February 9, 2025 • 56 mins
What if the United States could peacefully resolve its deep political rifts through secession? Dr. Jason Sorens, a leading expert on secessionism and author of the book Secessionism, joins the pod to discuss the legal, historical, and cultural dimensions of secession in America. The contentious idea has gained renewed interest following Donald Trump's re-election in 2024, and we examine the complexity of secessionist movements from California to Texas to Cascadia and more. Recognizing the confines of the Supreme Court's defining 1869 Texas v. White ruling about the legality of secession, we question whether a breakup might actually bridge the political chasm dividing progressives and conservatives across the nation.
We also discuss the dynamics shaping current secession discourse, from the redrawing of state boundaries to the culture clashes within states that complicate these efforts. Drawing comparisons with international movements, such as Greenland's path to greater independence and the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia, Dr. Sorens provides a nuanced perspective on the potential paths states might consider. We examine the challenges of forming new nations and the delicate balance between self-determination and the cohesion required to sustain a united country.
Finally, we dig into the relationship between partisanship and polarization in America, contemplating whether secessionist rhetoric is merely a symptom of deeper societal divides. With examples like Vermont's quest for greater policy autonomy, we consider innovative solutions that focus on self-governance as an alternative to outright separation. Ultimately, our conversation seeks to answer this question: can unity be achieved through separation?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Sorens (00:00):
if you had a state as big as California or Texas,
try to gain independence.
Trying to appease them wouldcost a lot.
So there's also that questionwhat sort of policies could you
give them, what sort of moneycould you give them that would
(00:20):
make them not want to gainindependence?
And I just don't think that inthe US there would be a lot of
appetite among the you know, menand women who make up the
military to fire on Texans orCalifornians if they really
wanted to pursue independence.
(00:40):
I think that is something thathas changed since the 1860s.
So I think this would be foughtout politically.
And then it becomes a questionof well, what kind of deal could
you broker to keep the countrytogether?
Shawn (01:01):
Welcome to Deep Dive with me, s C Fettig.
Since Donald Trump'sre-election in 2024, there has
been renewed talk of secessionfrom some blue states, echoing
historical patterns of politicaldiscontent in America.
In fact, just recently,california approved an
initiative allowing for acollection of signatures in
(01:22):
support of secession.
That would then trigger astate-led committee to
investigate the possibility.
This isn't a new phenomenon.
From the Hartford Convention in1814 to the Civil War and even
recent movements like the Stateof Superior in Michigan's Upper
Peninsula and Cascadia on theWest Coast, secession has been a
(01:44):
recurring theme in US history.
Legally, the Supreme Courtruled in Texas v White in 1869
that unilateral secession isunconstitutional, stating that
the union is indissoluble andcan only be dissolved through
revolution or consent of thestates.
Despite this, secessionistsentiments persist, driven by
(02:04):
increasing politicalpolarization.
And who knows, I mean thecourt's been overturning a lot
of its own establishedprecedents lately.
In today's episode, we're joinedby Dr Jason Sorens, a senior
research fellow at AmericanInstitute for Economic Research,
author of the book Secessionismand founder of the Free State
Project.
We discuss the evolution ofsecession movements, their legal
(02:27):
standing and the complexquestion of whether peaceful
separation might be a solutionto our deeply divided electorate
.
We also talk about historicalprecedents, current trends and
the potential consequences ofsuch a drastic step.
All right, if you like thisepisode or any episode, please
give it a like, share and followon your favorite podcast
(02:48):
platform and or subscribe to thepodcast on YouTube.
And, as always, if you have anythoughts, questions or comments
, please feel free to email meat deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom
.
Let's do a deep dive, dr Sorens.
(03:08):
Thanks for being here.
How are you?
Dr. Sorens (03:10):
I'm doing well.
How are you?
Shawn (03:12):
I'm doing well as well.
Thanks for taking the time tohave this conversation.
I think it's strikinglyrelevant in this moment.
Although it tends to be kind ofebbs and flows, I think it's
common to hear after everyelection some type of grumbling
about secession.
Red states don't want to liveunder blue administrations and
vice versa.
So of course, after theelection of Trump, we're hearing
much of that rhetoric comingout of blue states, particularly
(03:34):
California these days.
And I've always been fascinatedwith the idea of secession,
because I do ascribe to theconcept of self-determination
and there are some circumstanceswhich it truly could be freeing
for some people or groups tofree themselves from oppression
or repression, but at the sametime, nations can't be subject
to dismantling over politicalwinds of the moment.
But I will say that it reallydoes feel like we and by we I
(03:57):
mean those of us in the UnitedStates are at least two
different people these days, areat least two different people
these days you know, if weoversimplify it to progressives
and conservatives and that it'spossible that we may be close to
or have already passed aRubicon, you know that we can't
live with each other.
It does seem like in at leastin our political rhetoric.
We kind of despise each other,we loathe each other's policies,
(04:18):
each other's beliefs, eachother's culture, etc.
And so I think I might be in ona peaceful separation that
avoids some type of drawn outconflict or outright civil war.
But that's easier said than done.
So you study this, you writeabout it.
So that's why you're here tomake me understand and maybe
talk me off of, off of thisledge that I'm on.
But let's just start right here, because I think this might be
(04:41):
the end of the ballgame and thenthe rest of the conversation
will just be an exercise inwish-casting on the part of some
people.
Is secession in the UnitedStates actually legal?
Dr. Sorens (04:52):
Yeah, it's actually a controversial question.
The constitutional law that welive under right now says that
unilateral secession is notlegal, so that was decided under
the 1869 Supreme Court case,texas v White, and it basically
said that if a state wants tosecede, it needs the consent of
(05:13):
the other states, and it wasunclear about what that would
mean, but implied thatcongressional consent might be
sufficient.
And so then that means that ifa state wanted to secede,
presumably you would have topass something through the state
legislature, and some statesmaybe even enact its own state
(05:33):
constitutional amendment andthen get the consent of Congress
, maybe pass a bill throughCongress, which would be more or
less the way that the US hasacquired territory in the past
and relinquished territory.
You have to remember that theUnited States has been seceded
from the Philippines, gainedindependence from the US after a
long insurgency and politicalcampaign, so it's definitely
(05:57):
something that could happen, butyou can't just do it on your
own according to existing caselaw and, as I've said, there's a
debate about that, though.
Shawn (06:07):
So then let's put this squarely in the moment that
we're in.
So, given the contours of ourpolitics right now and I guess I
just feel like the likelihoodof Congress being willing to
just let a chunk of the UnitedStates go specific to or related
to our politics or because ofour politics, feels like a
non-starter to me, but in thismoment, right so, if we consider
(06:28):
our politics, the makeup ofCongress and the election of
Donald Trump, and then thisincreased chatter right now
that's kind of coming from theWest Coast.
It's primarily California whichjust passed an initiative that
allows for the collection ofsignatures which, if they gain
enough, would then lead to likea state-run committee or
commission that wouldinvestigate the possibility of
leaving the union, and then, ofcourse, washington state and
(06:50):
Oregon are always kind ofclamoring to be part of that
breakup.
So, if we consider that kind ofequation and you know the
history of what we understand,as you just kind of outlined, as
it relates to the legalmechanisms by which any region
could leave the union, when youlook at this, what do you make
of it and how much weight do yougive it?
Dr. Sorens (07:10):
Yeah, I mean, I've frequently heard conservatives
say that they would prefer thatCalifornia seceded.
So you could imaginepotentially, if things get
really bad, that a Republicanmajority in Congress might allow
that to happen if Californiasought it.
But you know, there reallyisn't any precedent
internationally or historicallyfor a country that is formed on
(07:35):
purely ideological differences.
Typically, there has to be somecultural background, some sense
of nationhood, and you reallydon't have much of that in the
United States.
I could imagine maybe Hawaiihaving some of that, maybe even
Alaska, but even a state likeTexas, where there's a lot of
(07:56):
Texas pride, people don't reallythink of themselves as a
separate nation, and so there'sa big barrier to overcome there.
And so there's a big barrier toovercome there.
Yes, the evidence does suggestthat ideological differences can
help promote a secessionistmovement where one exists, and
so we see that in cases likeScotland, where the independence
(08:16):
movement there points topolicies coming out of
Westminster that they don't likeand they use that to gain
support for independence.
Nevertheless, there's noprecedent really for ideological
differences alone driving this,and so you'd really have to
have some kind of nationbuilding at the state level and
probably also some collapse offunctioning at the federal level
(08:42):
in DC.
And again, these things aren'timpossible to imagine, but
they're also not things that arelikely to happen over, say, the
next five years.
Shawn (08:52):
When we think about the most famous example of secession
in the United States, obviouslywe're talking about the Civil
War right, and at that time Ithink it was easier to
conceptualize how the UnitedStates would break up, because
we had a clear north-south kindof divide in the country, and so
Southerners really did identifyas Southerners, probably more
so than Northerners identifiedas Northerners, but there was a
(09:14):
regional divide, and I don'tknow that I see that happening
in the United States in the sameway.
I think we still have anorth-south, I think we have a
far west and we have a northeast, but I don't think that those
are easily delineated regions ofideology and culture that maybe
existed during the Civil WarRight.
And so when I think aboutplaces like California, when we
think about secession, we alwaysthink about these as state
(09:37):
initiatives.
So a state leaving or a groupof states in a region leaving.
But California has a veryconservative east side Right,
and Oregon has a veryconservative east side right,
and Oregon has a veryconservative east side, so does
Washington, and every state hastheir blue zone.
So it doesn't seem to me thatsecession along regional lines
makes a lot of sense in the sameway that it maybe did in the
1850s and 1860s, so I'm not evensure what an example would be
(10:02):
to point to of how secession inan environment like that would
work.
Do you have thoughts?
Dr. Sorens (10:08):
Yeah, I mean I live in New Hampshire, which is
incredibly different from therest of New England, and there'd
be a lot of people in NewHampshire would be very upset if
we were forced to go along withthe rest of New England in some
new country.
Yeah, I mean I'll just referagain to the need for nation
building here to happen before aserious secession movement.
(10:29):
Traveler in South Carolina inthe 1830s, so long before the
Civil War, talking to some youngmen in Charleston and asking
them about how they felt aboutsomething as Americans, and they
(10:51):
said, well, we're not Americans, we're South Carolinians.
And I wonder how manyCalifornians today would say,
well, I'm a Californian and notan American.
Probably vanishingly few.
So it would be that kind ofidentity that you would need to
see happen before you get anindependence movement.
But yeah, it's definitely goingto be more state by state.
(11:14):
If it were to happen, it wouldhave to be state by state.
There's no real mechanism foran entire region to withdraw.
(11:42):
I mean, eventually you did seethat in the Confederacy where
you had, south Carolina was thefirst one to secede and then
other states nearby joined in.
