If the alternative to dictatorship is civil war, what kind of civil war might be winnable?
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I was against billionaires before it was cool to be against billionaires, as the saying goes:
To compete against a billionaire is to fight a foe with endless reserves: No matter how much they might lose in a particular battle, there are more soldiers to fight the next one. This is how Russia continues to maintain a presence in Ukraine despite being out-commanded and outmaneuvered on the battlefield.
This is from my very first article for WhoWhatWhy, warning, a little over two years ago, of the dangers of billionaires and calling for every billionaire to be taxed out of existence because they threaten the market in the exact same way as do economic monopolies.
Now, along with you, I’m watching MAGA mega mogul Elon Musk take a bulldozer to the executive branch and our venerable system of checks and balances.
Americans are accustomed to shifts in partisan control but it is obvious that this takeover far transcends that. Donald Trump, Musk, and a gang of other bad billionaires are running amok and trampling our democracy underfoot.
Don’t let the residual normality of daily life for most of us fool you. What’s happening in Washington has many of the hallmarks of a chaotic but ferocious coup; and, indeed, in the words of University of Texas professor Josh Busby, “It’s like the US was defeated in war and is being occupied by a hostile enemy.”
As a chess player and a trial lawyer, I’m keenly aware of the importance of strategy, tactics, and timing, and right now it’s time to discuss the strategies and tactics for successfully resisting a dictatorship.
Contemplating the Worst Case
Tactics and strategies contemplate not only what is, but what might be. We have seen the vice president cheerfully float ignoring court orders. We have seen the Republican-controlled Congress prove itself a rubber stamp to appointees that range from merely unqualified to run their agencies to actually adverse to and a threat to destroy those agencies. An anti-vaxxer in charge of Health and Human Services at what may well be the start of a pandemic would make even Orwell blush.
And that’s just one small slice of a very poisonous pie. Donald Trump’s administration has taken clearly unconstitutional stances on such domestic matters as government funding, agency shutdowns, and birthright citizenship. Globally, it has suddenly “switched sides,” abandoned stabilizing alliances with other democracies, aligned itself with murderous dictatorships, and sought imperialistic territorial expansion. As Sen. Jeff Merkely (D-OR) recently asked, “What else could a Russian asset … possibly do that Trump hasn’t yet done?”
All this with little or no evident concern for who is hurt or who might resist. And no sign of levelling off and settling down to govern in even a normal-adjacent manner.
There has been a judicial response to some of their acts. Individuals, organizations, agencies, and blue states have all been active litigants. Perhaps it will prove sufficient to rein in the worst impulses of Musk and Trump. But let’s enter the world of the hypothetical — indeed likely — and suppose not.
And let’s further suppose that, having ignored several court orders, they take actions either suspending elections or, more likely, hollowing them out in such a way as to make them as meaningless as they are in Hungary under Viktor Orban, or Russia under best-bud Vladimir Putin. Certainly, what’s happening in and to Ukraine puts Trump’s America decisively on the anti-democracy side of the world, and that’s not a good omen for the hope of democracy domestically. It’s more than reasonable to assume that to whatever extent we’ve had fair elections since 2000, they’re going to get a whole lot less fair.
Can we depend on a political solution to such a coup?
Certainly the legislative branch can impeach an overreaching executive, as happened recently in South Korea. However we have already seen the US Congress fail to convict twice, including most egregiously after Trump’s violent mob acted to overturn an election. And the Congress now seated gives every indication of somehow being yet more supine than the one we had in 2021. So in this hypothetical it is reasonable to assume a political solution will not be forthcoming.
Nonviolent protests have worked in the past to bring down nonrepresentative or corrupt governments. The Arab Spring brought down several corrupt regimes in the Middle East — leaving aside the difficulties encountered in replacing them with more representative or more stable and less corrupt governments.
Taking to the streets in record numbers, Puerto Ricans were able to force out what they claimed was an unresponsive and corrupt administration. And the massive civil right protests in the 1960s in the southern states forced real reforms — including the National Voting Rights Act, which finally made possible significant participation by minorities in the South nearly a hundred years after those rights were theoretically granted by the amended Constitution.
