Tag Archives: red states

Soft Secession

I recently came across a lengthy Substack post from The Existential Republic, titled “It’s Time for Americans to Start Talking About ‘Soft Secession.”  It was fascinating–and (assuming the accuracy of the reporting) immensely comforting. If even half of the sub-rosa efforts reportedly underway really are underway, the resistance is far more robust than I had imagined.

Evidently, Blue state leaders have been “war-gaming” a variety of scenarios.

For many state Attorney Generals and Governors, the legal briefs are already drafted. The strategy sessions have been running since December. “We saw this coming, even though we hoped it wouldn’t,” former Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum told The 19th days after Trump’s inauguration.

This is what American federalism looks like in 2025: Democratic governors holding emergency sessions on encrypted apps, attorneys general filing lawsuits within hours of executive orders, and state legislatures quietly passing laws that amount to nullification of federal mandates. Oregon is stockpiling abortion medication in secret warehouses. Illinois is exploring digital sovereignty. California has $76 billion in reserves and is deciding how to deploy it. Three sources on those daily Zoom calls between Democratic AGs say the same phrase keeps coming up, though nobody wants to say it publicly: soft secession.

Soft, because we aren’t looking at secession Civil War style. This time around–again, according to the post–Blue states are building parallel systems and withholding cooperation. They are creating “facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders.”

The infrastructure for this resistance already exists. Twenty-three Democratic attorneys general now gather on near-daily Zoom calls at 8 AM Pacific, which means the East Coast officials are already on their third coffee. They divide responsibilities and share templates for lawsuits they’ve been drafting since last spring.

Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken calls this “uncooperative federalism,” an approach that doesn’t require states to actively resist, merely refuse to help. And as the article points out, without state cooperation, much of the federal government’s agenda becomes unenforceable.

Eight states have already enacted State Voting Rights Acts that exceed federal protections. Twenty-two states have implemented automatic voter registration. Colorado has created what election security experts call the gold standard: risk-limiting audits with paper ballot requirements.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully sued Trump during his first term, promised she’s “ready to fight back again.” During Trump’s first term, Democratic attorneys general led more than 130 multistate lawsuits against the administration and won 83 percent of them…

Pritzker has his staff exploring how to force Apple and Google to disable location tracking for anyone crossing into Illinois for medical procedures, preventing any digital trail that could be subpoenaed. Multiple governors are studying whether they can legally deny federal agents access to state databases, airports, and even highways for immigration enforcement. The discussions, according to sources, have gone as far as evaluating state authority to close airspace to federal deportation flights. States are creating pharmaceutical stockpiles, climate agreements, immigration policies. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has secured 209 electoral votes. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative’s 11 states have reduced emissions by 50% while the federal government rolled back climate regulations. The U.S. Climate Alliance’s 24 governors represent 60% of the American economy.

California doesn’t wait for Washington anymore. Neither does New York. Or Illinois. They’re building functioning governmental systems that operate independently of federal authority.

I strongly encourage you to click through and read the rest of the lengthy post, which has multiple examples of the ways in which “the same constitutional structure that allows red states to ban abortion permits blue states to stockpile abortion pills. The same Tenth Amendment that lets Texas deploy its National Guard to the border prevents Trump from commandeering state police for deportations.”

Of course, as we repeatedly see, constitutional restrictions mean nothing to our Mad King, and our rogue Supreme Court has signaled a willingness to overrule many of the eminently correct decisions of the lower federal courts. Nevertheless, I found the extent of the coordinated activities of America’s Blue states to be immensely hopeful, especially since the majority of Americans live in those states–and since (as the article also documents) the country’s Red states are economically dependant on Blue state taxpayers.

As the post concludes:

The phrase “soft secession” makes Democrats nervous. They prefer “resistance” or “federalism” or any other euphemism that doesn’t acknowledge what’s happening. But when democracy fails, when fair elections become impossible in certain states, when federal funds are withheld as political punishment, states don’t have many options left.