That would divide the countryso starkly that these states
would see no alternative but tobreak away, sees itself as being
(12:02):
very culturally distinctive andhaving some serious political
differences with DC andpotentially also just a
breakdown of order andfunctioning in DC, and they
think that they could get awaywith this even just on their own
withdrawing, and so it wouldhave to be a set of multiple
circumstances to allow this tohappen, and again, it's kind of
(12:25):
hard to imagine that happeningin the near future, no matter
how polarized we get.
Shawn (12:29):
So if you had to point at I mean to me I feel like we've
kind of set this up already butif you had to point at a state
that was at least somewhat inthe realm of making that happen
or meeting some of theserequirements that you've
outlined, which one or ones doyou think would that be?
Dr. Sorens (12:47):
Yeah, I mean the evidence from elections so far
in the United States is that itwould be.
If we're talking just aboutstates, alaska is the one that
actually has elected a governoron a platform of independence
before elected a governor on aplatform of independence before.
(13:08):
Now the governor said he wasn'tgoing to pursue it during the
campaign and that's partly howhe got elected.
But he got elected as acandidate on the secessionist
party.
So that's the one case, the onestate where we have some
evidence that there's this kindof support that actually
materializes in the politicalsystem.
There was an attempt in Texas acouple of years ago.
(13:31):
A state rep filed a bill tohold a referendum on
independence.
Didn't really go anywhere.
Same thing in New Hampshire gotheavily defeated.
So there are a couple of otherstates where there's been some
political activity from actuallyelected officials on this.
So I guess those would be thethree states where I see there's
(13:55):
a little bit of a base therethat you could build on.
They seem to be ahead of theothers in terms of actually
having some elected officialswho want to pursue this.
Shawn (14:04):
There's another aspect to secession, or another potential
push for secession that is notabout leaving the union as much
as it's potentially redrawingthe state boundaries themselves
we mentioned earlier.
You know, on the east side ofall of the West Coast states
there's a conservative push tofor some reason Idaho always
comes up as being the state thatthey want to join.
(14:26):
But in that type of a scenario,I mean there's a part of me
that wonders if that would besomething short of outright
secession that we could visit asa way to kind of reduce some of
the tension that we'reexperiencing or the polarization
right now.
Although that then begs thequestion of does that mean that
every hundred years or so so, aspeople migrate and our politics
kind of shift in regions, weredraw state boundaries?
(14:48):
That seems a bit ridiculous.
But if that were a route thatwe were to pursue and states
were open to doing somethinglike that, would they be
following the same secessionplaybook as if they were
actually leaving the union, orwould this be handled
differently?
Dr. Sorens (15:01):
Differently.
There's an establishedconstitutional procedure for
this, so the legislatures of thestates involved would have to
consent and then Congress wouldhave to consent.
But there would be no legalcontroversy about how you do it,
and so that's why we've seenthose movements mushroom quite a
bit.
Some of them want to form a51st state.
(15:22):
You know there was the State ofJefferson movement in far
northern California and southernOregon at one time.
There was the Western New Yorkmovement at one time You've
mentioned the Greater Idahomovement.
That seems to be the one withthe greatest momentum right now.
You had a case in the aughts,back in the aughts, when the
(15:43):
town of Killington, vermont,actually voted to join New
Hampshire.
But the problem with all ofthose, the problem there is not
legal, it's more political.
For this to happen, to get itto happen, you'd have to get a
majority of the state you'retrying to secede from, and so
it's unclear how you get that.
(16:03):
If you could win a majority inthe state you're trying to
secede from, you wouldn't wantto secede from it because you
would have political power.
So I definitely see that asalso being very unlikely to
happen.
Shawn (16:16):
Yeah, it does seem like there's this odd political
relationship here wherein, inorder to get the concession to
leave, you might have alreadybuilt the coalition that might
require or, you know, might beworth staying.
So it's almost like it works inthe negative that the rest of
the country has to say we reallydon't want you to be part of us
anymore.
And I'm not sure how you buildthat type of a coalition for
(16:39):
ejection.
Dr. Sorens (16:40):
Yeah, I mean, if you were to look at what is maybe
the most realistic path forwardcould be for states to try to
opt out of federal policies orprograms, and again they would
need congressional consent tothat.
But there's precedent for thisin other federations, so in
(17:01):
Canada, for example.
Canada has reformed itsfederalism several times to
accommodate Quebec, especiallyalthough it's had independence
movements in the West as well,and it allows provinces, for
example, to have their ownsocial security policies, so
their own kind of public pensionretirement system.
(17:22):
They can also even handle theirown immigration policies.
To a certain extent Quebec hasimmigration control, so there is
precedent for this to happen.
It would need politicalpressure coming from the state
level and some responsiveness inCongress to think, maybe to
(17:42):
prevent a secessionist movement,or maybe just because we're
ideologically committed toshrinking the federal government
, we hand powers back to thestates.
They can do what they want withthem, and so you could end up
with single-payer health care inVermont right next to private
social security in New Hampshire, or something like that.
(18:03):
That's another potential pathforward, and we've already seen
something a little bit like thatwith state-level marijuana
legalization, simply because thefederal government is unable to
enforce federal law in statesthat don't want to cooperate
with it.
Shawn (18:19):
I'm glad you bring up Canada, because I did want to go
here eventually, so we might aswell go there now, which is
this is something that you'vewritten quite a bit about, but
there's a lot to be learned fromhow secessionist movements in
other regions and other placesin the world have succeeded, I
suppose, and or failed.
But I do wonder one if you'vegiven the thought to what are
some of the maneuvers andstrategies that have been
(18:41):
employed that have beensuccessful that might also be
successful here for secessionistmovements, regardless of
whether or not we agree withthem, and then also if there
might be something aboutAmerican history or American
culture that acts as some typeof a resistant to success in
ways that has benefited otherregions or other places
(19:06):
benefited other regions or otherplaces.
Dr. Sorens (19:07):
Yeah, we haven't seen an actual peaceful
secession or secession of anykind in a high-income democracy
like a Western democracy Since1918, when Iceland seceded from
Denmark sometimes people say1944.
It's actually 1918 when theygained independence, but they
became a republic in 1944.
And then before that you hadNorway seceding from Sweden in
(19:31):
1905.
So it has happened, but it'sextremely rare and you see
movements that gain majorities,like in Catalonia and Scotland
and Quebec, that are unable toactually push the ball across
the goal line.
And there are various reasonsfor this, but one is that voters
(19:52):
are very risk averse, or atleast a lot of them are.
Enough of them are to preventthis from happening, even in
cases where it seems like itwould be a win economically for
the citizens of the region.
Catalonia is the clearestexample.
Catalonia is wealthier than therest of Spain.
If they were independent itwould be like a big tax cut for
(20:15):
Catalans.
But because Spain was willing toarrest a bunch of people and
send a bunch of troops in toprevent independence from
happening, political leadershipsort of quailed and backed away
at the last minute and didn'treally try to use a general
strike or massive civildisobedience or anything like
(20:35):
that, to try to win independence.
So it was kind of a went outwith more of a whimper than a
bang In cases like Britain wherethe government has said, hey,
we will honor the results of areferendum.
If the people of Scotland wantto secede, we'll let them.
That itself, I think, maybe hasmade voters more comfortable
(20:57):
voting to stay, because theyrealize that their concerns are
heated, and maybe it's better tohave independence as a threat
than a reality, because then youcan get more stuff, get more
concessions from the centralgovernment, and so maybe that's
what ends up happening here inthe US too.
If you did see a strong statesecession movement, maybe
(21:19):
Congress would just appease themrather than actually allow them
to go.
Shawn (21:26):
This might sound like an odd question, but because it
does feel like, at end of day,what the question is asking us
to do is to put a price on thevalue of each of the states.
But I could imagine that thereare certain states that Congress
as much as a state might be athorn in the federal government
side let's say today, californiain the current administration
side.
(21:47):
There are also, on the flipside of that, a lot of resources
that California provides to theUnited States.
That would be lost, and so Iwonder if that creates some more
friction where, in other partsof the country I don't want to
name them because I don't reallyknow what they are it might be
easier for them if they wantedto secede.
It would be less of a burden onthe United States to say you
(22:07):
know, sure, go, do your thingright.
Dr. Sorens (22:10):
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, would the US like tolet Silicon Valley go?
All that agriculture that youhave in California, the
entertainment industry, right.
It would be kind of strange ifthese things were no longer part
of America.
Plus the fact that it's verygeographically large, it borders
Mexico, it's oriented towardAsia, there are some sort of
(22:35):
geopolitical reasons why youmight want to retain control
over it and, in general, statescare a lot about the
geopolitical situation ofterritory.
I mean, that's why PresidentTrump has talked about acquiring
Greenland, because it's justfavorably situated
geographically and could be asort of security and economic
(22:56):
benefit to the US.
And so, for those reasons,states are reluctant to let
territories go.
Sometimes, as in Spain, they'rewilling to fight.
Sometimes, as in Great Britainor Canada, they're willing to
concede and appease in order toprevent secession from happening
.
I think the safe bet is that theUS would try to act the same
(23:17):
way.
Now the question is whetherthey're going to be able to.
If you had a state as big asCalifornia or Texas, try to gain
independence.
Trying to appease them wouldcost a lot.
So there's also that questionwhat sort of policies could you
(23:38):
give them?
What sort of money could yougive them.
That would make them not wantto gain independence, make them
not want to gain independence,and I just don't think that in
the US there would be a lot ofappetite among the men and women
who make up the military tofire on Texans or Californians
if they really wanted to pursueindependence.
(24:01):
I think that is something thathas changed since the 1860s.
So I think this would be foughtout politically and then it
becomes a question of well, whatkind of deal could you broker
to keep the country together?
Shawn (24:15):
So you brought up Greenland.
Trump's interest in acquiringGreenland suggests that
Greenland, which is part ofDenmark, that some finagling
would have to happen there,right, and I think we
immediately jump to.
Are we talking about, like,taking Greenland, which is part
of Denmark?
That some finagling would haveto happen there?
Right, and I think weimmediately jump to.
Are we talking about, like,taking Greenland by force?
And then are we talking aboutgoing to war with our NATO
partners or Europe?
But I do wonder, have you whatis the process for Greenland,
(24:37):
were it to decide to leaveDenmark and then join the United
States, and is that consideredsecession?
And this is all regardless ofthe poll that apparently shows
about 95% of Greenlanders don'twant to become part of the
United States.
Dr. Sorens (24:50):
Yeah.
So Greenlanders right now don'twant to become part of the
United States, but there is amajority there for independence
right now.
The problem is that Greenlandgets a lot of subsidies from
Denmark, but the governmentthey've elected is committed to
pursuing independence graduallyand they have assumed many
(25:12):
competencies from Denmark, andDenmark's been willing to pursue
that path of appeasing them aswell as to allow independence if
they ultimately decide on itindependence if they ultimately
decide on it.
If Greenland were to becomeindependent, it's in a very
(25:37):
vulnerable position.
