Update: Just saw another article telling us to win the culture.The one place conservatives currently have power in is state government. Therefore it makes more sense to use that power to secede and then use state power to forcibly exclude culture that undermines moral culture.
The idea of taking over culture gradually, without using that power, would take at least a generation if it ever works at all. By that time, the kind of people you think of when you say “American” will be a tiny minority of this continent.
The marketplace of ideas is broken. And most of the electorate are not persuadable. On the contrary the only tradition they know are the 3rd world disorder of their home countries. Conservative schools will be illegal under the Woke regime.
Curtis Yarvin’s excellent substack deserves your reading. He’s widely praised for his insight into why Western civilization is going wrong, and for his ideas on a new regime to replace it. He’s widely criticized for lacking faith that there is a way to avoid waiting a generation for a better regime to emerge. Perhaps he is a blue-stater who wants to see blue states experience this better regime.
Secession avoids several obstacles identified by Yarvin that could block the Right from creating a better regime in this generation.
First of all, right-wing sovereignty over any portion of the US is more easily achieved than right-wing sovereignty over the entire US, so it is more likely to happen within the next few years. Taking over the whole US is not in the cards in the next few years, even if there is another economic Great Depression, because the ruling class prevents the right wing from organizing. Only the Left is allowed to have and keep major militias (Antifa) and other institutions of power such as major social media, education, academia, corporate media, the US military, etc.
Socialism has afflicted many countries, but their sufferings haven’t stopped the Left from maintaining control there, because Leftists continued to pass control of institutions to other Leftists. Revolution from the Right (Ceasarism) can’t be taken for granted in this generation, at least not across all 50 states. What’s the point of conquering and policing blue states anyway? Do we need to conquer Canada and Mexico? The benefits are not worth the costs.
Secondly, secession is the way to acquire control of institutions. A red state that secedes can use state power, and create state laws, to give control of institutions to the right wing, because a seceded state would no longer answer to federal judges. Secession is much easier than a long march through the institutions. The Left wing is extremely alert to attempts of the right wing to infiltrate their institutions of power. Secession is the only way to protect new right-wing institutions from being destroyed by the US ruling class. A seceded state can use government power to resist any penalties coming from the blue states.
Thirdly, secession is one of the only ways for the right wing to assert itself in a defensive, rather than offensive way. In US culture, defensive action has the moral high ground. Any federal attempts to deny self-determination and freedom to a state will be perceived as offense. Secession can be preceded by a secession referendum – a democratic process to obtain legitimacy by consent of The People.
Admittedly, much attention needs to be given to electing secessionist governors, legislators, and state judges, which requires a robust state political organization. A single volunteer can easily make a significant impact on state politics because most volunteers are focused on federal politics. But it’s hard to attract the conservative movement’s attention to state politics until steps are taken to make state politics matter again. The best way to make state politics matter again is to start moving power back from DC to state capitols, since all decisions are made in DC currently. This can be accomplished by the willingness of state governmental officials to nullify unconstitutional federal edicts, mandates, and court decisions. Until a state government is willing to ignore a federal judge, the right wing cannot make a breakthrough.
Secession can be achieved in the near term, before red state citizens are thoroughly indoctrinated by the Left, and before their population is swelled by millions more immigrants who vote. It can be achieved while the Right still has strong majorities in some states: 2.6 Trump voters per Biden voter in Wyoming, 2 Trump voters per Biden voter in Idaho, 1.7 in Alabama, and 1.12 in Texas, to choose relevant examples.
A poll by Bright Line/YouGov shows that a majority of Southern Republicans are in favor of secession, and that’s the party that dominates many Southern states. Including all residents of any party, we estimate that secession has majority support already in Texas and Oklahoma. Their secession referendums would be enough to force the issue into the consciousness of the publics of other states.
Red-state secession turns the clock back to 1980’s America, when winning an election required a political coalition to care about normal Americans. But having experienced the 2020’s in the Union, red states have been radicalized now. They are ready to change the system of government to prevent the Leftward drift of politics in their state. “Never again!” will be the justification for using state power to block Leftist tactics of civilizational decay. The vitality and ideas of red-state America have not been realized in our generation merely because they’ve been held back by federal judges and other national institutions that are held by the Left.