The infrastructure is built. The legal precedents are established. The money is there. Blue states have spent two years sharpening these tools…

As blue states prepare to deny federal agents access to their databases, their highways, maybe even their airspace, the soft secession isn’t coming. It’s here.

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Red State Blues

I don’t know indiana State Representative Chis Campbell, and I had to look up her district (26) but everyone in Indiana ought to understand the contents of her recent newsletter, detailing the losses that Indiana will sustain as a result of the carnage being wreaked by the Trump/Musk administration.

Deep-Red Indiana, where citizens love to hate the federal government, is the state third-most reliant on federal funding. We are behind only Louisiana and Mississippi (a statistic that gives credence to the frequent accusation that Indiana’s terrible legislature wants to turn Indiana into the Mississippi of the north).

According to Representative Campbell, nearly 44% of Indiana’s budget comes from federal agencies and grants.

So what are a few of the biggest impacts Trump’s plans will have on Hoosiers? Rep. Campbell lists them.

First, there’s the projected impact of Trump’s insane tariffs. The Conversation calculates that Indiana will be the third most impacted by those tariffs, losing $4.82 billion (a 1.12% decrease in our GDP), primarily in the auto, manufacturing, and agriculture industries. “The auto industry, one of Indiana’s biggest economic sectors, is expected to lose $28.2 billion because of these tariffs.”  It is projected that a Hoosier family of four will spend an extra $2,836 each year, “equivalent to half a year’s worth of utility payments.”

If Trump is successful in ridding us of the much-maligned Department of Education, Indiana will lose $1.8 billion we now get for K-12 and higher education.

The Division of Family Resources (DFR), which primarily funds schools with a high number of low-income students or students in need of special education, receives a little under $2 billion from the federal government. Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) receives approximately $670,000 in Title III funding. These dollars help students who are learning English as a second language, and they benefit approximately 6,400 students in the IPS system. Additionally, students with disabilities rely on the DOE to enforce the right to an individualized education plan.

Then there’s Medicaid.

Congressional Republicans have proposed $880 billion in federal cuts, which would be impossible to achieve without cutting Medicaid or Medicare. Since roughly 70% of Indiana’s funding for Medicaid comes from the national government, Indiana could be in a serious bind. It’s estimated that close to 484,000 Hoosiers would lose their health care coverage if these federal cuts are passed and Indiana fails to cover the costs.

As Representative Campbell notes, the assault on healthcare isn’t confined to Medicaid. Cuts to the NIH–the National Institutes of Health–will dramatically affect Indiana University and Purdue University, both of which rely heavily on federal funding to conduct on-campus medical research.

Cuts to HUD will worsen Indiana’s challenging housing market. We are already one of the most difficult states in which to rent  (Fort Wayne is ranked the third least renter-friendly city in the U.S.). And since HUD enforces fair housing laws, Trump’s cuts to the agency will join his other efforts to revive Jim Crow.

If Trump was capable of rational decision-making, he would re-think his wildly unconstitutional Executive Orders and his support for Musk’s equally unconstitutional chain-saw “efficiencies,” because the data shows that the mayhem is hitting Red states like Indiana far harder than it is affecting Blue states.

It is unlikely that Trump understands that differential impact, or recognizes the European Union’s very deliberate effort to target its responses to his tariffs to the states inhabited by his supporters.  As the linked article from Fortune reports:

The EU measures will cover goods from the United States worth some 26 billion euros ($28 billion), and not just steel and aluminum products, but also textiles, home appliances and agricultural goods. Motorcycles, bourbon, peanut butter and jeans will be hit, as they were during President Donald Trump’s first term.

The EU duties aim for pressure points in the U.S. while minimizing additional damage to Europe. The tariffs — taxes on imports — primarily target Republican-held states, hitting soybeans in House speaker Mike Johnson’s Louisiana, but also beef and poultry in Kansas and Nebraska. Produce in Alabama, Georgia and Virginia is also on the list.

Unfortunately those of us in Red states who aren’t members of the MAGA cult will suffer along with everyone else. And of course, residents of Blue states won’t escape the effects of the combined madness (Trump, Musk) and cowardice (Republicans in Congress).