I think Trump maybe he'sgetting this from his advisors,
but I think he's onto somethingwhen he says that the US could
protect Greenland from Russiaand China taking advantage of
them, because I think that'sexactly the sort of thing that
could happen if Greenland becameindependent.
I mean, it's a country of about80,000 people, its GDP per
capita is pretty low, but it hasa lot of subsurface mineral
(26:00):
potential potential, so there'sthere's a great deal of
potential benefit there frombringing in international
investment, which would need tobe protected right.
So Greenland is probably notgoing to be able to do that all
on its own, and so there's athere's a question here if they,
if they play out the game tree.
(26:22):
It could be that Greenlandersdecide wait a second, maybe we
are better off just stayingwithin Denmark, perhaps in some
sort of arrangement typicallyknown as free association, where
Denmark has foreign policy andsecurity responsibility for
(26:45):
Greenland but everything else isa devolved competency and
Greenland is sovereign over itsown internal affairs.
The US has arrangements likethat with the Marshall Islands,
for example, and I believe theNorthern Mariana Islands as well
.
Technically it's a form ofindependence, but you have
conceded your externalsovereignty really that core
(27:09):
element of independent statehoodto a larger and more powerful
state no-transcript with theUnited States.
(27:47):
So I think, given thosealternatives, what Greenland
voters are likely to favor issome sort of remaining tie to
Denmark.
But we'll have to see.
Shawn (27:57):
When I mentioned to people you know, this concept of
secession, some states orregions from the United States,
and this doesn't really matter.
When I talk to folks that areperhaps more conservative versus
people that are liberal, theyall come down on the same thing
If they are open to the idea ofsecession the same potential
problems, which are how do we orhow does a state or a region
(28:18):
reformulate itself into acountry?
It's difficult for people tokind of wrap their brain around
all the considerations country.
It's difficult for people tokind of wrap their brain around
all the considerations.
So they see the idea of thelegal framework leaving with the
United States.
They see defense leaving withthe United States.
They see the economy leavingwith the United States, and so
I'm wondering how would a statego about rebuilding, or what is
some of the considerations thatneed to be taken into account
(28:41):
prior to an actual secession inorder to hit the ground running
for that to happen?
Dr. Sorens (28:52):
Yeah, one of the closest analogs in recent
history is probably the VelvetDivorce in Czechoslovakia, where
Czechia and Slovakia split wayspeacefully, and they did it by
dividing up state assets.
In that case you might say itwas a little bit easier because
the country is already goingthrough a massive economic
transition.
Things were already in flux.
You had two entities that hadto negotiate.
(29:16):
There wasn't a long drawn-outpolitical process, so I could
envision it being a little bitmore challenging in the US.
You'd have to as a state, you'dhave to gain a lot of
competencies that currently thefederal government controls.
So think about the regulatorystate, for example food and drug
inspection, securitiesregulation.
(29:38):
States already do some of that,but there's a lot that would
have to be taken over from thefederal government, and what you
could do is you could say youknow if this were negotiated,
hey, we're going to share datawith the federal government and
the federal government willshare data with us and we'll
make sure that you knoweverybody's social security
(30:00):
records get transferred over andso their benefits stay with
them, and we can try to makethat process as smooth as we can
.
But it's going to be somethingthat takes a year or two at
least to sort out.
These are big bureaucracies.
There's a lot of data involvedhere.
There are a lot of legalframeworks that have to be
(30:23):
arranged.
I mean, what do you do aboutmonetary policy?
In some ways, it's easier for asmall country because you can
defer to some of theinternational leaders on some of
these things.
So, for instance, with food anddrug regulation, you could say
something like we know we willadopt whatever the regulatory
(30:47):
recommendations are from.
A kind of gold standardregulator Could be the EU, could
be the US.
Actually, a lot of people havebeen pushing for the US to adopt
such a policy, for Congress toenact a law saying that if the
EU approves a drug, you knowthey're a gold standard
regulator.
We'll just deem it approved inthe US, and so as a state, you
can do things like that.
(31:08):
Generally, small countries don'twant a big diplomatic corps,
but you want some diplomaticcorps.
You want some military.
Presumably you could try totake control of your state
National Guard and use that asthe foundation for future
military force.
You could, instead of settingup your own central bank, simply
(31:32):
defer to the dollar right inthe way that many small
countries in Europe simply usethe euro.
So there are ways you could tryto do this on the cheap, but
once you start to think througheverything that would have to be
transferred from the federal tothe state level to prevent it
from becoming chaotic, it wouldhave to be a negotiated process
(31:53):
that would involve a lot ofgoodwill on both sides and take
place over a couple of years.
Shawn (31:58):
So there is another player here, and that's the
international community, and Idon't really have a handle on
this, but I know that there isinternational law and that there
are bodies international bodiessuch as the United Nations that
do play a role in establishingthe contours of conflict, and
they do leverage some both softand hard power there in
different ways.
And so I'm wondering how theinternational community and
(32:21):
which, I suppose, players in theinternational community might
have something to say aboutsecession in the United States,
or where and when they wouldhave something to say.
Dr. Sorens (32:31):
Yeah, so foreign powers are going to defer to the
US government and that is awell-established norm and I
think it's unlike a lot ofinternational norms that are
honored more in the breach thanthe observance.
There are good sort of powerpolitics reasons why states have
(32:52):
an incentive to defer to thatnorm.
Even when you consider a stateas weak and imploded as Somalia,
you've seen that foreigngovernments are very reluctant
to recognize Somaliland, whichhas been a functioning state,
relatively liberal, evendemocratic actually, and open to
(33:17):
trade and things like that, andit's been functioning for over
30 years now withoutinternational recognition.
I believe maybe Ethiopia hasrecognized it and so even in
that case a great power like theUnited States has deferred to
(33:38):
the government of Somalia andsaid that we're not going to
recognize Somaliland against thewill of Somalia, going to
recognize Somaliland against thewill of Somalia.
The major counterexample here isKosovo, where you saw the US
had a very strong interest inbreaking up a sort of client
(33:59):
state of Russia and so reallykind of put its thumb on the
scale in favor of Kosovoindependence.
And even though Serbia did notconsent to Kosovo's secession,
the US did recognize Kosovo, butnot every government did and a
(34:20):
number of other high-incomestates.
You know, medium to majorpowers did not, like Spain, for
example, thinking about theirown domestic politics, never
recognized Kosovo.
For example, thinking abouttheir own domestic politics,
never recognized Kosovo.
So in the case of the US, Ithink it's very, very likely
that other governments would notrecognize any unilateral
secession that is not approvedby Congress.
But if the US government takesthe lead and says, yeah, this is
(34:42):
okay, we allow this, here's theprocess.
Takes the lead and says, yeah,this is okay, we allow this,
here's the process and we'rerecognizing this new state, then
there's really no controversyand you might expect foreign
governments to also recognizethe new state and begin
diplomatic relations with it.
Shawn (34:58):
It seems entirely impossible or implausible that
secession for any state or anyregion from the United States is
going to happen anytime in thenear future, and I guess I don't
have the historical context toreally have a sense of whether
or not all of this excitementthat you know exists right now
in our contemporary times and inour politics, and it is under
(35:19):
both Republican and Democraticpresidents.
If that excitement forsecession is any greater than it
was, say, 50 years ago, or 100years ago or 150 years ago, I
don't really know, but it feelslike there's a lot more chatter,
but that secession itself isjust really unlikely.
What I do think, though, isthat there is a possibility or
potential that states somestates are going to be pursuing
(35:42):
more autonomy that is short ofsecession, and I don't know if
that's possible, but if so, Iwonder what that could look like
or might look like.
Dr. Sorens (35:51):
Yeah, I mean the polls that have been done on
this do seem to show an increasein support for states gaining
independence.
When it's tested, you know, doyou want your state to gain
independence or be anindependent state or secede from
the union?
The numbers in those polls doseem to show a kind of secular
(36:12):
increase, although, as you wouldexpect, when it's a Republican
president in power, it'sDemocrats who are more in favor
of secession, and when it's aDemocratic president in power,
it's Republicans who are more infavor of secession, and the
numbers are non-trivial byinternational standards.
So anywhere from 20 to 35percent of each state's
population in any given yearwants to secede, which is a lot
(36:37):
actually.
I mean the Scottish NationalParty, when it first had its
breakthrough in the 1970s, onlyabout 20 to 25 percent of Scots
wanted Scotland to becomeindependent and of course it,
you know, ended up gainingmajority power in Scotland and
holding a referendum on theissue.
So it's certainly conceivablethat you could end up with a
(37:01):
larger percentage of voterssupporting this in certain
states.
And so I guess what I want tosay is, even though it's very,
very unlikely that a state willgain independence or even try to
gain independence in the next,you know, 5 to 10, 15, 20 years.
There's a good possibility thatthis politics of independence
(37:24):
nevertheless shapes ourpolitical system and that all
this chatter about secession andseparatism and the country
breaking apart tends to have itsown momentum and tends to shape
how people think about things.
And again, I think states couldpush for autonomy in various
ways.
(37:48):
Push for autonomy in variousways.
You know, when Vermont actuallyenacted its bill to have
single-payer health care, theywere going to pursue a waiver
from the Department of Healthand Human Services, a waiver
from, essentially, obamacarerules and other federal health
insurance rules, so they couldhave this.
Erisa is another piece of thepuzzle here, and so you know
Congress has actually delegateda lot of authority to the
(38:09):
executive branch when it comesto some of these complex
regulatory and social welfareprograms.
So you could imagine that anexecutive branch would issue
pretty wide-ranging waivers onfederal policies to states that
want to do their own thing.
And you could imagine Congresseven carving out exemptions for
certain states by name if theirdelegations push for it and
(38:32):
demand it as the price to payfor their vote.
On some other issue negotiatedin the Senate, there was for
some time an amendment in there.
That would have exemptedNebraska from paying for
Medicaid and that was anautonomy for Nebraska.
(38:54):
It was just a direct payment toNebraska specifically to get
their senators to vote for thebill.
Questionable whether that wouldhave been legal, but there
doesn't seem to be any legalbarrier to just saying, hey, if
you want to have your ownpension program instead of
Social Security, you can do thatand we'll, you know, transfer
data and make that happen, justas has happened in Canada.
Shawn (39:16):
So you could start to see states push for that, if you
know, if this polarizationcontinues, where people just
find federal policiesintolerable and want the state
to opt out, so you'd mentionedthe political language of
secession becoming part of ourdiscourse and that that could in
(39:38):
turn lead to, you know, agrowing sense of acceptance of
potential secession for anygiven state or region.
But one of the things that Iworry about is we're already in
a heightened polarized stateright now that feels like we're
living in almost like a coldcivil war to some degree.
That not to be histrionic butfeels like there could be
(39:58):
pockets of violence that justkind of arise from that, and
there's a fear I have that tolean into secessionism as a
potential solution couldactually inflame that conflict.