We discuss why the ruling class may not be able to prevent secession here. Our introduction to the idea of splitting the US is here.
An excellent piece describing how secession could work and I’m not implying that it couldn’t, but I believe it would be confrontational and very complex considering the financial, institutional and political restructuring necessary to come to fruition.
The greatest threats as I envision it, would be maintaining cohesion of the cause and logistical challenges of redistricting new territories by which to create the new Union. An excellent example is Virginia, which is faced with the same challenges other “mixed” states would face. By land area, fully 85% of the Commonwealth is almost contiguously bright red. Generally about a 70-30 split. But it is controlled by socialist deep blue Northern Virginia, which by right should be part of Washington DC and the largest cities that hold most of the population. This trend is and will increase as transplantation of foreign migrants and liberals fleeing tax states squat and bring their political identity and ideology with them. The only prayer Red Virginia has, IS to secede, or vote to convert the state to a representative electoral college system. The former being more likely. There are other states like Virginia, that are very underrepresented and taxed to support programs that Red areas do not want or worse, detrimental to their existence.
https://redstatesecession.org/virginia-counties-can-become-a-part-of-another-state/
Thanks Imavap8ri0, for your discussion of Virginia.
Lots of my family lines go back through Virginia, including my dad’s patrilineality. They left the state more than 200 years ago, but it was their home for several decades. I would consider it awesome if part or all of that land and its people could be liberated — i still have some very distant cousins there, i think.
Could Liberty University (Norfolk) be a force for “maintaining cohesion of the cause”?
The President of Liberty, Jerry Falwell (jr), has come out in favor of VEXIT, a movement for some red counties of Virginia to join West Virginia, a sort of East Coast Greater Idaho, perhaps.
I believe that the VEXIT idea wasn’t really around when Red State published the survey article (on this site), Christmas 2020.
I certainly don’t see VEXIT as a final step, even if it is achieved. But i think it should help activate our people and raise their consciousness.
Dan, you should red this https://redstatesecession.org/virginia-counties-can-become-a-part-of-another-state/
Ah, great, thanks Red State for writing it and pointing it out to me.
I think the analysis should be convincing to anybody approaching it rationally; maybe with enough circulation those who have irrational and/or ulterior motives in opposing it would be swept along into it anyway.
I think Liberty University (Lynchburg) may have a metapolitical role to play.
Very unusually for a university, i think they would be open to secession research and teaching in a way that benefits us, because their President, Jerry Falwell (jr) is pro-VEXIT. They have degree granting programs in History and Political Science. I think most universities would be too scared, cowardly, or group-thinking to touch secession research and teaching from our point of view.
If you (Red State) have a PhD or master’s in History or Political Science, you might be able to lead a course as an adjunct in VEXIT studies. After all, you’ve certainly researched and written about the subject, and the degree programs in History and Political Science are both offered online, so perhaps relocation to Virginia is not even necessary.
And even if you are not in a position to do this, then perhaps some other reader of this website is. (Unfortunately i cannot put my money where my mouth is because i don’t have any courses in the Social Sciences or History, let alone degrees in those or allied fields.)
Having faculty working on VEXIT would be ideal, because it would give somebody at least a part-time job (paying something, although probably not a lot) and thus the time to write articles and books and other educational material about the options.
Now this may not be possible, but even if it is not, there still would be value in somebody pursuing a research thesis in VEXIT and related history and political science, either at the PhD or Bachelor’s level. Perhaps it would help Falwell’s advocacy of VEXIT.
After all, the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting a sitting Congress from altering its own salaries, was proposed in 1789 but was only finally ratified in 1992 as a result of an undergraduate research paper at UT Austin in 1982 by Gregory Watson (the “step-father of the 27th Amendment”). The paper got a C, but the idea worked anyway. See:
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/blog/how-a-c-grade-college-term-paper-led-to-a-constitutional-amendment
Now, on a topic more general than Virginia, and with a more distant time horizon than VEXIT, the article discusses the effect of the millions of immigrants we have.