As the consequences become increasingly impossible to ignore, the resistance will grow. It is already gathering speed: over 11,000 people turned out to hear Bernie Sanders and AOC in bright-Red Greeley, Colorado, and an amazing 34,000 turned out in Denver.

Even in Red Indiana, Town Halls are packed with Americans who aren’t going down without a fight. And as the cuts to Social Security staffs make access difficult-to-impossible, those crowds are exploding.

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An Uninformed Electorate

Over the years I’ve been writing this blog, one of my more frequent laments has been the collapse of America’s local newspapers. The last time I looked, the United States had lost a over a quarter– 2,100 – of its local newspapers, and that number doesn’t include the “ghost” papers that are theoretically still functioning, but no longer able to adequately cover local news.

What do we lose when we lose local newspapers?

We lose “news you can use” about local government agencies, schools and the goings-on at the State legislature. As I’ve previously noted, we also lose a common information environment that builds community and is more trusted than national media sources. And that trust matters.

Research confirms that the loss of a properly functioning local paper leads to diminished participation in municipal elections, which become less competitive. Corruption goes unchecked, driving costs up for local government. Disinformation proliferates because people turn to social media to get their “facts.”

A recent study confirms the importance of local newspapers to the maintenance of an informed citizenry. I’ve previously reported on a statistic I found stunning (and depressing)–the fact that people who follow the news (presumably including Fox “News”) voted for Harris by a considerable margin, and people who reported seldom or never following the news voted for Trump by a much larger margin. But that finding didn’t distinguish between local and national news sources.

This study–cited by the Local News Initiative-– did.

Donald Trump won the 2024 election with one of the smallest popular-vote margins in U.S. history, but in news deserts – counties lacking a professional source of local news – it was an avalanche. Trump won 91% percent of these counties over his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, according to an analysis of voting data by Medill Journalism School’s State of Local News project.

The study didn’t confuse correlation with causation; researchers were careful to note that Trump’s dominance in the country’s news deserts isn’t a simple matter of cause and effect.

That is, people didn’t necessarily vote for Trump because they lack local news. Instead, a simpler and more obvious correlation may be at work: News deserts are concentrated in counties that tend to be rural and have populations that are less educated and poorer than the national average–exactly the kind of places that went strongly for Trump in 2024 and in 2020….

But news deserts do have the potential to affect voting behavior in important ways. When voters lose access to local news, they tend to gravitate toward national news sources, according to research by Joshua P. Darr, a professor of public communications at Syracuse University. This kind of news, by definition, focuses on broad national issues—abortion, immigration, the economy, etc.—without regard to local conditions.

Individuals exposed only to national news are thus unlikely to know how a given candidate’s priorities will affect their cities or states. They base their votes on a few national issues that tend to reinforce basic partisan identities. Voters in news deserts are also more likely to engage in ballot “roll off”  – that is, vote for president but leave local and statewide races blank. Others will simply vote a straight ticket for candidates who share the political party of their presidential choice.

Those practices can hardly be considered informed votes by thoughtful citizens–those needed by a democratic system.

Several of the studies I’ve previously cited have found that citizens tend to place more trust in local sources of news than in national media. The absence of a local newspaper doesn’t just deprive them of important information about their own communities–the disappearance of those trusted local sources leaves them with a choice between inadequate alternatives: they may stop following the news altogether, or they may ignore the so-called “legacy” media in favor of less credible sources that reflect their partisan leanings and biases.

I agree with the researchers that Trump’s victory in America’s news deserts is not a “simple matter of cause and effect.” The study’s results should not be reduced to “Trump won because people were uninformed.” But it would be equally wrongheaded to dismiss that argument entirely. It is at least plausible to assume that more information from a more trusted source might have influenced at least some of these voters–if not to withhold a vote for Trump, at least to consider their choices for down-ballot candidates. (The presence of a local newspaper has been found to increase ticket-splitting, for example, indicating more informed voting.)