There is another flashpointthat's being introduced here,
and so, while that might be inpursuit of let's call this like
a peaceful divorce or whatever,that it actually could lead to
(40:18):
conflict that otherwise might beavoided.
And so I'm wondering if thereare things that secession
movements can or should be doing, because I do believe that
people do have the right to atleast explore self-determination
right for themselves, but thatthey can or should be doing
responsibly to ensure that itdoesn't explode.
Dr. Sorens (40:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, when politicalscientists study polarization,
particularly affectivepolarization, which is, you know
, disliking the other side, theyfind that that's driven by a
small minority of voters who aredisproportionately loud on
(40:56):
social media, for example, andthat that in turn derives kind
of disaffection from people onthe other side who think that
those people are representativeof the other side, right?
So, you see, if you're aliberal and you see
conservatives behaving badlyonline, you think, well, that's
what conservatives are like, Iguess, and vice versa for
(41:18):
conservatives seeing liberalsdoing that.
So, yes, we are seeing thispolarization in a sense feed on
itself to some extent, and it'sdifficult to see how you turn
that around, and it's possiblethat some of this language on
secession could feed that.
(41:40):
On the other hand, for amovement to gain popular support
, they can't just rely on thisslogan of independence and let's
separate.
Rely on this slogan ofindependence and let's separate.
That's what we seeinternationally is that these
(42:05):
parties, these movements, onlygain political power once they
have an attractive politicalprogram that they can take to
voters on their doorstep and saythis is how we're going to make
your lives better.
And so there is a possibilitythat by focusing and my premise
would be that they focus onself-government or autonomy or
formulations like that, ratherthan secession and independence,
just because I don't think it'svery feasible that these states
(42:26):
are going to want their ownmilitary forces and things like
that.
You know, if they focus onautonomy and self-government and
gaining control over certainpolicies and having them devolve
from the federal level, they'regoing to have to think through
the policy consequences.
They're going to have to thinkthrough implementation.
And that's when you start totake a step back from this pure
(42:48):
politics of emotion and start tothink through what would this
actually look like?
How would this make citizens'lives better?
And there is a hope that maybewhat it does is give us more
creative solutions.
You know there's a lot ofdisaffection and talk about
(43:09):
entitlement reform and maybe wecan't get that done at the
federal level, but maybe letstates do it in their own way.
And that is something that youknow hopefully will get us
thinking a little bit more aboutwell, how can we together make
our lives better?
Shawn (43:22):
A lot of secession movements are rooted in some
type of an ethnic conflict, andI've been talking a lot about
polarization and partisanship inthe United States and to some
some degree, conflating thatright or assuming that
partisanship is the driver ofthe secession movements.
But assuming that that is true,is it fair to characterize
(43:44):
what's happening in the UnitedStates, or could we reasonably
conflate the two and say thatpartisanship in the United
States has essentially risen tothe point that it is akin to
something like ethnicregionalism or factionalism?
Dr. Sorens (43:57):
There are some similarities.
It does seem that for manypeople, their party identity, or
perhaps their ideologicalidentity, has become a kind of
tribal affiliation that comesfirst, and they derive pleasure
from owning the other side rightand seeing the other side
(44:19):
defeated.
And you know, george Orwell waswriting about that in 1984,
many decades ago, about howtotalitarian regimes leverage
that kind of feeling.
You know the savor of victory,you know, and seeing your
enemies put to flight.
There's something atavisticabout that that appeals to
people.
(44:41):
The big difference, of course,with a typical ethno-regional
secessionist movement is thatyou have Republicans and
Democrats everywhere.
There are lots of Republicans,millions of Republicans, in New
York City and there are, youknow, millions of Democrats in
in red America as well.
So you know places like Texas,for example.
(45:03):
So you know you're living sideby side with the, with the
people that you think of as the,as the adversary, and so it
really makes things likesecession less feasible, because
you again don't have that kindof regional base that you can
say, well, this is our homeland.
(45:24):
You know what is the Republicanhomeland in America?
Well, there really isn't one.
Or the Democratic homeland yeah, there are states that are
deeper red or deeper blue.
But even in those states youhave pockets that go the other
way.
So I think it's a fruitful modeof analysis to say, okay, this
(45:45):
is what activates people inethnic conflicts around the
world.
What does that imply aboutpartisanship and polarization
here in America and you can getfruitful insights from that, for
instance, the politics ofsymbolism mattering a great deal
.
But it also, if you thinkthat's the mode of analysis that
explains the US it also impliesthat secessionism is unlikely
(46:07):
to bea big part of that kind oftranspartisan conflict.
Shawn (46:11):
So you actually kind of brought us full circle.
You started the conversationearly on by saying that you know
the likelihood of any serioussecession movement in the United
States occurring in the nextfive to 10 years is very small.
So, considering that and thenthe context of our conversation,
the realities of thepolarization that I keep coming
back to, and then, I suppose,through the lens of the work
(46:33):
that you do and your expertiseto, and then, I suppose, through
the lens of the work that youdo, and your expertise.
Dr. Sorens (46:38):
Are there any alarm bells going off for you?
Yeah, I mean the alarm bellsare going off because of the way
I think partisan polarization,ideological polarization, have
influenced people's ability tokind of think rationally through
policy matters and theirability to reason about evidence
, and so you get a lot ofdiscounting of any kind of
(47:04):
objective or expert findings orknowledge because the fact that
you know you see them as theideological or partisan other In
some cases, obviously theexperts have the so-called
experts have undermined theirown expertise and you can point
(47:26):
to how politics has invaded lotsof kind of highbrow spaces,
like the journal Nature, forexample, making presidential
endorsements and writingeditorials that are sharply
partisan and ideological, andthat undermines their expertise.
And so in a lot of ways theso-called experts deserve the
skepticism that they're nowgetting.
(47:47):
But I do see a kind of nihilismemerging out of that, this
polarization on both sides,where we operate with our own
versions of truth and maybe itdoesn't even matter what the
truth is.
The truth is whatever owns theother side in a given moment.
It's hard not to think that thisundermines good policy in the
(48:08):
long run, that it's going to beharder and harder to find people
who are actually dispassionate.
It's going to be harder andharder to find people who are
actually dispassionate, whoactually think through how
things work and want to figurethem out and make policies work.
So that's the thing that Ithink is the big problem right
now.
I think the talk of secessionis not so much adding to that
(48:29):
problem as it is reflecting thatproblem of reflecting that
problem.
And if we can somehow solvethis problem of polarization and
mistrust, then I think theissue of secession either goes
away or, to the extent that itsurvives, becomes something
that's a bit more rational andmaybe rooted in things like
(48:52):
actual substantive policy issuesand the kind of collective
interest of the people living indifferent states.
Shawn (49:01):
All right, final question you ready for it?
Dr. Sorens (49:03):
Yeah.
Shawn (49:04):
What's something interesting you've been reading,
watching, listening to or doinglately and it can be related to
this topic, but it doesn't haveto be.
Dr. Sorens (49:13):
Yeah, let's see.
I think one interesting thingI've read recently, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna go with a novel,actually because, uh, I I do
like to read fiction, um, and Iespecially like to read things
that are out of copyrightbecause it's very cheap, you
know, put it on my kindle.
As I read a lot of classicliterature and something that
(49:34):
very pleasantly surprised me wasthe Good Soldier by Ford Maddox
.
Ford, which an author I'd neverreally read before, didn't seem
to be, from my perspective,part of the canon or whatever.
It was highly innovative, witha kind of flawed narrator, but
(50:00):
that, precisely because it usesa flawed narrator, there's
actually a lot of insight intointerpersonal relationships, and
I'm I don't want to give toomany spoilers, but I would just
say that it was a fun read that,I think, also spoke to
something about human experience.
Shawn (50:19):
Ford, Maddox Ford.
I've not even heard of theauthor, but I think that's a
cool name.
Dr. Sorens (50:23):
Yeah, I think it's a sort of a pen name.
But yeah, he's sort of one ofthese British authors coming out
of this Edwardian period like,oh, you know, the guy who did
Room with a View and Howard'sEnd.
I'm blanking on his name rightnow but you know, this early
20th century's turn towardmodernism it's much easier to
(50:46):
read, I think, than James Joyce.
But there's also this kind ofreally fun playing with language
and perspective.
Maybe Virginia Woolf would bethe closest analog to the four.
Shawn (50:59):
Are you drawn to books from a certain period, or is
this just something you haven'tdone?
I mean, you did mention thatyou like to read stuff that's on
copyright, so that kind ofgives it away.
Dr. Sorens (51:09):
Well, that's true, but I also do like the
literature of that period.
I mean, I do think that I readsome contemporary novels, but I
also do like the literature ofthat period.
I mean, I do think that I readsome contemporary novels.
I think there was a time inkind of new society forming
(51:43):
through globalization andcapitalism and industrialization
, and we've come through thatnow and there are a lot of
people, there's a middle classor people have wealth, people
have free time, and itdefinitely speaks a little bit
more to today than the earlierVictorian literature or, like
you know, jane Austen orwhatever I think, which I, you
(52:04):
know, I also like.
But I think it speaks a littlebit more to today.
The character is a little moreidentifiable.
Yet also there's this there'sstill this sense of kind of a
little bit of literary realism.
There's still this sense ofkind of a little bit of literary
realism.
You know, we're not totallyself-referential.
We haven't passed thatpost-modernist moment where we
still really are trying toexplore something about the
(52:25):
world.
Shawn (52:26):
I get a lot of book recommendations from people and
sometimes I race through themand sometimes I have to write to
people and say like I could notget through this book.
So I'll check it out, I'll letyou know.
Dr. Sorens (52:37):
Sure, I'd be interested to hear what you
think.
Shawn (52:39):
Dr Sorens, thanks for taking the time, and maybe in 10
, 15 years we can meet in one ofour new countries and have a
drink.
Dr. Sorens (52:46):
That would be fun.
Thanks for having me on.
Shawn (52:55):
It's clear that this issue secession remains as
contentious and complex as ever,and especially at this moment
when we in the United States aremaybe as polarized as we were
in the lead-up to the Civil War.
The deep political divisions wediscussed in this episode have
led some Americans to seriouslyconsider the once unthinkable
(53:15):
prospect of dissolving the Union.
While the legal precedent setby Texas v White declares
unilateral secessionunconstitutional, the debate
persists to this day, maybe evenmore so now than at any time
since the Civil War, fueled bygrowing cultural and ideological
rifts.
And precedents can bechallenged.
(53:35):
They can be overturned.
Ultimately, the question ofwhether to preserve the union or
pursue a national divorcereflects the ongoing struggle to
balance unity withself-determination in our
complex but weakened politicallandscape.
So, looking to the future, wereally have two options Find
(53:57):
ways to bridge our divideswithin the existing framework,
or accept that the differenceshave truly become irreconcilable
and find a way to break up.
I think I might be ready forthe latter.
It's becoming ever more clearthat blue states cannot live
under Republican policies andred states won't live under
Democratic policies.
