Is Secession Workable?

With secession becoming a much more relevant topic in 2023, the question then becomes can it work?

Syracuse Professor Ryan Griffiths studies the topic from a global perspective. He thinks secession can and does work, but not in the United States.

Yet, this is an amazing development. Griffiths doesn’t use the same tired arguments that secession is illegal or the War settled it.

Nope.

He just doesn’t think the United States has the right cultural ingredients for it to work.

We can quibble about that point, but I love it that a mainstream academic has abandoned the tired Lincolnian arguments that come from Righteous Cause Mythologists.

Griffiths even produced a college level textbook on secession.

That would have been impossible two decades ago.

This means three things:

1. Secessionists need to be taken seriously.

2. “Decentralization” education is working.

3. The Righteous Cause Myth is facing a decline.

Griffiths also argues that the real solution for American political problems can be found in federalism.

This may also be true, as I’ve argued for a long time.

Regardless, secession and decentralization is now becoming mainstream, and that is a beautiful thing.

I discuss Griffiths’s piece on Episode 814 of The Brion McClanahan Show.