1781

1781, the notion of Federalism is nigh thanks to COVID-19 and the irresponsible and inept actions of The Donald raises the possibility of splintering the country whereby the notion of The United States of America becomes but a mirage of the first order.

Covid-19 is not just changing Americans’ daily lives, it may also transform their system of government. On many important current issues, the U.S. may end up with an arrangement that looks more like the Articles of Confederation than the Constitution.

Consider how this might evolve. First, states and regions are recovering (or not) at dramatically different rates. The worst may be over for much of California and Washington State — but New York City, because of its density and reliance on the subway, may find the problem especially difficult to control. Louisiana is on the verge of catastrophe, while some other states, such as Virginia, are still not sure how bad it will be.

Hence the idea that America is inching closer to what it was under the Articles of Confederation, which governed the U.S. from 1781 to 1789. The U.S. constitutional order has not changed in any explicit manner, but the issues on which the states are allowed to diverge have gone from being modest and relatively inconsequential to significant and meaningful if not dominant.

Example 1

This divergence may create further pressures on federalism. In Rhode Island, for example, state police have sought to stop cars with New York state license plates at the border, hindering or delaying their entrance. Whether such activities are constitutional, most governors do have broad authority to invoke far-reaching emergency powers.

Bringing the concept of splintering to the nth degree is John Feffer's powerful novella Splinterlands where climate change, combined with resource depletion and environmental degradation, becomes an all too real dystopian nightmare of the first order.

1781 indeed.