We do not just disagree on somepolicies.
(54:19):
We are culturally, socially,fundamentally different people,
and if every election is trulyan existential battle between
two diametrically opposedpeoples and futures.
That is a recipe for nothinggood.
It feels like we're barrelingtoward, at minimum a cold civil
war, but quite possibly a hotcivil war.
(54:40):
Why go through that disaster?
Why forfeit lives?
Why scorch the earth?
Because we don't like eachother?
I don't want to be forced tolive in your world and you don't
want to be forced to live inmine.
So let's just break up.
No drama, all right.
Check back next week foranother episode of Deep Dive
(55:01):
Chat.
Soon, folks.
(56:31):
Thank you, thank you.
if you had a state as big as California or Texas,
try to gain independence.
Trying to appease them wouldcost a lot.
So there's also that questionwhat sort of policies could you
give them, what sort of moneycould you give them that would
(00:20):
make them not want to gainindependence?
And I just don't think that inthe US there would be a lot of
appetite among the you know, menand women who make up the
military to fire on Texans orCalifornians if they really
wanted to pursue independence.
(00:40):
I think that is something thathas changed since the 1860s.
So I think this would be foughtout politically.
And then it becomes a questionof well, what kind of deal could
you broker to keep the countrytogether?
Shawn (01:01):
Welcome to Deep Dive with me, s C Fettig.
Since Donald Trump'sre-election in 2024, there has
been renewed talk of secessionfrom some blue states, echoing
historical patterns of politicaldiscontent in America.
In fact, just recently,california approved an
initiative allowing for acollection of signatures in
(01:22):
support of secession.
That would then trigger astate-led committee to
investigate the possibility.
This isn't a new phenomenon.
From the Hartford Convention in1814 to the Civil War and even
recent movements like the Stateof Superior in Michigan's Upper
Peninsula and Cascadia on theWest Coast, secession has been a
(01:44):
recurring theme in US history.
Legally, the Supreme Courtruled in Texas v White in 1869
that unilateral secession isunconstitutional, stating that
the union is indissoluble andcan only be dissolved through
revolution or consent of thestates.
Despite this, secessionistsentiments persist, driven by
(02:04):
increasing politicalpolarization.
And who knows, I mean thecourt's been overturning a lot
of its own establishedprecedents lately.
In today's episode, we're joinedby Dr Jason Sorens, a senior
research fellow at AmericanInstitute for Economic Research,
author of the book Secessionismand founder of the Free State
Project.
We discuss the evolution ofsecession movements, their legal
(02:27):
standing and the complexquestion of whether peaceful
separation might be a solutionto our deeply divided electorate
.
We also talk about historicalprecedents, current trends and
the potential consequences ofsuch a drastic step.
All right, if you like thisepisode or any episode, please
give it a like, share and followon your favorite podcast
(02:48):
platform and or subscribe to thepodcast on YouTube.
And, as always, if you have anythoughts, questions or comments
, please feel free to email meat deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom
.
Let's do a deep dive, dr Sorens.
(03:08):
Thanks for being here.
How are you?
Dr. Sorens (03:10):
I'm doing well.
How are you?
Shawn (03:12):
I'm doing well as well.
Thanks for taking the time tohave this conversation.
I think it's strikinglyrelevant in this moment.
Although it tends to be kind ofebbs and flows, I think it's
common to hear after everyelection some type of grumbling
about secession.
Red states don't want to liveunder blue administrations and
vice versa.
So of course, after theelection of Trump, we're hearing
much of that rhetoric comingout of blue states, particularly
(03:34):
California these days.
And I've always been fascinatedwith the idea of secession,
because I do ascribe to theconcept of self-determination
and there are some circumstanceswhich it truly could be freeing
for some people or groups tofree themselves from oppression
or repression, but at the sametime, nations can't be subject
to dismantling over politicalwinds of the moment.
But I will say that it reallydoes feel like we and by we I
(03:57):
mean those of us in the UnitedStates are at least two
different people these days, areat least two different people
these days you know, if weoversimplify it to progressives
and conservatives and that it'spossible that we may be close to
or have already passed aRubicon, you know that we can't
live with each other.
It does seem like in at leastin our political rhetoric.
We kind of despise each other,we loathe each other's policies,
(04:18):
each other's beliefs, eachother's culture, etc.
And so I think I might be in ona peaceful separation that
avoids some type of drawn outconflict or outright civil war.
But that's easier said than done.
So you study this, you writeabout it.
So that's why you're here tomake me understand and maybe
talk me off of, off of thisledge that I'm on.
But let's just start right here, because I think this might be
(04:41):
the end of the ballgame and thenthe rest of the conversation
will just be an exercise inwish-casting on the part of some
people.
Is secession in the UnitedStates actually legal?
Dr. Sorens (04:52):
Yeah, it's actually a controversial question.
The constitutional law that welive under right now says that
unilateral secession is notlegal, so that was decided under
the 1869 Supreme Court case,texas v White, and it basically
said that if a state wants tosecede, it needs the consent of
(05:13):
the other states, and it wasunclear about what that would
mean, but implied thatcongressional consent might be
sufficient.
And so then that means that ifa state wanted to secede,
presumably you would have topass something through the state
legislature, and some statesmaybe even enact its own state
(05:33):
constitutional amendment andthen get the consent of Congress
, maybe pass a bill throughCongress, which would be more or
less the way that the US hasacquired territory in the past
and relinquished territory.
You have to remember that theUnited States has been seceded
from the Philippines, gainedindependence from the US after a
long insurgency and politicalcampaign, so it's definitely
(05:57):
something that could happen, butyou can't just do it on your
own according to existing caselaw and, as I've said, there's a
debate about that, though.
Shawn (06:07):
So then let's put this squarely in the moment that
we're in.
So, given the contours of ourpolitics right now and I guess I
just feel like the likelihoodof Congress being willing to
just let a chunk of the UnitedStates go specific to or related
to our politics or because ofour politics, feels like a
non-starter to me, but in thismoment, right so, if we consider
(06:28):
our politics, the makeup ofCongress and the election of
Donald Trump, and then thisincreased chatter right now
that's kind of coming from theWest Coast.
It's primarily California whichjust passed an initiative that
allows for the collection ofsignatures which, if they gain
enough, would then lead to likea state-run committee or
commission that wouldinvestigate the possibility of
leaving the union, and then, ofcourse, washington state and
(06:50):
Oregon are always kind ofclamoring to be part of that
breakup.
So, if we consider that kind ofequation and you know the
history of what we understand,as you just kind of outlined, as
it relates to the legalmechanisms by which any region
could leave the union, when youlook at this, what do you make
of it and how much weight do yougive it?
Dr. Sorens (07:10):
Yeah, I mean, I've frequently heard conservatives
say that they would prefer thatCalifornia seceded.
So you could imaginepotentially, if things get
really bad, that a Republicanmajority in Congress might allow
that to happen if Californiasought it.
But you know, there reallyisn't any precedent
internationally or historicallyfor a country that is formed on
(07:35):
purely ideological differences.
Typically, there has to be somecultural background, some sense
of nationhood, and you reallydon't have much of that in the
United States.
I could imagine maybe Hawaiihaving some of that, maybe even
Alaska, but even a state likeTexas, where there's a lot of
(07:56):
Texas pride, people don't reallythink of themselves as a
separate nation, and so there'sa big barrier to overcome there.
And so there's a big barrier toovercome there.
Yes, the evidence does suggestthat ideological differences can
help promote a secessionistmovement where one exists, and
so we see that in cases likeScotland, where the independence
(08:16):
movement there points topolicies coming out of
Westminster that they don't likeand they use that to gain
support for independence.
Nevertheless, there's noprecedent really for ideological
differences alone driving this,and so you'd really have to
have some kind of nationbuilding at the state level and
probably also some collapse offunctioning at the federal level
(08:42):
in DC.
And again, these things aren'timpossible to imagine, but
they're also not things that arelikely to happen over, say, the
next five years.
Shawn (08:52):
When we think about the most famous example of secession
in the United States, obviouslywe're talking about the Civil
War right, and at that time Ithink it was easier to
conceptualize how the UnitedStates would break up, because
we had a clear north-south kindof divide in the country, and so
Southerners really did identifyas Southerners, probably more
so than Northerners identifiedas Northerners, but there was a
(09:14):
regional divide, and I don'tknow that I see that happening
in the United States in the sameway.
I think we still have anorth-south, I think we have a
far west and we have a northeast, but I don't think that those
are easily delineated regions ofideology and culture that maybe
existed during the Civil WarRight.
And so when I think aboutplaces like California, when we
think about secession, we alwaysthink about these as state
(09:37):
initiatives.
So a state leaving or a groupof states in a region leaving.
But California has a veryconservative east side Right,
and Oregon has a veryconservative east side right,
and Oregon has a veryconservative east side, so does
Washington, and every state hastheir blue zone.
So it doesn't seem to me thatsecession along regional lines
makes a lot of sense in the sameway that it maybe did in the
1850s and 1860s, so I'm not evensure what an example would be
(10:02):
to point to of how secession inan environment like that would
work.
Do you have thoughts?
Dr. Sorens (10:08):
Yeah, I mean I live in New Hampshire, which is
incredibly different from therest of New England, and there'd
be a lot of people in NewHampshire would be very upset if
we were forced to go along withthe rest of New England in some
new country.
Yeah, I mean I'll just referagain to the need for nation
building here to happen before aserious secession movement.
(10:29):
Traveler in South Carolina inthe 1830s, so long before the
Civil War, talking to some youngmen in Charleston and asking
them about how they felt aboutsomething as Americans, and they
(10:51):
said, well, we're not Americans, we're South Carolinians.
And I wonder how manyCalifornians today would say,
well, I'm a Californian and notan American.
Probably vanishingly few.
So it would be that kind ofidentity that you would need to
see happen before you get anindependence movement.
But yeah, it's definitely goingto be more state by state.
(11:14):
If it were to happen, it wouldhave to be state by state.
There's no real mechanism foran entire region to withdraw.
(11:42):
I mean, eventually you did seethat in the Confederacy where
you had, south Carolina was thefirst one to secede and then
other states nearby joined in.
That would divide the countryso starkly that these states
would see no alternative but tobreak away, sees itself as being
(12:02):
very culturally distinctive andhaving some serious political
differences with DC andpotentially also just a
breakdown of order andfunctioning in DC, and they
think that they could get awaywith this even just on their own
withdrawing, and so it wouldhave to be a set of multiple
circumstances to allow this tohappen, and again, it's kind of
(12:25):
hard to imagine that happeningin the near future, no matter
how polarized we get.
Shawn (12:29):
So if you had to point at I mean to me I feel like we've
kind of set this up already butif you had to point at a state
that was at least somewhat inthe realm of making that happen
or meeting some of theserequirements that you've
outlined, which one or ones doyou think would that be?
Dr. Sorens (12:47):
Yeah, I mean the evidence from elections so far
in the United States is that itwould be.
