations are a possibility. Sanctuary cities that allow some regulatory freedom like cities that already allow self-driving cars are an example. Insert whatever regulatory fast track the crowd desires and it is a possibility somewhere in some state/country. Perhaps a community could have access to a vaccine after it’s proven safe but before efficacy? Or maybe a cancer therapy could be truly fast tracked? Flying cars?
Here’s a Tablet call by Benjamin Kerstein for a 3-state solution for Israel & Palestine:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/three-state-solution-benjamin-kerstein-peace-israel-palestine
three states: a Jewish state in Israel, a Palestinian state in Gaza, and a binational state in the West Bank.
I like this idea – and also thought that Iraq would be better off in 3 chunks separating Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and Shiite Arabs. But Baghdad, majority Sunni urban surrounded by Shiite rural, made this a “non-starter”.
The Walloon (French-speaking) majority in Brussels, surrounded by Flemish Dutch, is what stops Belgium from splitting up, so far.
How could it work in the West Bank?
the Palestinian majority and the Jewish minority beyond the Green Line would be equal citizens in a state that recognizes the political, religious, national, and historical rights of both peoples.
If the high IQ Jews can’t make it work there, why think Americans can make it work in the USA? A key issue is whether the economic results of people’s behavior results in avg. group equality, or not. And, if not, as different avg. behavior always does result in different results, will the differences be considered the fault of the more successful?
With enough economic aid, I can actually imagine it working in the West Bank, yet still failing to work in the USA. But until there is some shared bi-national “state” with land borders to show it working, I reman extremely skeptical.
Better for US conservatives and freedom lovers to presume continued elite Wokeness, domination, intolerance, and hypocrisy, and use what freedom is still available to decouple from the global anti-White, anti-Male Woke fundamentalists. Easy partial exit AND defiant voice opposition.
Getting rid of … uhhhh, the 14th amendment? might be a good start.
Anyone take the time to review (or get acquainted with) the ideas about government that Robert Heinlein floated through characters in his novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? Notably the professor’s character.
How can one embrace this without revisiting the civil war?
America is, in my opinion, historically sensible enough
Lost me right there. America is many things, but sensible is not one of them.