Which basically makes us (Oregon and Washington) honorary counties of California (which is fucking HUGE), but I'm OK with that, as Gavin Newsom is BEING A FUCKING LEADER. Which is what we need right now.
1/6 of Americans have just formed their own loose union in opposition to the Federal Government.
But... can you really call it "opposition" if the Federal Government isn't actually DOING anything we can oppose? Can you form a united front against inaction? (Yes. Yes, you can.)
Honestly, that could be the greatest thing the Trump Administration could ever do. It would force the "States Rights vs Federalism" issue, and possibly disempower the Executive Office (after a long and protracted legal battle).
That could see the overturning of a LOT of really shitty stuff, and how the unelected Dept of Commerce is the de facto rulers and arbiters of everything in the USA. (Because they can claim that almost any activity of any type is "interstate commerce" and therefore under their jurisdiction.)
The decomposition of the US from a Federal Oligarchy to a loose federation of States with broad individual powers would be kinda .... good?
Didn't use collusion, but did use "mutiny".
I'm ambivalent on the rebalancing of power. Clearly we need something to change, but on the other hand we need the administrative state to be as big as it is to administer most of the programs that help people. There has been a willingness on the part of Congress to cede so much of their power to the executive branch over the last hundred, because it solves two problems for them. One, it makes it so experts get to actually make policy. Two, it absolves individual members when shit goes wrong, because all they voted for, e.g., was "clean water"--they had no idea that would mean that farmer Bill from their district couldn't dump as many metric tons of nitrogen on his lands as the Founders intended.
The downside of that is that public accountability is limited to presidential elections, especially in the case where Congress derelicts their oversight functions (of course, one man's oversight is another man's witch hunt). For the last few administrations Congressional ceding of authority has given way to presidential usurpation of Congressional power. It has been accelerating, and Obama was really bad on this front, IMO. I warned some liberal friends of mine that they shouldn't cheer a lot of his moves, because they're not going to like it so much when another W is in office (I did not anticipate by any stretch that another W would be a dream come true compared to this waking nightmare). But I think all that adds up to a really strong need for Congress to reassert itself as the representative of the people. Even Republicans should be reminded that they are supposed to be the president's boss, not the other way around.
I'm not sure how all that relates to Federalism, but color me skeptical that a return to strong states' rights is a good thing. It might be a good thing for some states on a temporary basis, but we should remember that (1) the 14th amendment was needed for a really good reason, and (2) what seems permanent now is probably fleeting (e.g. Reagan was CA's governor not that long ago, as was Nixon). We need to envision what states' rights look like when bad actors (no Reagan pun intended) are running things, before we decide that's a wise move.
With all the problems of the US government, I still have a lot of faith that we'll be ok when fuckface is gone. We shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Sidenote: The best part of Trump's "Mutiny on the Bounty" tweet is that he compared himself to Captain Bligh... the bad guy in the story. What a dipshit.
- Clearly we need something to change, but on the other hand we need the administrative state to be as big as it is to administer most of the programs that help people.
This is what I always thought, too.
And now we have the Republican Party's current incarnation, Fox and OAN "news", and the opioid epidemic.
In effect, the coastal states are subsidizing the stupidity in this country. If each state was allowed to proceed more on their own, without being subjugated to various Dept of Commerce policies, they'd be allowed to fail colossally and by their own hand, instead of being propped up by socialist wealth redistribution programs funded by the coastal states.
There's a lot in that statement, I know.
But if even HALF of the states had to stand on their own two legs, and operate fully within their own programs and policies - without being bailed out by California and New York's economies - then they would fail.
It's time for these people to feel the real repercussions of their voting actions. I'm ready to kick them out of the basement and make them go out, get a job, and live on their own. I mean... they are in their 30's and still living in their mom's basement! :-)
I did some digging and as it turns out, CA isn't a donor state. Connecticut is the biggest (per capita), and NY is high up there, too, but CA has a slight balance (some sources had it slightly plus and some slightly minus--probably depends on how you count). My guess is that part of it is the high number of people living in poverty combined with big military spending and lots of lucrative Silicon Valley contracts. But obviously CA contributes lot that is hard to measure, too. At least that highlights the difficulty of breaking things down that way.
My home state (MI) is a good example of what can go wrong. When manufacturing was king, we were a huge donor state. Now we're a slight mooch (and of course this correlates nicely with disinvestment in our public ed). Shit ebbs and flows. I hate the mentality of the people who hate government but want handouts as much as anyone, but I also like to at least think we're all in it together. Otherwise we can keep breaking down the geography until it's my and my wife's side of the bed, and we're arguing over who put more money in the bank account this month.
I think, obviously, a better solution is to help these terrorists figure out for themselves that investing in their public schools and universities would actually help themselves in the medium and long term. Don't know how you do that unless or until you can just redefine everyone as "white" and then they won't have to get pissy about "giving" money to mexicans and blacks.
I mean what if we just do our own thing anyway by ignoring any suit??? Just like the White House has done for the last four years.
taps forehead