If we're talking just aboutstates, alaska is the one that
actually has elected a governoron a platform of independence
before elected a governor on aplatform of independence before.
(13:08):
Now the governor said he wasn'tgoing to pursue it during the
campaign and that's partly howhe got elected.
But he got elected as acandidate on the secessionist
party.
So that's the one case, the onestate where we have some
evidence that there's this kindof support that actually
materializes in the politicalsystem.
There was an attempt in Texas acouple of years ago.
(13:31):
A state rep filed a bill tohold a referendum on
independence.
Didn't really go anywhere.
Same thing in New Hampshire gotheavily defeated.
So there are a couple of otherstates where there's been some
political activity from actuallyelected officials on this.
So I guess those would be thethree states where I see there's
(13:55):
a little bit of a base therethat you could build on.
They seem to be ahead of theothers in terms of actually
having some elected officialswho want to pursue this.
Shawn (14:04):
There's another aspect to secession, or another potential
push for secession that is notabout leaving the union as much
as it's potentially redrawingthe state boundaries themselves
we mentioned earlier.
You know, on the east side ofall of the West Coast states
there's a conservative push tofor some reason Idaho always
comes up as being the state thatthey want to join.
(14:26):
But in that type of a scenario,I mean there's a part of me
that wonders if that would besomething short of outright
secession that we could visit asa way to kind of reduce some of
the tension that we'reexperiencing or the polarization
right now.
Although that then begs thequestion of does that mean that
every hundred years or so so, aspeople migrate and our politics
kind of shift in regions, weredraw state boundaries?
(14:48):
That seems a bit ridiculous.
But if that were a route thatwe were to pursue and states
were open to doing somethinglike that, would they be
following the same secessionplaybook as if they were
actually leaving the union, orwould this be handled
differently?
Dr. Sorens (15:01):
Differently.
There's an establishedconstitutional procedure for
this, so the legislatures of thestates involved would have to
consent and then Congress wouldhave to consent.
But there would be no legalcontroversy about how you do it,
and so that's why we've seenthose movements mushroom quite a
bit.
Some of them want to form a51st state.
(15:22):
You know there was the State ofJefferson movement in far
northern California and southernOregon at one time.
There was the Western New Yorkmovement at one time You've
mentioned the Greater Idahomovement.
That seems to be the one withthe greatest momentum right now.
You had a case in the aughts,back in the aughts, when the
(15:43):
town of Killington, vermont,actually voted to join New
Hampshire.
But the problem with all ofthose, the problem there is not
legal, it's more political.
For this to happen, to get itto happen, you'd have to get a
majority of the state you'retrying to secede from, and so
it's unclear how you get that.
(16:03):
If you could win a majority inthe state you're trying to
secede from, you wouldn't wantto secede from it because you
would have political power.
So I definitely see that asalso being very unlikely to
happen.
Shawn (16:16):
Yeah, it does seem like there's this odd political
relationship here wherein, inorder to get the concession to
leave, you might have alreadybuilt the coalition that might
require or, you know, might beworth staying.
So it's almost like it works inthe negative that the rest of
the country has to say we reallydon't want you to be part of us
anymore.
And I'm not sure how you buildthat type of a coalition for
(16:39):
ejection.
Dr. Sorens (16:40):
Yeah, I mean, if you were to look at what is maybe
the most realistic path forwardcould be for states to try to
opt out of federal policies orprograms, and again they would
need congressional consent tothat.
But there's precedent for thisin other federations, so in
(17:01):
Canada, for example.
Canada has reformed itsfederalism several times to
accommodate Quebec, especiallyalthough it's had independence
movements in the West as well,and it allows provinces, for
example, to have their ownsocial security policies, so
their own kind of public pensionretirement system.
(17:22):
They can also even handle theirown immigration policies.
To a certain extent Quebec hasimmigration control, so there is
precedent for this to happen.
It would need politicalpressure coming from the state
level and some responsiveness inCongress to think, maybe to
(17:42):
prevent a secessionist movement,or maybe just because we're
ideologically committed toshrinking the federal government
, we hand powers back to thestates.
They can do what they want withthem, and so you could end up
with single-payer health care inVermont right next to private
social security in New Hampshire, or something like that.
(18:03):
That's another potential pathforward, and we've already seen
something a little bit like thatwith state-level marijuana
legalization, simply because thefederal government is unable to
enforce federal law in statesthat don't want to cooperate
with it.
Shawn (18:19):
I'm glad you bring up Canada, because I did want to go
here eventually, so we might aswell go there now, which is
this is something that you'vewritten quite a bit about, but
there's a lot to be learned fromhow secessionist movements in
other regions and other placesin the world have succeeded, I
suppose, and or failed.
But I do wonder one if you'vegiven the thought to what are
some of the maneuvers andstrategies that have been
(18:41):
employed that have beensuccessful that might also be
successful here for secessionistmovements, regardless of
whether or not we agree withthem, and then also if there
might be something aboutAmerican history or American
culture that acts as some typeof a resistant to success in
ways that has benefited otherregions or other places
(19:06):
benefited other regions or otherplaces.
Dr. Sorens (19:07):
Yeah, we haven't seen an actual peaceful
secession or secession of anykind in a high-income democracy
like a Western democracy Since1918, when Iceland seceded from
Denmark sometimes people say1944.
It's actually 1918 when theygained independence, but they
became a republic in 1944.
And then before that you hadNorway seceding from Sweden in
(19:31):
1905.
So it has happened, but it'sextremely rare and you see
movements that gain majorities,like in Catalonia and Scotland
and Quebec, that are unable toactually push the ball across
the goal line.
And there are various reasonsfor this, but one is that voters
(19:52):
are very risk averse, or atleast a lot of them are.
Enough of them are to preventthis from happening, even in
cases where it seems like itwould be a win economically for
the citizens of the region.
Catalonia is the clearestexample.
Catalonia is wealthier than therest of Spain.
If they were independent itwould be like a big tax cut for
(20:15):
Catalans.
But because Spain was willing toarrest a bunch of people and
send a bunch of troops in toprevent independence from
happening, political leadershipsort of quailed and backed away
at the last minute and didn'treally try to use a general
strike or massive civildisobedience or anything like
(20:35):
that, to try to win independence.
So it was kind of a went outwith more of a whimper than a
bang In cases like Britain wherethe government has said, hey,
we will honor the results of areferendum.
If the people of Scotland wantto secede, we'll let them.
That itself, I think, maybe hasmade voters more comfortable
(20:57):
voting to stay, because theyrealize that their concerns are
heated, and maybe it's better tohave independence as a threat
than a reality, because then youcan get more stuff, get more
concessions from the centralgovernment, and so maybe that's
what ends up happening here inthe US too.
If you did see a strong statesecession movement, maybe
(21:19):
Congress would just appease themrather than actually allow them
to go.
Shawn (21:26):
This might sound like an odd question, but because it
does feel like, at end of day,what the question is asking us
to do is to put a price on thevalue of each of the states.
But I could imagine that thereare certain states that Congress
as much as a state might be athorn in the federal government
side let's say today, californiain the current administration
side.
(21:47):
There are also, on the flipside of that, a lot of resources
that California provides to theUnited States.
That would be lost, and so Iwonder if that creates some more
friction where, in other partsof the country I don't want to
name them because I don't reallyknow what they are it might be
easier for them if they wantedto secede.
It would be less of a burden onthe United States to say you
(22:07):
know, sure, go, do your thingright.
Dr. Sorens (22:10):
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, would the US like tolet Silicon Valley go?
All that agriculture that youhave in California, the
entertainment industry, right.
It would be kind of strange ifthese things were no longer part
of America.
Plus the fact that it's verygeographically large, it borders
Mexico, it's oriented towardAsia, there are some sort of
(22:35):
geopolitical reasons why youmight want to retain control
over it and, in general, statescare a lot about the
geopolitical situation ofterritory.
I mean, that's why PresidentTrump has talked about acquiring
Greenland, because it's justfavorably situated
geographically and could be asort of security and economic
(22:56):
benefit to the US.
And so, for those reasons,states are reluctant to let
territories go.
Sometimes, as in Spain, they'rewilling to fight.
Sometimes, as in Great Britainor Canada, they're willing to
concede and appease in order toprevent secession from happening
.
I think the safe bet is that theUS would try to act the same
(23:17):
way.
Now the question is whetherthey're going to be able to.
If you had a state as big asCalifornia or Texas, try to gain
independence.
Trying to appease them wouldcost a lot.
So there's also that questionwhat sort of policies could you
(23:38):
give them?
What sort of money could yougive them.
That would make them not wantto gain independence, make them
not want to gain independence,and I just don't think that in
the US there would be a lot ofappetite among the men and women
who make up the military tofire on Texans or Californians
if they really wanted to pursueindependence.
(24:01):
I think that is something thathas changed since the 1860s.
So I think this would be foughtout politically and then it
becomes a question of well, whatkind of deal could you broker
to keep the country together?
Shawn (24:15):
So you brought up Greenland.
Trump's interest in acquiringGreenland suggests that
Greenland, which is part ofDenmark, that some finagling
would have to happen there,right, and I think we
immediately jump to.
Are we talking about, like,taking Greenland, which is part
of Denmark?
That some finagling would haveto happen there?
Right, and I think weimmediately jump to.
Are we talking about, like,taking Greenland by force?
And then are we talking aboutgoing to war with our NATO
partners or Europe?
But I do wonder, have you whatis the process for Greenland,
(24:37):
were it to decide to leaveDenmark and then join the United
States, and is that consideredsecession?
And this is all regardless ofthe poll that apparently shows
about 95% of Greenlanders don'twant to become part of the
United States.
Dr. Sorens (24:50):
Yeah.
So Greenlanders right now don'twant to become part of the
United States, but there is amajority there for independence
right now.
The problem is that Greenlandgets a lot of subsidies from
Denmark, but the governmentthey've elected is committed to
pursuing independence graduallyand they have assumed many
(25:12):
competencies from Denmark, andDenmark's been willing to pursue
that path of appeasing them aswell as to allow independence if
they ultimately decide on itindependence if they ultimately
decide on it.
If Greenland were to becomeindependent, it's in a very
(25:37):
vulnerable position.
I think Trump maybe he'sgetting this from his advisors,
but I think he's onto somethingwhen he says that the US could
protect Greenland from Russiaand China taking advantage of
them, because I think that'sexactly the sort of thing that
could happen if Greenland becameindependent.
I mean, it's a country of about80,000 people, its GDP per
capita is pretty low, but it hasa lot of subsurface mineral
(26:00):
potential potential, so there'sthere's a great deal of
potential benefit there frombringing in international
investment, which would need tobe protected right.
So Greenland is probably notgoing to be able to do that all
on its own, and so there's athere's a question here if they,
if they play out the game tree.