Life in a news desert leads to more political corruption, higher taxes, lower bond ratings, greater social alienation, misinformation, and loss of social cohesion. It also leads to more votes for enormously unfit candidates.

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The Big Sort

I have frequently cited a 2009 book by Bill Bishop, titled “The Big Sort.” Bishop pointed to a then-emerging trend of “voting with one’s feet”–the tendency of many Americans to relocate to places that they find philosophically and politically compatible. The consequences of such sorting can be troubling. What happens when most neighbors agree with your outlook and values, reducing the need to accommodate disagreement or defend your woldview?

I read “The Big Sort” when it first came out, but I still ponder many of the issues it raised. One issue that it didn’t raise, however–at least, I don’t recall Bishop paying attention to it–involved “macro” outcomes: what if the sorting led to very different economic and quality-of-life differences between what we’ve come to identify as “Red” and “Blue” parts of the country?

More than a decade after the book, we are seeing major differences emerge. A recent column by Michael Hicks focused directly on that outcome. As he writes,

Of the 20 richest states today, 19 are solidly Democratic. Of the poorest 20 states, 19 are solidly Republican. The GOP dominates in poor, slowly growing states, while the Democrats dominate politics of prosperous, faster-growing states.

Hicks notes that these differences are largely an outcome of the nationalization of our politics. In former times–in fact, up until the late 1990s– there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. But then, state parties began to align with national politics.

Even races for local municipal government tend to be nationalized. State and local issues are often ignored, or barely discussed in primary or general elections. The homogeneity of national politics will naturally cause parties to represent more similar places.

Hicks then echoes Bishop, finding household sorting by politics. “Though most sorting happens at the sub-state level” (presumably, rural and urban) “the nationalization of politics means that state borders now affect household location choice.” Voters are choosing the political landscapes they prefer.

Hicks notes that when he began researching state and local policy some quarter-century ago, state legislators focused more on local issues; now, many take their “legislative marching orders from national think tanks or national parties. Today, elected leaders from both parties are expected to advance similar legislation, typically written by think tanks, everywhere at once.” (That is certainly the case in Indiana, where our dreadful General Assembly obediently does ALEC’s bidding.)

Education, Hicks tells us, is the most consequential policy difference between thriving Blue states and struggling Red states like Indiana.

The most likely cause of divergence between rich and poor places is the fact that human capital — education, innovation and invention — replaced manufacturing and movement of goods as the primary source of prosperity. In other words, places that grow will collect more human capital. However, the educational policies pursued by both parties are vastly different.

The GOP has largely tried to adopt broad school choice, while cutting funding to both K-12 schools and higher education. The Democrats have largely eschewed school choice, but amply fund both K-12 and higher education. Today, 17 of the 20 states with high educational spending are Democratically controlled and 17 out of the 20 lowest funded states are GOP strongholds.

There’s more to education than spending. Still, higher educational spending, even if it means higher tax rates, is leading to enrollment and population growth. Educational attainment differences alone explain about three quarters of the difference in per capita income between states.

At the same time, school choice effects are smaller than almost anyone hoped or expected. Today, it’s clear that the average student in private school underperforms their public school counterparts (charter schools tend to out-perform both). So, if poor states spend less on education and rely more on school choice, they will become poorer than states spending more on public education.

Economists have been saying this for three decades, with little effect. The prognosis is simply that poor states like Indiana are going to get poorer for decades to come while rich states will grow richer.

Here in Indiana, incoming Governor Braun has made expansion of the state’s voucher program a key priority. He wants to make it “universal,” meaning the eradication of income limits. Indiana’s program is already disproportionately used by upper-middle-class parents; Braun’s proposed giveaway would allow participation by even more privileged families (So much for the pious assurances that vouchers would allow poor children to escape “failing” public schools.)

Vouchers don’t improve educational outcomes, and they drain critical resources from the public schools that continue to serve the overwhelming majority of Indiana children.

If Hicks is reading the data correctly–and I believe he is–states like Indiana will continue to decline, and educated citizens will choose to move elsewhere.

