The Rapid Devolution of the United States
Ask most scholars on the U.S. Constitution and they will tell you that the Constitution prohibits American states from seceding. They will point out that the U.S. Civil War settled the issue of secession in fact, as well as in theory. But all the constitutional principles considered does not prevent the United States from devolving from the political center’s authority in Washington, DC to the state and even large metropolitan levels.
Under Donald Trump’s strongman policies, the United States is experiencing the same rapid decentralization that has seen other federations split apart in rapid fashion. Granted, the United States does not have the same underlying causes of ethnicity, language, and religion that helped propel the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, but the unilateral actions of the federal government are resulting in a steady movement by the American states away from the center in Washington, DC. Trump and his advisers, who rode the slogan of «states’ rights» into the White House, have shown a tendency toward disregarding the authority of the states and their representation in Washington, as embodied by the Congress, in favor of a strong unitary executive. The movement of the states toward more independence against the wishes of the center, as well as the Trump administration’s attempt to supersede the interests of the states is fraught with dangerous possibilities.
Federal forms of government are only successful when there is continual dialogue between the national and sub-national governments. When that dialogue is replaced by unilateral dictates from the center, the sub-national entities show their opposition by starting to ignore the national government. It was British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s unpopular poll tax in the 1980s that helped lead to the devolution of power from London to newly-formed regional governments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The devolution of powers to Scotland helped lead the path to the political dominance of the Scottish National Party and a referendum on Scottish independence. The atrophy of successive Belgian governments led directly to a federalized Belgium where substantial powers were devolved to Dutch-speaking Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia, and the Brussels-Capital Region, each with their own parliaments and governments.
While it is illegal for American states to secede, as witnessed by the military defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War, other forms of sub-national autonomy may be the ultimate outcome of the Trump administration’s practical disregard for the federalism as embodied by the U.S. Constitution.
The drive toward more state autonomy from Washington is influenced by a number of policies enacted by the Trump administration, including those dealing with the environment, drug usage, health care, personally-identifiable data, relations with Cuba, immigration policy, and foreign trade. Although there are other issues that have driven wedges between the Trump administration and its Republican boosters in Congress, the aforementioned «big seven» are the current catalysts that have many states opting to seek their own political paths, without interference from Washington.
Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord resulted in the creation of the «United States Climate Alliance», a group of states that remain committed to achieving the goals of the Paris Accord, regardless of Washington’s wishes. The first three states to declare independence from Trump and his Environmental Protection Agency’s policies were California, Washington, and New York. Connecticut soon followed. The Republican governors of Massachusetts and Vermont also joined the alliance, putting an end to criticism that the U.S. Climate Alliance was a Democratic Party contrivance. These states were followed by Rhode Island, Oregon, Hawaii, Virginia, Minnesota, and Delaware. Other states that remain committed to supporting the Paris Accord but have not formally joined the U.S. Climate Alliance are Colorado, Maryland, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Illinois, Iowa, and Maine. The District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which are not states, also adhered to the Paris Accord.
The Climate Alliance has served as a backdrop to some governors conducting bilateral talks with leaders of foreign governments on not only the environment but also immigration. Washington Governor Jay Inslee met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Seattle and they jointly backed the Paris Accord. Inslee also discussed Mexican immigrants in his state in talks with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in Mexico City. California Governor Jerry Brown flew to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. There, the two leaders reiterated their support for the Paris Accord and discussed bilateral economic interests. These included China-California trade issues during a time in which Trump is threatening to unleash a global trade war……More Here