We may want to contract with some of the top marketing firms in the country, because the United States is probably going to need a new name in the future.
There is a growing push–mostly from the left in this country–to do away with states. Or more specifically, to do away with the statutory powers of states and their role in governance of the nation. It started to pick up momentum in 2016 after Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly three million–but still won the Electoral College by 77 electors–capturing 30 of the 50 state races. It has since grown as Democratic measures have been stymied in the Senate–where each state has equal representation.
It’s not hard to find scholarly articles from a number of university professors and liberal think tanks making the argument for all but doing away with the idea of states having equal powers. Supporters of the 1619 Project try to make the argument that institutions based on equal representation of states, like the Electoral College and the Senate, were set up specifically to preserve the powers of slaveholding states from the early days of the nation to the end of the Civil War–and therefore are intrinsically racist. Historians will tell you that the shapes, sizes and dates of admissions of many of the non-original 13 states are related to the balance of slave and free states in the Union pre-Civil War. A search of “Why are there two Dakotas” will result in dozens of arguments for combining small-population states in order to dilute Republican chances of winning the presidential election in the Electoral College and control of the Senate.
Now, the argument for doing away with states will gain even greater fuel if the Supreme Court is to overturn Roe v Wade and no longer offer federal protection for the practice of abortion. The leaked opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito appears to take the approach that the court in 1973 erred in deciding that abortion should be legal everywhere because the 14th Amendment offers equal protection to all citizens–whereas Alito believes it falls under the purview of the 10th Amendment that holds if a certain right or government power is not spelled out in the Constitution, it falls to the states to handle. That is Federalism at its core.
So if Roe is overturned, it will mean a patchwork of laws will go into effect–where abortion will be illegal in all cases in some states, legal with varying limitations in other states, and legal with almost no limitations in still more states. Which, ironically enough, is almost what we already have.
But what those who are pushing for elimination of state powers seem to conveniently forget, is that in many cases they are already enjoying the codification of some of the laws and “rights” they think are being blocked by Federalism. You need to look no further than Roe itself. The ruling legalizes abortion in all states up to 15-weeks. Just two states–Texas and Oklahoma–have state laws more restrictive than that. And those laws were passed in the past month. 48-other states currently have abortion laws on the books that allow the procedure up to a minimum of 20-weeks–more than a month longer than the federal standard set by Roe.
Another example would be the legality of marijuana. We have a federal law on the books dealing with pot. It is a controlled substance and is illegal to possess, use, or distribute. And yet, there are 38-states with their own laws legalizing some forms of marijuana use and sales–both medicinal and recreational. And states where it remains illegal in all forms–like Wisconsin–are inundated with advertising from neighboring states encouraging residents to cross state lines to enjoy legal pot (just don’t try to take it home!!)
If current population trends continue and the imbalance between urban states and and rural states continues to grow, those in the most-populous states will see less and less need to share power with those where “there are more cows than people”–and the push toward a more-powerful federal government will pick up even more steam. States will become more like the Soviet republics–where local government structure will exist–but just to enforce the edicts coming from urban representatives making up the majority in Washington, DC and not really “representing” the people living there.
And that is why the Founding Fathers set up our system of government the way they did.
Anyways, back to that new name for the country. Oceania would be my suggestion, but that has already been used in an alternate dystopian future.