(26:22):
It could be that Greenlandersdecide wait a second, maybe we
are better off just stayingwithin Denmark, perhaps in some
sort of arrangement typicallyknown as free association, where
Denmark has foreign policy andsecurity responsibility for
(26:45):
Greenland but everything else isa devolved competency and
Greenland is sovereign over itsown internal affairs.
The US has arrangements likethat with the Marshall Islands,
for example, and I believe theNorthern Mariana Islands as well
.
Technically it's a form ofindependence, but you have
conceded your externalsovereignty really that core
(27:09):
element of independent statehoodto a larger and more powerful
state no-transcript with theUnited States.
(27:47):
So I think, given thosealternatives, what Greenland
voters are likely to favor issome sort of remaining tie to
Denmark.
But we'll have to see.
Shawn (27:57):
When I mentioned to people you know, this concept of
secession, some states orregions from the United States,
and this doesn't really matter.
When I talk to folks that areperhaps more conservative versus
people that are liberal, theyall come down on the same thing
If they are open to the idea ofsecession the same potential
problems, which are how do we orhow does a state or a region
(28:18):
reformulate itself into acountry?
It's difficult for people tokind of wrap their brain around
all the considerations country.
It's difficult for people tokind of wrap their brain around
all the considerations.
So they see the idea of thelegal framework leaving with the
United States.
They see defense leaving withthe United States.
They see the economy leavingwith the United States, and so
I'm wondering how would a statego about rebuilding, or what is
some of the considerations thatneed to be taken into account
(28:41):
prior to an actual secession inorder to hit the ground running
for that to happen?
Dr. Sorens (28:52):
Yeah, one of the closest analogs in recent
history is probably the VelvetDivorce in Czechoslovakia, where
Czechia and Slovakia split wayspeacefully, and they did it by
dividing up state assets.
In that case you might say itwas a little bit easier because
the country is already goingthrough a massive economic
transition.
Things were already in flux.
You had two entities that hadto negotiate.
(29:16):
There wasn't a long drawn-outpolitical process, so I could
envision it being a little bitmore challenging in the US.
You'd have to as a state, you'dhave to gain a lot of
competencies that currently thefederal government controls.
So think about the regulatorystate, for example food and drug
inspection, securitiesregulation.
(29:38):
States already do some of that,but there's a lot that would
have to be taken over from thefederal government, and what you
could do is you could say youknow if this were negotiated,
hey, we're going to share datawith the federal government and
the federal government willshare data with us and we'll
make sure that you knoweverybody's social security
(30:00):
records get transferred over andso their benefits stay with
them, and we can try to makethat process as smooth as we can
.
But it's going to be somethingthat takes a year or two at
least to sort out.
These are big bureaucracies.
There's a lot of data involvedhere.
There are a lot of legalframeworks that have to be
(30:23):
arranged.
I mean, what do you do aboutmonetary policy?
In some ways, it's easier for asmall country because you can
defer to some of theinternational leaders on some of
these things.
So, for instance, with food anddrug regulation, you could say
something like we know we willadopt whatever the regulatory
(30:47):
recommendations are from.
A kind of gold standardregulator Could be the EU, could
be the US.
Actually, a lot of people havebeen pushing for the US to adopt
such a policy, for Congress toenact a law saying that if the
EU approves a drug, you knowthey're a gold standard
regulator.
We'll just deem it approved inthe US, and so as a state, you
can do things like that.
(31:08):
Generally, small countries don'twant a big diplomatic corps,
but you want some diplomaticcorps.
You want some military.
Presumably you could try totake control of your state
National Guard and use that asthe foundation for future
military force.
You could, instead of settingup your own central bank, simply
(31:32):
defer to the dollar right inthe way that many small
countries in Europe simply usethe euro.
So there are ways you could tryto do this on the cheap, but
once you start to think througheverything that would have to be
transferred from the federal tothe state level to prevent it
from becoming chaotic, it wouldhave to be a negotiated process
(31:53):
that would involve a lot ofgoodwill on both sides and take
place over a couple of years.
Shawn (31:58):
So there is another player here, and that's the
international community, and Idon't really have a handle on
this, but I know that there isinternational law and that there
are bodies international bodiessuch as the United Nations that
do play a role in establishingthe contours of conflict, and
they do leverage some both softand hard power there in
different ways.
And so I'm wondering how theinternational community and
(32:21):
which, I suppose, players in theinternational community might
have something to say aboutsecession in the United States,
or where and when they wouldhave something to say.
Dr. Sorens (32:31):
Yeah, so foreign powers are going to defer to the
US government and that is awell-established norm and I
think it's unlike a lot ofinternational norms that are
honored more in the breach thanthe observance.
There are good sort of powerpolitics reasons why states have
(32:52):
an incentive to defer to thatnorm.
Even when you consider a stateas weak and imploded as Somalia,
you've seen that foreigngovernments are very reluctant
to recognize Somaliland, whichhas been a functioning state,
relatively liberal, evendemocratic actually, and open to
(33:17):
trade and things like that, andit's been functioning for over
30 years now withoutinternational recognition.
I believe maybe Ethiopia hasrecognized it and so even in
that case a great power like theUnited States has deferred to
(33:38):
the government of Somalia andsaid that we're not going to
recognize Somaliland against thewill of Somalia, going to
recognize Somaliland against thewill of Somalia.
The major counterexample here isKosovo, where you saw the US
had a very strong interest inbreaking up a sort of client
(33:59):
state of Russia and so reallykind of put its thumb on the
scale in favor of Kosovoindependence.
And even though Serbia did notconsent to Kosovo's secession,
the US did recognize Kosovo, butnot every government did and a
(34:20):
number of other high-incomestates.
You know, medium to majorpowers did not, like Spain, for
example, thinking about theirown domestic politics, never
recognized Kosovo.
For example, thinking abouttheir own domestic politics,
never recognized Kosovo.
So in the case of the US, Ithink it's very, very likely
that other governments would notrecognize any unilateral
secession that is not approvedby Congress.
But if the US government takesthe lead and says, yeah, this is
(34:42):
okay, we allow this, here's theprocess.
Takes the lead and says, yeah,this is okay, we allow this,
here's the process and we'rerecognizing this new state, then
there's really no controversyand you might expect foreign
governments to also recognizethe new state and begin
diplomatic relations with it.
Shawn (34:58):
It seems entirely impossible or implausible that
secession for any state or anyregion from the United States is
going to happen anytime in thenear future, and I guess I don't
have the historical context toreally have a sense of whether
or not all of this excitementthat you know exists right now
in our contemporary times and inour politics, and it is under
(35:19):
both Republican and Democraticpresidents.
If that excitement forsecession is any greater than it
was, say, 50 years ago, or 100years ago or 150 years ago, I
don't really know, but it feelslike there's a lot more chatter,
but that secession itself isjust really unlikely.
What I do think, though, isthat there is a possibility or
potential that states somestates are going to be pursuing
(35:42):
more autonomy that is short ofsecession, and I don't know if
that's possible, but if so, Iwonder what that could look like
or might look like.
Dr. Sorens (35:51):
Yeah, I mean the polls that have been done on
this do seem to show an increasein support for states gaining
independence.
When it's tested, you know, doyou want your state to gain
independence or be anindependent state or secede from
the union?
The numbers in those polls doseem to show a kind of secular
(36:12):
increase, although, as you wouldexpect, when it's a Republican
president in power, it'sDemocrats who are more in favor
of secession, and when it's aDemocratic president in power,
it's Republicans who are more infavor of secession, and the
numbers are non-trivial byinternational standards.
So anywhere from 20 to 35percent of each state's
population in any given yearwants to secede, which is a lot
(36:37):
actually.
I mean the Scottish NationalParty, when it first had its
breakthrough in the 1970s, onlyabout 20 to 25 percent of Scots
wanted Scotland to becomeindependent and of course it,
you know, ended up gainingmajority power in Scotland and
holding a referendum on theissue.
So it's certainly conceivablethat you could end up with a
(37:01):
larger percentage of voterssupporting this in certain
states.
And so I guess what I want tosay is, even though it's very,
very unlikely that a state willgain independence or even try to
gain independence in the next,you know, 5 to 10, 15, 20 years.
There's a good possibility thatthis politics of independence
(37:24):
nevertheless shapes ourpolitical system and that all
this chatter about secession andseparatism and the country
breaking apart tends to have itsown momentum and tends to shape
how people think about things.
And again, I think states couldpush for autonomy in various
ways.
(37:48):
Push for autonomy in variousways.
You know, when Vermont actuallyenacted its bill to have
single-payer health care, theywere going to pursue a waiver
from the Department of Healthand Human Services, a waiver
from, essentially, obamacarerules and other federal health
insurance rules, so they couldhave this.
Erisa is another piece of thepuzzle here, and so you know
Congress has actually delegateda lot of authority to the
(38:09):
executive branch when it comesto some of these complex
regulatory and social welfareprograms.
So you could imagine that anexecutive branch would issue
pretty wide-ranging waivers onfederal policies to states that
want to do their own thing.
And you could imagine Congresseven carving out exemptions for
certain states by name if theirdelegations push for it and
(38:32):
demand it as the price to payfor their vote.
On some other issue negotiatedin the Senate, there was for
some time an amendment in there.
That would have exemptedNebraska from paying for
Medicaid and that was anautonomy for Nebraska.
(38:54):
It was just a direct payment toNebraska specifically to get
their senators to vote for thebill.
Questionable whether that wouldhave been legal, but there
doesn't seem to be any legalbarrier to just saying, hey, if
you want to have your ownpension program instead of
Social Security, you can do thatand we'll, you know, transfer
data and make that happen, justas has happened in Canada.
Shawn (39:16):
So you could start to see states push for that, if you
know, if this polarizationcontinues, where people just
find federal policiesintolerable and want the state
to opt out, so you'd mentionedthe political language of
secession becoming part of ourdiscourse and that that could in
(39:38):
turn lead to, you know, agrowing sense of acceptance of
potential secession for anygiven state or region.
But one of the things that Iworry about is we're already in
a heightened polarized stateright now that feels like we're
living in almost like a coldcivil war to some degree.
That not to be histrionic butfeels like there could be
(39:58):
pockets of violence that justkind of arise from that, and
there's a fear I have that tolean into secessionism as a
potential solution couldactually inflame that conflict.
There is another flashpointthat's being introduced here,
and so, while that might be inpursuit of let's call this like
a peaceful divorce or whatever,that it actually could lead to
(40:18):
conflict that otherwise might beavoided.
And so I'm wondering if thereare things that secession
movements can or should be doing, because I do believe that
people do have the right to atleast explore self-determination
right for themselves, but thatthey can or should be doing
responsibly to ensure that itdoesn't explode.
Dr. Sorens (40:35):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, when politicalscientists study polarization,
particularly affectivepolarization, which is, you know
, disliking the other side, theyfind that that's driven by a
small minority of voters who aredisproportionately loud on
(40:56):
social media, for example, andthat that in turn derives kind
of disaffection from people onthe other side who think that
those people are representativeof the other side, right?
