Where We Go From Here: The new federalism
As a good liberal, I've always looked askance at "states' rights". For someone weaned on various civil rights struggles, this has always been code for reaction. I'm old enough, and aware enough, to remember when Ronald Reagan kicked off is 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, with "The South will rise again". For a long time, this has been the excuse for voter suppression and curtailment of abortion rights.
And then we had a plague. And then we had groups of states forming compacts to coordinate reopening as science and "facts on the ground" dictated.
What we've seen in this calamity is state governments stepping in and providing leadership when the federal government, in thrall to an orange monster caring only for his re-election, abdicated responsibility for organizing and coordinating a unified response to the pandemic.
As of this writing, we have four state compacts: the Pacific Coast Alliance, the Great Lakes Confederation, the Nor'easter, and the New New England Pact. These state pacts do not consist of only librul, blue state libtard governors. Massachusetts, Indiana, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Ohio have GOP governors. But they all have a desire to avoid unnecessary death, and seemingly don't care about Donald Trump's electoral chances.
Trump has brayed about "reopening" the country on May 1. But these states control most the US economy. He may get Georgia to reopen, but if California and New York tell him to go fuck off, there's not much he can do.
Attorney General William Barr has made noises about suing states into reopening. Of course, this runs into the wall of the 10th Amendment, reserving rather substantial powers to the states. Unless the GOP really wants to turn the US into a unitary republic with no powers to the states just as the Democrats are poised to take power in DC, I don't foresee this going much of anywhere.
What this pandemic has shown is the dire predicament the country will be in when those in power in Washington don't much care about a national emergency, only insofar as it redounds to their own electoral prospects. Governors have filled the void left by the GOP-led federal government.
Our overweening federal government is a product of the calamities of the 20th Century, from world wars to depression to Cold War. Before we entered the war in Europe in 1917, the federal government was relatively weak compared to that of the states. But the Great War, followed in quick succession by Prohibition and then the Great Depression, tilted the field in the favor of centralization.
What this episode might see is a resetting of the relationship between the center and the periphery. The center has shown that it cannot hold once in the hands of a kakistocracy. State and local governments, by and large, are more beholden to local voters. And even if they tow the party line, they will soon be shown up for the empty suits they are. Do not doubt that the Georgia governor's decision to reopen the state while coronavirus cases are exploding won't have an effect on his and his party's electoral prospects.
Power and politics in the US go through cycles. For the past century we have been in an ascendancy of the central government over those of the states, for various and good reasons. However, as many states have shown themselves to be much more responsive to a plague, we are about to see a reversal, where states again take upon themselves powers reserved to them by the Constitution. I'm in no way arguing for a new Articles of Confederation. Instead, I'm arguing for separating the powers between the federal government and the states, as it was before the 20th century, but with 21st century sensibilities. This won't be without hiccups. You'll have retrograde states wanting to go back to 1850. But if you want a nice, uninterrupted, calm life, then you're out of luck. Donald Trump has put federalism back into the conversation. We need to control that conversation for the benefit of all Americans.