Given the likelihood that protests and marches will not suffice, it’s reasonable to ask the question: If we reach the point where nothing suffices — the biggest protests, the most disruptive economic actions — what then?
Is there reason to believe massive nonviolent protests would bring about such a course correction if, as now seems to be in the cards, an authoritarian Trump entrenches himself in power? Or, as some suggest, would they play straight into the hands of the architects of Project 2025 and give Trump and Musk a pretext to declare martial law?
Consider that there were unprecedented numbers of people who turned out to protest the first Trump administration with little political effect. And that the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 brought an unprecedented federal crackdown to cities like Portland, where the mayor was tear-gassed when he joined the protesters.
And that was a Trump administration that stayed nominally democratic, unlike the full-fledged dictatorship contemplated here.
Given the likelihood that protests and marches will not suffice, it’s reasonable to ask the question: If we reach the point where nothing suffices — the biggest protests, the most disruptive economic actions — what then?
Might that appalling situation lead to consideration of the secession of blue states, either individually or in concert?
Faced with the death of our 250-year-old democracy, and no other effective means of preserving it, might secession turn out to be the only answer left standing?
Giving Thought to the Unthinkable
Such thoughts, until very recently, were far fringe, well outside serious discussion. For one reason above all others: The last secession led directly to the Civil War, the only major war ever fought on American soil and a catastrophically bloody one. And that was in the days of the musket and cannon.
So a big part of the consideration must be the anticipated reaction of Donald Trump, the putative dictator faced with the loss of one or more states, the contraction of America. The same Donald Trump who seems bent on expanding his big, beautiful country, adding Greenland, Panama, Gaza, Canada. Not the kind of dictator likely to say, “Great, two (or four or eight or 12) fewer Democratic senators to deal with! Go with my blessings and have a nice life!” Truly hard to imagine such a “conscious uncoupling.”
No, the likelihood, verging on certainty, is that this would be, to put it very mildly, a contested divorce, with Trump’s loyalty-tested military deployed in full force to bring the treasonous Marxist miscreants to heel. (That is, unless Trump’s cadet-bonespurs cowardice gets the better of him and he decides to settle for a few trillion dollars worth of mineral rights in exchange for the diminution of his domain. Which, I suppose, is always possible, but not something to be counted on.)
So, again in the worst-case scenario, the question becomes whether the anticipated war beats life in an evil dictator’s imperial dictatorship — and whether such a war would be winnable.
A True Hobson’s Choice
Such a situation presents an unwelcome and uncomfortable choice, but one no less real for being so unsettling. The three bad options: dictatorship, revolution, secession.
A revolution would be inherently catastrophic, with no guarantee of victory. Might a secession of blue states, either individually or in concert, possibly be less violent and destabilizing? Of course, like a revolution, a secession could trigger a civil war, but one that would have the advantage of being a defensive rather than an offensive one. Ukraine has shown us that it’s possible to defend oneself against a far stronger military power for years. And that in turn might just discourage even an enraged dictator from military adventurism.
The advantages that geographic secession might have over general uprising should of course not blind anyone to the seismic upheaval either one of these two last-ditch courses would entail. But should that “when in the course of human events” day arrive, it may be useful to have thought through what the breaking of bonds might look like.
This course also has the advantage, in the event of success, of not needing to reinvent government. California and other blue states already provide protection of civil rights and regulation of industries for their residents. A revolution certainly would provide no such protection during the fight and quite possibly not after either. And the disruption to people’s lives would be enormous.
The advantages that geographic secession might have over general uprising should of course not blind anyone to the seismic upheaval either one of these two last-ditch courses would entail. But should that “when in the course of human events” day arrive, it may be useful to have thought through what the “dissolv[ing] of political bands” might look like.
The stronger the bloc of states that seceded, both economically and demographically, the greater deterrence of a military invasion. Oregon and Washington, both blue states and with many economic ties directly to California, could make a geographically linked new country occupying the entire West Coast. What remained of the US would then either have to conquer via invasion or make new trade agreements to access any of the goods shipped to what is currently the largest port in the US.