Continuing the “sort.”

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Be Careful What You Wish For…Chevron Edition

Among the Supreme Court’s numerous retreats from what had long been considered “settled law” was a ruling that received relatively little publicity. The general public can be forgiven for failing to realize just how startling–and wrongheaded–the Court’s abandonment of something called “Chevron deference” really was, but the legal community certainly understood the decision as a monumental retreat from precedent and respect for expertise–not to mention an unwarranted increase in judicial power.

Chevron deference was shorthand for a judicial doctrine that has been applied for 40 years in over 18,000 decisions to situations where Congress sends ambiguous directions to executive agencies staffed with people who are experts in the particular area. That ambiguity is necessary; Congress isn’t equipped to determine the proper levels of contaminants in water or to identify carcinogenic chemicals–and even if such specifics were passed, they would be incredibly difficult to monitor and update as technical knowledge advances. 

Recognizing that practical reality, Courts have deferred to agency interpretations/clarifications of those ambiguities, recognizing that judges–like Congresspersons– generally lack the specific technical knowledge required.

The required deference could certainly be overcome. If a plaintiff challenging the agency’s interpretations provided evidence that agency interpretations were unreasonable, Courts could–and did–overrule them. Deference simply required the judicial branch to acknowledge–and respect– the existence of specialized subject-matter expertise, and to recognize that the possession of superior legal knowledge does not make the judicial branch all-knowing.

As an article from Pro Publica reported,

That doctrine, known as Chevron deference, was named after the 1984 Supreme Court case in which it emerged, and it offered an answer to a recurring question: What happens when Congress passes a law granting power to a federal agency but fails to precisely define the boundaries of that power?

In such situations, the doctrine of Chevron deference instructed federal judges to rely on the interpretations made by federal agencies, as long as those interpretations were reasonable, since agencies typically have greater expertise in their subject areas than judges. The Loper Bright decision erased that, commanding federal judges to “exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”

Legal scholars condemned the Loper ruling as yet another departure from stare decisis–respect for precedent–and as an unwarranted departure from a reasonable balance between executive and judicial authority. Those intent upon reducing federal authority–and regulations–cheered it.

But it turns out that the Chevron decision might take its place alongside Dobbs, as a judicial overreach that ideologues may regret. (Dobbs was largely responsible for the non-appearance of the anticipated “Red wave” in 2022.)

A recent article from Stateline suggests that the ruling will allow Blue states to more effectively resist Trump Administration policies.

A major U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer was hailed as a conservative court’s broadside against a Democratic administration, giving red states more backing to delay or overturn policies they don’t like, such as transgender protections and clean energy goals.

But the ruling in the Loper Bright case, which granted courts more power to scrutinize federal rules, can go both ways. Experts say it will likely give blue states more leeway to attack any forthcoming policy changes from President-elect Donald Trump — ranging from immigration and the environment to Medicaid and civil rights.

Lawsuits already are being planned in many states. California is holding a special session to set aside money for legal fights, and Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey and New York also are considering legal strategies

Democratic governors in Colorado and Illinois formed a coalition in November to “fortify essential democratic rights nationwide.”

In effect, the ruling opens more federal rules to those court challenges. Blue states now have a new weapon to fight conservative federal rules on issues such as immigration, climate change, abortion access and civil rights….

Most experts see the change as an obstacle to a new Republican administration looking to make sweeping changes but lacking enough support in Congress to pass large-scale legislation. Any proposals restricting access to abortion or attempting to dismantle the Affordable Care Act or Medicaid expansion will be more complicated, said Zachary Baron, a director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute.

Our fractious, gerrymandered Congress hasn’t approved a major immigration or environmental law for decades. That Congressional inability to legislate “has forced both Democratic and Republican administrations to change policy through either executive order or federal regulations that can now be more easily challenged by hostile states in the courts.”

The Loper decision hobbled some of the Biden Administration’s regulatory efforts. The linked article points to a number of ways in which it will also complicate–and prevent–measures threatened by the incoming Trump administration. 

Sauce for the goose……

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