So, you see, if you're aliberal and you see
conservatives behaving badlyonline, you think, well, that's
what conservatives are like, Iguess, and vice versa for
(41:18):
conservatives seeing liberalsdoing that.
So, yes, we are seeing thispolarization in a sense feed on
itself to some extent, and it'sdifficult to see how you turn
that around, and it's possiblethat some of this language on
secession could feed that.
(41:40):
On the other hand, for amovement to gain popular support
, they can't just rely on thisslogan of independence and let's
separate.
Rely on this slogan ofindependence and let's separate.
That's what we seeinternationally is that these
(42:05):
parties, these movements, onlygain political power once they
have an attractive politicalprogram that they can take to
voters on their doorstep and saythis is how we're going to make
your lives better.
And so there is a possibilitythat by focusing and my premise
would be that they focus onself-government or autonomy or
formulations like that, ratherthan secession and independence,
just because I don't think it'svery feasible that these states
(42:26):
are going to want their ownmilitary forces and things like
that.
You know, if they focus onautonomy and self-government and
gaining control over certainpolicies and having them devolve
from the federal level, they'regoing to have to think through
the policy consequences.
They're going to have to thinkthrough implementation.
And that's when you start totake a step back from this pure
(42:48):
politics of emotion and start tothink through what would this
actually look like?
How would this make citizens'lives better?
And there is a hope that maybewhat it does is give us more
creative solutions.
You know there's a lot ofdisaffection and talk about
(43:09):
entitlement reform and maybe wecan't get that done at the
federal level, but maybe letstates do it in their own way.
And that is something that youknow hopefully will get us
thinking a little bit more aboutwell, how can we together make
our lives better?
Shawn (43:22):
A lot of secession movements are rooted in some
type of an ethnic conflict, andI've been talking a lot about
polarization and partisanship inthe United States and to some
some degree, conflating thatright or assuming that
partisanship is the driver ofthe secession movements.
But assuming that that is true,is it fair to characterize
(43:44):
what's happening in the UnitedStates, or could we reasonably
conflate the two and say thatpartisanship in the United
States has essentially risen tothe point that it is akin to
something like ethnicregionalism or factionalism?
Dr. Sorens (43:57):
There are some similarities.
It does seem that for manypeople, their party identity, or
perhaps their ideologicalidentity, has become a kind of
tribal affiliation that comesfirst, and they derive pleasure
from owning the other side rightand seeing the other side
(44:19):
defeated.
And you know, george Orwell waswriting about that in 1984,
many decades ago, about howtotalitarian regimes leverage
that kind of feeling.
You know the savor of victory,you know, and seeing your
enemies put to flight.
There's something atavisticabout that that appeals to
people.
(44:41):
The big difference, of course,with a typical ethno-regional
secessionist movement is thatyou have Republicans and
Democrats everywhere.
There are lots of Republicans,millions of Republicans, in New
York City and there are, youknow, millions of Democrats in
in red America as well.
So you know places like Texas,for example.
(45:03):
So you know you're living sideby side with the, with the
people that you think of as the,as the adversary, and so it
really makes things likesecession less feasible, because
you again don't have that kindof regional base that you can
say, well, this is our homeland.
(45:24):
You know what is the Republicanhomeland in America?
Well, there really isn't one.
Or the Democratic homeland yeah, there are states that are
deeper red or deeper blue.
But even in those states youhave pockets that go the other
way.
So I think it's a fruitful modeof analysis to say, okay, this
(45:45):
is what activates people inethnic conflicts around the
world.
What does that imply aboutpartisanship and polarization
here in America and you can getfruitful insights from that, for
instance, the politics ofsymbolism mattering a great deal
.
But it also, if you thinkthat's the mode of analysis that
explains the US it also impliesthat secessionism is unlikely
(46:07):
to bea big part of that kind oftranspartisan conflict.
Shawn (46:11):
So you actually kind of brought us full circle.
You started the conversationearly on by saying that you know
the likelihood of any serioussecession movement in the United
States occurring in the nextfive to 10 years is very small.
So, considering that and thenthe context of our conversation,
the realities of thepolarization that I keep coming
back to, and then, I suppose,through the lens of the work
(46:33):
that you do and your expertiseto, and then, I suppose, through
the lens of the work that youdo, and your expertise.
Dr. Sorens (46:38):
Are there any alarm bells going off for you?
Yeah, I mean the alarm bellsare going off because of the way
I think partisan polarization,ideological polarization, have
influenced people's ability tokind of think rationally through
policy matters and theirability to reason about evidence
, and so you get a lot ofdiscounting of any kind of
(47:04):
objective or expert findings orknowledge because the fact that
you know you see them as theideological or partisan other In
some cases, obviously theexperts have the so-called
experts have undermined theirown expertise and you can point
(47:26):
to how politics has invaded lotsof kind of highbrow spaces,
like the journal Nature, forexample, making presidential
endorsements and writingeditorials that are sharply
partisan and ideological, andthat undermines their expertise.
And so in a lot of ways theso-called experts deserve the
skepticism that they're nowgetting.
(47:47):
But I do see a kind of nihilismemerging out of that, this
polarization on both sides,where we operate with our own
versions of truth and maybe itdoesn't even matter what the
truth is.
The truth is whatever owns theother side in a given moment.
It's hard not to think that thisundermines good policy in the
(48:08):
long run, that it's going to beharder and harder to find people
who are actually dispassionate.
It's going to be harder andharder to find people who are
actually dispassionate, whoactually think through how
things work and want to figurethem out and make policies work.
So that's the thing that Ithink is the big problem right
now.
I think the talk of secessionis not so much adding to that
(48:29):
problem as it is reflecting thatproblem of reflecting that
problem.
And if we can somehow solvethis problem of polarization and
mistrust, then I think theissue of secession either goes
away or, to the extent that itsurvives, becomes something
that's a bit more rational andmaybe rooted in things like
(48:52):
actual substantive policy issuesand the kind of collective
interest of the people living indifferent states.
Shawn (49:01):
All right, final question you ready for it?
Dr. Sorens (49:03):
Yeah.
Shawn (49:04):
What's something interesting you've been reading,
watching, listening to or doinglately and it can be related to
this topic, but it doesn't haveto be.
Dr. Sorens (49:13):
Yeah, let's see.
I think one interesting thingI've read recently, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna go with a novel,actually because, uh, I I do
like to read fiction, um, and Iespecially like to read things
that are out of copyrightbecause it's very cheap, you
know, put it on my kindle.
As I read a lot of classicliterature and something that
(49:34):
very pleasantly surprised me wasthe Good Soldier by Ford Maddox
.
Ford, which an author I'd neverreally read before, didn't seem
to be, from my perspective,part of the canon or whatever.
It was highly innovative, witha kind of flawed narrator, but
(50:00):
that, precisely because it usesa flawed narrator, there's
actually a lot of insight intointerpersonal relationships, and
I'm I don't want to give toomany spoilers, but I would just
say that it was a fun read that,I think, also spoke to
something about human experience.
Shawn (50:19):
Ford, Maddox Ford.
I've not even heard of theauthor, but I think that's a
cool name.
Dr. Sorens (50:23):
Yeah, I think it's a sort of a pen name.
But yeah, he's sort of one ofthese British authors coming out
of this Edwardian period like,oh, you know, the guy who did
Room with a View and Howard'sEnd.
I'm blanking on his name rightnow but you know, this early
20th century's turn towardmodernism it's much easier to
(50:46):
read, I think, than James Joyce.
But there's also this kind ofreally fun playing with language
and perspective.
Maybe Virginia Woolf would bethe closest analog to the four.
Shawn (50:59):
Are you drawn to books from a certain period, or is
this just something you haven'tdone?
I mean, you did mention thatyou like to read stuff that's on
copyright, so that kind ofgives it away.
Dr. Sorens (51:09):
Well, that's true, but I also do like the
literature of that period.
I mean, I do think that I readsome contemporary novels, but I
also do like the literature ofthat period.
I mean, I do think that I readsome contemporary novels.
I think there was a time inkind of new society forming
(51:43):
through globalization andcapitalism and industrialization
, and we've come through thatnow and there are a lot of
people, there's a middle classor people have wealth, people
have free time, and itdefinitely speaks a little bit
more to today than the earlierVictorian literature or, like
you know, jane Austen orwhatever I think, which I, you
(52:04):
know, I also like.
But I think it speaks a littlebit more to today.
The character is a little moreidentifiable.
Yet also there's this there'sstill this sense of kind of a
little bit of literary realism.
There's still this sense ofkind of a little bit of literary
realism.
You know, we're not totallyself-referential.
We haven't passed thatpost-modernist moment where we
still really are trying toexplore something about the
(52:25):
world.
Shawn (52:26):
I get a lot of book recommendations from people and
sometimes I race through themand sometimes I have to write to
people and say like I could notget through this book.
So I'll check it out, I'll letyou know.
Dr. Sorens (52:37):
Sure, I'd be interested to hear what you
think.
Shawn (52:39):
Dr Sorens, thanks for taking the time, and maybe in 10
, 15 years we can meet in one ofour new countries and have a
drink.
Dr. Sorens (52:46):
That would be fun.
Thanks for having me on.
Shawn (52:55):
It's clear that this issue secession remains as
contentious and complex as ever,and especially at this moment
when we in the United States aremaybe as polarized as we were
in the lead-up to the Civil War.
The deep political divisions wediscussed in this episode have
led some Americans to seriouslyconsider the once unthinkable
(53:15):
prospect of dissolving the Union.
While the legal precedent setby Texas v White declares
unilateral secessionunconstitutional, the debate
persists to this day, maybe evenmore so now than at any time
since the Civil War, fueled bygrowing cultural and ideological
rifts.
And precedents can bechallenged.
(53:35):
They can be overturned.
Ultimately, the question ofwhether to preserve the union or
pursue a national divorcereflects the ongoing struggle to
balance unity withself-determination in our
complex but weakened politicallandscape.
So, looking to the future, wereally have two options Find
(53:57):
ways to bridge our divideswithin the existing framework,
or accept that the differenceshave truly become irreconcilable
and find a way to break up.
I think I might be ready forthe latter.
It's becoming ever more clearthat blue states cannot live
under Republican policies andred states won't live under
Democratic policies.
We do not just disagree on somepolicies.
(54:19):
We are culturally, socially,fundamentally different people,
and if every election is trulyan existential battle between
two diametrically opposedpeoples and futures.
That is a recipe for nothinggood.
It feels like we're barrelingtoward, at minimum a cold civil
war, but quite possibly a hotcivil war.
(54:40):
Why go through that disaster?
Why forfeit lives?
Why scorch the earth?
Because we don't like eachother?
I don't want to be forced tolive in your world and you don't
want to be forced to live inmine.
So let's just break up.
No drama, all right.
Check back next week foranother episode of Deep Dive
(55:01):
Chat.
Soon, folks.
(56:31):
Thank you, thank you.
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