If the three West Coast states chose to secede, how would a dictatorial Trump administration respond?
Trump has often expressed his vitriol towards his political enemies. Would his animus towards these blue states lead to his welcoming their exit? Or would he be moved to take up arms to avenge the insult?
Would military forces that welcomed violence against protesters or revolutionaries trying to unseat the government be less willing to invade and make war on their fellow Americans for just wishing to go their separate ways? How would the neo-Confederate followers of Trump who proudly fly the Confederate flag react to a new war to preserve the Union?
How oppressive, how appalling would existence in Trump’s Fourth Reich have to get before Americans concluded it was time to ask these questions and take a chance on the answers?
Break Glass, Pull Together?
Taking the secession concept further, it is arguable that the quest for economic power and population size would call for the exiting West Coast states to combine with their blue-leaning counterparts on the East Coast, such as New York and the six states comprising New England.
The most glaring problem with this configuration, though, would be geographic discontinuity — a fragmented “blue” country surrounding a presumably hostile “red” one. The logistics, whether military or mercantile, would be daunting at best.
Venturing even further outside the box — and taking a cue from none other than Trump himself — one possible solution to this problem would entail merger of the east and west “wings” of the new country with, you guessed it, Canada. The resulting country — call it “Camerada” — would consist of west and east coast blue states connected, in a giant contiguous upside-down “U,” by the Canadian provinces. Camerada might then invite “swing” states — from Minnesota to Pennsylvania to Virginia — to join, via plebiscite.
In a sense, it would be a great liberation for both progressives and MAGAs, a chance to follow their principles without constant reversals and sabotages. Above all, Camerada at least would be a functional democracy, and that democracy would not be under internal siege.
The resources and power, both military and economic, of such a nation would be formidable indeed, and its politics reliably progressive. It would, to be sure, have its own internal disagreements — what nation doesn’t? — but nothing on the scale and destructive intensity of the culture war between the heartland MAGA and coastal elite tribes, so successfully stoked by Trump and the far-right media machine.
In a sense, it would be a great liberation for both progressives and MAGAs, a chance to follow their principles without constant reversals and sabotages. Above all, Camerada at least would be a functional democracy, and that democracy would not be under internal siege.
There would be, to be sure, plenty of kinks to work out, and plenty of questions to answer.
Would Canadians — who show no interest in becoming Trump’s 51st state — approve of this very different arrangement, but one that still puts a surrender of national sovereignty in the balance? What would MAGAs in blue states and Democrats in red states do? Would they relocate en masse, or stick it out as dwarfed minorities in their new countries? Would they take up arms for their political “tribe?” How would purple states like Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Michigan make up their collective minds?
Could such a seismic upheaval possibly be achieved peacefully?
The hard truth is that the answer to that last question is almost certainly not. But, viewed through the same “realistic” lens, it is at least as likely that the other, smaller secession efforts would also trigger a military response from Trump. Then the question becomes, rather bluntly, who would win? And it is in the answer to that question that the Camerada plan would commend itself as offering the best, if not only, prospect of victory in the conflict expected to ensue — as well as by far the best prospects for long-term economic stability and prosperity.
If we’re not ossified, if we’re open to change, why not good change — change that might mean better lives for more humans, a better global world order, and better stewardship of the planet?
The rearrangement — worthy, perhaps, of the old board game Risk — would, at first blush, seem to be miles outside any box. But is it any further, really, than Trump’s imperial quest to swallow Canada whole (along with Greenland, Panama, and Gaza)? So, if the media can calmly discuss and dissect Trump’s plans for national engorgement, why not alternate plans for political transformation?
If we’re not ossified, if we’re open to change, why not good change — change that might mean better lives for more humans, a better global world order, and better stewardship of the planet?
We’re left with this: In a hypothetical with no easy outcomes, starting from the premise of a true dictatorship installed in the United States, one form or another of secession might turn out to be the best hope for self-preservation, as well as keeping alive the dream of freedom America represents.
Doug Ecks is a lawyer and writer. He holds a JD from the University of California, Hastings and a BA in philosophy from California State University, Long Beach, Phi Beta Kappa. He also writes and performs comedy as Doug X.