I really think that there should be some way to take advantage of their presence to split the Union. The ruling class wants them here to keep wages low, deprive us of a coherent culture, and, for one party, get lots more votes. But there should be some way we can offer them, or at least some of them, a better deal. I’m thinking of the Sikhs, but there are probably other groups with the same profile. The Sikhs do not have their own nation-state; rather, their homeland in Punjab is occupied by the Indian government. Many of the overseas Sikhs are very interested in having their own nation-state (the Khalistan movement). After all, why shouldn’t they be? We’d like to have our own nation-state as well.
If there were some way to offer them a piece of California (e.g., part of Santa Clara County, where they have a presence), or a piece of Virginia (after all, good ol’ governor Ralph Northam declare June 2018 as Sikh Appreciation and Awareness Month, so you know he’s counting some numbers there).
It would be a zero-cost offer to us, since those areas are not part of any conceivable Red State America. But it would be a much better offer than any of our rulers could possibly make. All they can promise the Sikhs is more work at the low global wage market, participation in the garbage culture the ruling class promotes, and no Sikh territory at all. The Sikhs already had that kind of a crummy deal in India.
That of course is very speculative but it just seems like we can outbid our rulers with some of the people they are bringing in.
Something that hasn’t been discussed is breaking the USA into six or eight different regional nations. I believe this is of much cleaner split then just trying to make it through red side of the country versus the blue sided of the country. The regional countries could be something like the northeast, the West Coast, the southeast, the Midwest, the Rocky Mountains ex-Colorado and New Mexico and the south central region. Each new nation would be approximately the size of Germany in both population and economic strength. Each new nation would have a regional cultural identity. Military defense could be accomplished via inter-regional nation agreements. Along the way regional countries, state lines can be withdrawn like what has been mentioned Oregon/Idaho, WV-VA-MD and IL-ex-Chicago. Greater Texas and the San Antonio-Austin region could divorce themselves from each other. Overall, everyone would be much happier except for the bureaucratic thugs in the US federal government.
Something that hasn’t been discussed is breaking the USA into six or eight different regional nations. I believe this would be a much cleaner and enduring solution than just trying to make it the red side of the country versus the blue side of the country. The regional countries could be something like the northeast, the West Coast, the southeast, the Midwest, the liberal tilting upper Midwest, the Rocky Mountains ex-Colorado and New Mexico and the south central region of Texas and possibly OK, although OK would have several options. Each new nation would be approximately the size of Germany in both population and economic strength. and also have a regional cultural identity. Military defense could be accomplished via inter-regional nation agreements. Along the way to regional countries, state lines can be re-drawn like what has been mentioned Oregon/Idaho, WV-VA-MD and IL-ex-Chicago. Greater Texas and the San Antonio-Austin region could divorce themselves from each other. Overall, everyone would be much happier except for the bureaucratic thugs in the US federal government. Additionally, regional countries, being smaller, would be much more efficient and focused than the dysfunctional behemoth we now have in Washington DC.
Hi Rodney,
I think you have an interesting point, and of course 6 or 8 Germany-sized countries would be much better than what we have now. It would be especially good if some or all of these new countries could reindustrialize, like Germany did after WWII; unlike the US and the UK, Germany did not deindustrialize over the past 50 years (as i understand it).
I don’t know if your idea has been discussed or not. Red State linked to an article in the American Conservative, https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/an-american-breakup/
That article is not nearly as explicit as you are, but it does suggest that there be more than two survivor countries after the dissolution of the DC empire.
Now, although i do think we should think and discuss the possible forms of the successor countries, i think that there are good reasons why people are very focused on a red-state/blue-state breakup right now.
One reason is that the media has been promoting the red-state/blue-state dichotomy for quite a while, to make people feel like they have a choice, when actually the choice is just RINO versus DINO. So it’s convenient, and everybody has an idea of what the rough boundaries are.
But another reason is that just making that first division is the hardest step. If we can overcome that step, and divide into Red State America and Blue State America, then hopefully we’ll have some breathing room to adjust our borders further to form some countries that are the right size to be able to develop into true nation states: groups of people mostly related by blood with a common culture, language, and understanding of their history. Maybe we really will have 6 or 8 Germanys, or maybe 30 or 40 Hungarys. Both have their strengths. We just don’t want to end up with a giant Babel of incompatible peoples and doctrines.