Donald Trump’s victory in the election for the federal presidency has provoked bold claims of a sweeping political realignment in the States:
‘The recent political landscape has been shaken to its core, revealing a seismic shift that has emerged as a result of the latest elections. The transformative power of the MAGA movement has taken center stage, with an unprecedented demonstration of electoral prowess across the nation. What transpired is nothing short of a political paradigm shift that could redefine American politics for generations to come.’1
If this sounds familiar to anyone, he is not imagining things. We heard nearly the exact same claims 20 years ago when George W. Bush defeated John Kerry in the presidential election, which was similarly touted as ‘the most important election in the history of the US.’ For example, a fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, in his analysis of the Bush victory, wrote in 2005:
‘The fact that the Democratic Party seems both unwilling to accept any change in the big government programs of the New Deal or to compromise on what seems to be a radical secularist agenda, places it at a severe disadvantage in competing with the Republicans. Thus, the polarization of the electorate–much lamented by pundits and many in the media–has in this analysis been salutary for the Republican Party. The “bold colors” that Reagan called for when he urged the Republican Party to state its positions clearly seem to have attracted more support than they’ve lost. Although self-identified Republicans do not yet form a larger group than self-identified Democrats, they appear to have what might be called a working conservative majority of the electorate.
‘ . . . A serious recession, a major corruption scandal like Watergate, or a successful terrorist attack could result in an electoral revolt that strips the Republicans of their dominance temporarily. However, barring events of this kind, and assuming the Democrats remain captives of the left, the results of the 2004 presidential election seem consistent with a trend toward the Republican Party that has all the earmarks of the early stages of a long-term political realignment.’2
Well, an event ‘of this kind’ did happen: The Iraq War became a quagmire, the Democrats won in the 2006 congressional mid-term elections because of dissatisfaction over that, and all of Bush’s grand promises to increase freedom at home through the privatization of Social Security, etc., dissolved into the stagnant air of the Chesapeake swamp – an atmosphere heavy with an abundance of broken promises to ‘the people.’
To the extent that Donald Trump can actualize any of the promises he has made – to secure the border, deport illegal aliens, eliminate the federal Dept of Education, and so on – we wish him the best. But anyone who thinks this is the end of progressive/Leftist power in DC is deluded. The Democratic Party’s wandering in the political wilderness after their ‘crushing defeat’ in 2004 lasted all of two years. How long till the spectators of the US political circus get bored with the Trump Show and decide to change direction again? Time will tell.
Early resistance has already been announced by the governors of Massachusetts, California, and Illinois. We suspect that other Blue States and cities will join them, which will reinforce the reality that United States are not ‘one nation, indivisible’ but the confederation of separate nations they always have been.
Consolidation of all the States into one vast superstate governed exclusively by the federal apparatus in DC has been one of the greatest fears of the more perceptive statesmen of the US from the beginning.3 The rebellion of the Blue States against the incoming Trump regime is a tacit admission that even they agree on some level with their conclusions.
It is necessary, then, to strengthen those parts of our political system that allow the States to preserve the autonomy that is their birthright.
One of the wisest provisions of the Philadelphia charter of 1787 in this regard is the United States Senate. The original mode of electing the senators, by the State legislatures, guaranteed that the States, acting in their capacities as independent nations (i.e., sending ambassadors to the federal city), would be able to directly influence the proceedings of the new coordinating government. This would safeguard the States in various ways, even to the point of being able to bring the federal government to a complete end by not sending senators to DC:
. . .
The rest is at https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/reinvigorating-state-power-in-the-us-senate/.
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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!
Anathema to the Union!
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