As the federal government slides into deeper levels of unconstitutional tyranny, it increasingly falls upon constitutionalists in the states to use the tools at their availability to curtail overreach from D.C.
This is a principle which The New American has advanced previously. Nullification is a constitutional safeguard against unconstitutional federal policies in which states refuse to implement and cooperate with such policies — thus, nullifying their enforcement.
But this principle need not be limited to the states fighting back against a tyrannical Washington. In this age, when some state governments have almost completely fallen to the Iron Curtain of modern Marxism, localities have not only the right, but the imperative, to draw a line in the sand and refuse to go along with the socialist program.
An article by TNA’s Selwyn Duke makes the insightful case that, at a time the notion of secession is once again gaining traction due to the ever-growing political divide in America, secession, in one sense, is already taking place in many parts of the country — if not in name, at least in practice.
In his article, Duke points to the writings of Michael J. Lee, co-author of the book We Are Not One People: Secession and Separatism in American Politics Since 1776.
Writes Duke:
Lee contends that all this talk misses the point. “Just as there are ways to withdraw from a marriage before any formal divorce,” he writes, “there are also ways to exit a nation before officially seceding.” We must, he adds, transcend “narrow discussions of secession and the Civil War” and “frame secession as an extreme end point on a scale that includes various acts of exit that have already taken place across the U.S.”
Lee states that this “scaled secession” can begin with personal separatist actions, such as an individual avoiding jury duty. It then can move on to “legal maneuvers like interposition, in which a community delays or constrains the enforcement of a law it opposes, or nullification, in which a community explicitly declares a law to be null and void within its borders,” he explains.
The academic says that viewed through this lens, it’s plain that “secession lite, de facto secession or soft separatism,” as he frames it, is already occurring.
Acts of soft secession throughout the country are many, and include wealthy communities exiting failing school districts and the creation of “Second Amendment Sanctuaries” (and, on the flip side, the creation of illegal alien Sanctuary Cities by Democrat-run governments).
This soft secession is the path which must be adopted by “red” localities in America that are currently struggling under the weight of burdensome Marxism by their respective state governments. Eventually, this may lead to a not-so-soft, but, rather, a formal secession on the part of cities and counties — which would empower these jurisdictions with the ability to determine their own affairs free from the constraints of socialist overlords in the state capitals.
In short, what is needed now is a nationwide independence movement in America’s constitutionalist cities and counties.
The reason this step is crucial is because, in some instances, taking this bottom-up approach, rather than a top-down one, is the only viable option left to citizens who wish to live under true constitutional republicanism.
In places such as California and New York, for example, Democrats’ dominance over the governor’s mansion, the legislature, and the courts has created a dangerous status quo in which dissent at the state level has become virtually impossible to realize into policy.
Nevertheless, citizens of states such as New York and California will tell you that there are millions of conservatives still living within their borders, with entire regions, such as Northern California, being deeply red. The problem is that the high populations of the Deep Blue cities give Democrats the edge in state politics.
Democrats have made effective use of these favorable numbers to solidify their power through methods such as removing safeguards against voter fraud and creating policies that attract Democrat-leaning minorities to the state. Such states also push policies that criminalize and persecute conservatives, thus making it harder for opposition to organize.
In the long-term, it is probable that some of these regions, such as Northern California, will splinter from the original state, causing heated battles in Congress as Republicans and Democrats fight to accept or block these areas from becoming their own states, depending on who will benefit from the demographic shifts.
More immediately, however, it is not so important to think about whether an area officially becomes its own state or not; what matters is the practical consideration of conservative localities breaking free from beneath the thumb of increasingly radical state governments.
As this trend grows, we will begin to see more and more jurisdictions declaring themselves “Free Cities” and “Free Counties.”
To avoid being bullied into submission by Marxist state governments, these free localities must make every effort to become as self-sufficient as possible, becoming independent of state funding and infrastructure for their subsistence. They should also partner closely with free localities within their own respective states and with red states for mutual support.
Over time, the tyrannical state governments will see their power diminish and become irrelevant. This is the bottom-up approach that is most likely to bring results than typical conservative activist efforts to make big things happen at the state level. Given the amount of establishment money involved at the state level, such efforts often prove to be more than grassroots conservatives can chew and prove futile.
By lifting where they stand and beginning in their own communities, constitutionalist citizens are better positioned to make real and lasting change.
