A look back at the federal collapse
21 February 2021
No one ever expects their country to stop existing, certainly not in their lifetime. Of course, we all know that historically, countries stop existing all the time. But yet for some reason, we all think that that could never happen to our country, especially not in this day and age. After all, a founding myth in the West is that we are at the end of history — and that republican democracy is that end. Countries like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were dirty commies, after all, not enlightened republicans like us; and the collapsed republics of the past, such as the Roman Republic, are so far back in history that we’ve allegedly learned from their failures.
Yet looking back the federal collapse we experienced on the 1st of December, 2020, should have been obvious. The federal government had always warred with its states, that’s true; and the American system’s conception of state sovereignty was always messy. (Whole books were needed to understand it, they knew it as “sovereign immunity.”) But the pandemic tore open the fractures in American society like nothing else.
The federal government for its entire history was geared towards fending off pinpoint disasters, not general rebellion. The executive could force one governor to obey the will of the Supreme Court and to acknowledge federal authority, as it did in the case of Brown v. Board of Education; the worst affront to its authority it was designed to confront was a civil war scenario, with two clear sides, and a clear secession.
Of course, as we all know, that’s not what happened. This wasn’t one state seceding (“Calexit”), nor was it two sides, one of which supported federal authority. Much like Ernest Hemingway’s conception of bankruptcy, the federal collapse happened very slowly, and then all at once. The Union didn’t break like a bone or a tooth, it shattered like a piece of glassware. There was no secession, there was no war; what we saw was a general, rapid, widespread loss of confidence.
American society at the end of its life was deeply divided. Americans hated and distrusted one another; Americans could scarcely understand those from states across the political divide. Americans began to distrust democracy itself, but especially loathed their own legislators. The federal system was one of the most laissez faire capitalistic republics on Earth, yet young Americans preferred socialism to capitalism. The Atlantic, one of the leading “lefty” magazines towards the end of the republic, put it best: Not Even the Coronavirus Will Unite America.
Looking back, it’s hard to say exactly when the collapse began. Governor Newsom, now Premier of Greater California, repeatedly called his state a “nation-state”. Governor Cuomo of New York State was the first to resist federal authority openly during the pandemic, telling the federal president he’d interpret a forced quarantine of his state as a “declaration of war.” Jared Kushner, who towards the end of the republic had entered the corridors of power through nepotism, was the first on the federal side to drop the mask — he told the governors that they had no absolute right to federal medical stockpiles, but rather, much like foreign sovereigns receiving foreign aid, were at the mercy of the federal government.
State borders began to close, and alternative federations within the federal republic began forming. First came the Six State Council, then the Western States Pact. (The federal response was quick: “Mutiny!”) Pacts had begun to form before the pandemic — the Constitution itself was undermined by the states with the so-called “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.” At the time this Compact was not seen as extremely consequential, but is now understood as being History, with a capital ‹H›. Such compacts began springing up like crazy in the final months of the republic among the blue states, covering all sorts of matters, financial and legislative, and with the evolving understanding that even after the crisis they’d continue to exist.
Donald Trump, the last President of the United States, wearily watched as states established their own stockpiles, ignored Supreme Court decisions, stopped most aide to federal authorities (indeed, this began in earnest before the collapse, so-called “sanctuary cities” refused, legally, to provide basic information to federal customs and border patrol officials), and even, via accounting tricks now understood to have probably been illegal, slashed their federal tax receipts. In the early stages of the collapse, mid-April, Trump declared Virginia “under siege;” writing in all caps that Michigan and Minnesota needed to be “liberated.”
Even federal legislation began to be ignored at a rapid clip; Trump essentially gave himself a line-item veto by attaching a “signing statement” when he signed the CARES Act on 27 March 2020. The states saw this as further permission to ignore federal legislation, which they were happy to do; many blue states had been doing so anyway — after all, before the pandemic they did legalize marijuana, a substance known to the former federal republic as being “Schedule One” (illegal in all but extremely limited circumstances), in direct insubordination. (One even legalized magic mushrooms!)
