One nation, divisible ...

February 18, 2021

This cheeky Internet meme surfaced after the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, satirizing the political divide between northern and southern regions of North America, including socially liberal Canada. The meme was a map depicting a blue "United States of Canada" and a red "Jesusland". Created by a Brit, the drawing suggested that Americans in blue states are closer in spirit to Canadians than they are to those living in the more conservative and religious parts of their own country.

The map wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t exactly right either. What’s indisputable, however, is that the concoction humorously illustrated America’s fault lines that now extend to Colorado and increasingly to Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Virginia, and Nevada. But a more powerful red bloc of Republican states persists because of America’s deeply flawed political architecture that enables voters in red states, or “Jesusland”, to have an outsized say in matters of governance over voters in blue states.

For example, this month the bloc of 57 senators who voted to convict Trump represented 202 million Americans, or 62 percent of the total — and represented 76,704,798 more Americans than were represented by the 43 Senators who voted to acquit, according to a brilliant analysis in Vox. Just one more vote to convict would have represented the will of 66 2/3 percent of the populace, but even that wouldn’t have won the day either. Impeachment requires 66 2/3 percent of the Senate votes available or the assent of a total of 67 Senators which, if obtained, would have represented a great deal more than 66 2/3 percent of the population.

To blame for this unfairness is the two-seats-per-state Senate requirement that discriminates against big states in favor of peanut-sized ones. This has always been the case, but this year’s impeachment outcome highlights the injustice brought about by this undemocratic architecture.

The Senate was devised by the Founders in the 18th century who feared the tyranny of the mob. But, as things turned out, their architecture has, instead, encouraged it. The Senate was designed to mitigate the House’s power, based on representation by a population that was comprised at the time of unruly, uneducated louts. For similar reasons, they created the Electoral College, with state-appointed representatives, who were in charge of vetting the popular vote for the Presidency. Both institutional set-ups flouted the principle of “one person, one vote”, but were deemed by these aristocrats to serve a higher purpose.

They didn’t. Both have exacerbated divisions and damage to the body politic. The Senate failed to convict former President Donald Trump over the wishes of Senators representing 202 million Americans, and the winner-take-all Electoral College also has failed by allowing the election of five candidates as Presidents who did not win the popular vote, most recently George W. Bush in 2000 and the woefully inadequate firebrand Donald Trump in 2016.

These unique American institutions have not prevented the tyranny of the mob but emboldened it and even threatened themselves. Unable to accept the election, Trump organized and stoked a mob that aimed to injure Senators and Representatives, trash their premises, and impede the Electoral College process. The mob mentality has also been fortified by another poorly designed institution, the Supreme Court whose lifetime appointments by politicians have created an entrenched, biased court of the final appeal.

Its worst recent decision took place in 2013 when the Court’s five Republican-appointed judges gutted controls contained in the Voting Rights Act. This allowed nine culprit states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without requiring advance federal approval any longer. The result has been the disenfranchisement of millions of black voters through gerrymandering and voter suppression laws, aimed at further leveraging the influence of a handful of red states.

Such institutional failures must be reversed to end the march toward even more red hegemony. If not, divisions will worsen and political fault lines could solidify into nation-state borders. That’s not to say that the United States of Canada will come to pass. The Canadian system, believe me, has its own institutional shortcomings. But consider the independent political steps taken by the blue states led by California and New York concerning the COVID19 crisis. These states spun off into regional sub-national entities to meet their needs in the face of White House intransigence and incompetence. Blue states formed three regional coalitions designed to enact public health policies and initiatives that were more aggressive and science-based than Washington proposed or than red states enacted. Not coincidentally, these new coalitions included most of the blue states in the “Jesusland” map -- the three Pacific states, most Great Lakes states, and mid-Atlantic states around New York plus a handful of neighboring states.

California led the way, a state that could easily become an independent nation. With an economic output twice the size of Canada’s, the Golden State is just behind Germany in terms of GDP. Combined with Oregon and Washington states, America’s three west coast states would, if independent, overtake Germany as the world’s fourth-largest economy. Likewise, New York’s increasingly alienated 29 million people comprise a giant economy as big as Canada’s.

Even though these states financially underpin the nation, they are overlooked, bad-mouthed, and resented. During a COVID19 skirmish over federal funds, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, rejected calls for more financial aid to the states, to help them bear the burden of public health-care costs. He suggested they should just declare bankruptcy and, to further underscore his disdain, his office sent out a press release under the heading “Stopping Blue State Bailouts.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo reacted immediately and called McConnell’s statement irresponsible: “You’re not bailing out New York. New York is bailing you out. Every year, we put more money into the federal pot than any other state, and Kentucky is the number 3 state in terms of taking money from the federal pot. Give me my money back.”

Trump also stirred the pot by Tweeting that his followers should “liberate” blue states under lockdown, specifically Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia, led by Democratic governors. Protests, in defiance of public health orders and full of “Trump 2020” posters and Confederate flags, followed. This stoked the crazies in Michigan to the point where armed groups invaded its capitol building to intimidate its Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who had been viciously scapegoated by President Trump. Months later, 13 domestic terrorists were arrested for plotting to kidnap and kill her.

The Republicans also weaponized the national treasury by handing out huge bailouts to major corporations that provided political donations, as well as by punishing small businesses in blue states, in favor of those in red states. For example, according to Bloomberg News, as of April 17, 56 percent of small business relief applications were approved in South Carolina, 58 percent in Texas, 66 percent in Utah, 69 percent in Kentucky, 79 percent in Kansas, and 82 percent in Nebraska. By comparison, only 44.6 percent of applications from Washington state were approved, 40.1 percent from New York, 38.4 percent from California, and 30.4 percent from Washington, D.C.

Such open and escalating political warfare represents a clear and present danger to the Republic. The dumping of Trump by the electorate in 2020 is a welcome development, but won’t, in and of itself, preclude future voting injustices and recurrences of anti-blue sabotage. There must be institutional reforms and a purge by Republicans of Trump and his followers from the party.

It’s also about time for the blue states to assert their authority and throw their considerable weight around, together or separately. There is no question that Blue America is richer, more important, more educated, and more viable than the rest of the country, yet it’s captive to a system that denies it voting equality. This represents an existential threat to the United States of America. Either the red tail stops wagging the blue dog, and institutions change, or the country will.

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Note: “Jesusland” map was on yakyak.org, an Internet message board for fans of the work of Jeff Minter
Supreme Court cartoon: bostonglobe.com
California cartoon: newaroundthecabin.com