However, had Trump won the 2020 election, perhaps the Union would have limped along for another few years. The shocking victory of Joe Biden, who was never inaugurated, however, turned the tables. The governors aligned with Trump, who had been critical of the actions of those on the other side, rapidly began to do many of the same things: set up red state compacts, close borders, and otherwise brace themselves for an unfriendly federal government. Indeed, secessionism comes more naturally to an out of power right than to the left, anyway.
The Union collapsed because no one believed in it anymore. Neither of the two sides much liked the other, neither of the two sides thought that the other brought any value to the country. In the First American Civil War, the Northerners saw the Southerners as countrymen. In the federal collapse, both sides saw the other as “un-American,” unworthy of the Union.
An “Article V” constitutional convention was called at which the Constitution as we knew it was dissolved. Fifty short-lived, newly sovereign governors squabbled for control; eventually, at the end of the day, six sovereign territories were established. (Greater California, Texas, the former United States East Coast (FUSEC), Alaska, the Midwest, and the United South.) The founding mothers and fathers of the American Trade Union (ATU), as it has come to be known, were able to establish something like the Eurozone among the six, but without absolute freedom of movement.
The FUSEC now holds Washington D.C., and calls itself the “United States”. Much like the name “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” gave way to the name “North Macedonia”, this name is not recognized as valid internationally, and the name FUSEC is a temporary compromise. D.C. now is a bizarre city, full of governmental ghosts. Former Senators are now ambassadors, and although at first angry edicts and resolutions were passed demanding respect of federal authority, even the FUSEC Senate recognizes that California and Texas are never coming back. The FUSEC resisted the ATU, to the detriment of its own economy, as to accept it would be to accept the legitimacy of Alaskan, Greater Californian, Texan, Midwestern, etc, sovereignty. However, the FUSEC last week finally joined the ATU under the name FUSEC as the UN arbitrates a permanent internationally recognized name for the territory. Rumor has it that “United Atlantic States” is a real possibility.
International recognition took some time, but it came, mostly thanks to China’s early recognition of Greater California. The United States military did essentially nothing to avert the collapse; fears that it would came to nothing. Even the Soviet military attempted a doomed coup d’état in 1991, but besides a lot of threats and scrambled jets in the early weeks of the ATU from the FUSEC, no blood was shed, miraculously. Guam and Hawaii were at highest risk when they joined Greater California as provinces, but for the military, taking over the Hawaiian state house and killing one’s own citizens was a bridge too far.
The division of the massive stores of equipment the federal republic once held remains a sticking point in the international relations of the region; the United Nations is attempting to arbitrate, but some argue that it is too friendly to the FUSEC, as it is now physically within the FUSEC. The UN, for its part, claims neutrality; within the organization, there are rumors that many of its members want to move to Brussels.
Geopolitics are forever changed. In the short term, Russia and China did well, but in the long term, given that the federal collapse was inevitable, perhaps an orderly, early collapse helped guard American interests more than a late, violent and chaotic collapse under Joe Biden would have. Biden, always the bridesmaid and never the bride, is the last serious defender of the federal government, preaching its restoration to a dwindling audience. He styles himself “the President of the United States”, and even held an inauguration for himself after the collapse in Delaware. (D.C. refused to let him in, as ATU negotiations could have been jeopardized.) Biden, however, is not even President of the FUSEC, and is something of a curiosity. His bizarre performances, where he sometimes forgets that the United States no longer exists, are in a way sad. We’ve learned to ignore him when we’re not pitying him. Biden is something of an American Dalai Lama, except with none of the grace or mental clarity.
My country, ’tis of thee; sweet land of liberty; of thee I sing…for the last time. Premier Newsom is my “president” now, and Greater California my home. I’m Californian, not American; I can scarcely believe how quickly this distinction came to matter, but matter it does. Children are growing up knowing no other system. Passports are due to arrive any day now, apparently they have a bear on them. I plan to make a trip to the FUSEC when I get mine. ∎
A shorter, rougher version of this article was published on 12 April 2020 in Kohlzine №16
