Why Soft Secession Won’t Work (And What Will)

A Constitutional and Governance Architecture Analysis

I’ve been thinking about Christopher Armitage’s soft secession framework for months now. Initially, I couldn’t articulate exactly why it felt wrong. The documentation was solid - he’s cataloging real patterns of state resistance, real political appetite for change. But something about the conclusion didn’t sit right, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Part of the difficulty was that I hadn’t yet developed the language to explain the problem. Over the past couple months, I’ve been studying constitutional law not as an academic exercise, but as necessary groundwork for developing the legal framework that would make the Governance Design Agency possible. The more I understand the constitutional architecture - how it actually works, what it permits, what it forbids - the clearer the problems with soft secession become.

I understand the appeal. We’re watching authoritarians capture federal institutions in real-time. A president who tried to overturn an election now deploys unidentifiable federal agents in tactical gear and defied roughly a third of 160 court orders in his first year back in office. Congressional Republicans enable it. The Supreme Court clears the path. Meanwhile, Trump attacks our allies - Canada has responded with increased border security, tensions escalate over Greenland, and European partners question US reliability. Blue states are scrambling to protect their residents using every constitutional mechanism available.

When you’re watching this unfold, “let’s just separate” feels like self-defense. I get it.

But soft secession has two fundamental problems. One is legal: it’s constitutionally impossible. The other is structural: even if you could do it, it would make everything worse. This isn’t just legal nitpicking. It’s governance architecture analysis.

Chris Armitage is doing necessary work. His documentation of state resistance mechanisms and political appetite for decentralization matters. His soft secession framework and proposal for EU-style federation have gained significant traction. Others have built on his framework - immigration attorney Mike Baker has analyzed how conservative Supreme Court decisions on federalism “unintentionally provided Democratic-led states with the legal framework now being used to resist federal authority.” But soft secession isn’t the answer. Here’s why.

What Armitage Gets Right

Let me start by acknowledging where Armitage’s analysis is valuable, because his documentation IS valuable even if his conclusion is wrong.

Federal dysfunction is real and accelerating. We can all see it. Government shutdowns, policy whiplash every 4-8 years, regulatory capture, gridlock that prevents addressing obvious problems. This isn’t partisan perception - it’s observable reality that frustrates people across the political spectrum.

State resistance is happening everywhere. Democratic governors are holding emergency sessions to safeguard state-level democracy. Their attorneys general are moving with unprecedented speed, often filing lawsuits within 24 hours of executive orders—a “rapid-fire” strategy that led to 71 lawsuits in 2025 alone, with states winning roughly 78% of resolved cases.

Meanwhile, state legislatures are passing laws that amount to practical defiance of federal mandates. This includes “shield laws” for reproductive healthcare designed to block federal subpoenas and state-level “Bivens” acts in states like Illinois and California that strip federal agents of qualified immunity in state courts. On the other side, Texas continues to invoke state authority at the border, supported by a joint statement from 26 Republican governors. Additionally, nearly half of U.S. counties have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries to resist federal gun control. This isn’t just theory. It’s happening.

Political appetite for decentralization exists across the spectrum. The Convention of States movement needs 34 state legislatures to trigger an Article V constitutional convention - they have 20. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact has 209 of the 270 electoral votes needed to effectively abolish the Electoral College. My home state of Utah passed the Constitutional Sovereignty Act in 2024, creating a formal process for the legislature to challenge federal actions with supermajority votes. These aren’t fringe movements. They represent genuine frustration with federal dysfunction.

Interstate compacts actually work. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative runs a shared cap-and-trade carbon market across 10 states with its own administrative agency. The Nurse Licensure Compact lets registered nurses practice across 43 states with a single license. The Interstate Medical Licensure Compact does the same for physicians in 42 states. These are quasi-governmental structures with binding regulatory authority, and they function.

Armitage documents all of this thoroughly. Where we align: states should use every available constitutional mechanism. Interstate cooperation should be expanded. Federal overreach should be challenged. We need structural change, not just different personnel.

But the path he proposes - soft secession toward EU-style confederation using existing constitutional mechanisms - doesn’t work. Not because the problem isn’t real. Because the solution is legally impossible and structurally counterproductive.

To understand why, we need to define what “soft secession” actually means - because Armitage slides between legal and illegal actions without acknowledging the difference. His recent article proposing an EU-style federation for America and his earlier piece on soft secession both make the same fundamental error.

Defining Soft Secession: The Legal Reality

In Armitage’s articles on soft secession and EU-style confederation, he describes blue state leaders war-gaming scenarios, holding strategy sessions, and preparing for federal overreach. He documents specific actions states are taking or considering. But when you separate what he describes into legal categories, a pattern emerges: he’s mixing constitutional federalism with unconstitutional nullification and presenting them as a coherent strategy.

Here’s what he describes that’s legal under existing constitutional law:

States refusing to help enforce federal law through anti-commandeering. Massachusetts Governor Healey saying state police won’t help with deportations. This is legitimate - the Supreme Court confirmed in Printz v. United States (1997) and Murphy v. NCAA (2018) that the federal government cannot force states to implement federal programs. Justice Scalia wrote in Printz that the federal government cannot “issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems.” Justice Alito expanded this in Murphy, ruling that federal law cannot put state legislatures under “direct control of Congress.”

There’s an irony here that soft secession advocates enjoy pointing out: conservative justices created this doctrine to protect state sovereignty, never imagining blue states would use it for progressive resistance. But that irony doesn’t change the legal limits. Anti-commandeering permits non-cooperation. It doesn’t permit nullification.

Interstate compacts for coordination. The National Popular Vote compact, Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Climate Alliance. These are real mechanisms for interstate cooperation.

State-level policy innovation in areas not preempted by federal law. Cannabis decriminalization under state law, state voting rights acts that exceed federal protections, automatic voter registration. States exercising reserved powers under the Tenth Amendment.

Coordinated legal challenges. Democratic attorneys general filing lawsuits, building “brief banks” of prepared legal challenges. This is normal adversarial federalism.

This is just... federalism. Aggressive federalism, yes. But nothing “soft secession” about it.

Now here’s what he describes that’s legally dubious or clearly illegal:

“Render federal authority meaningless within their borders.” This isn’t anti-commandeering. This is attempted nullification.

Denying federal agents access to state databases, airports, highways. Moving from non-cooperation to active interference with federal operations.

States “exploring whether they can legally deny federal agents access” or “close airspace to federal deportation flights.” The fact that they’re “exploring” this should tell you something - it’s dubious at best.

Washington Attorney General Nick Brown sued the Adams County Sheriff to stop cooperation with federal immigration enforcement in March 2025. This flips anti-commandeering on its head—now the state is using its “sanctuary” law, the Keep Washington Working Act, to actively prevent local law enforcement from assisting federal authorities in an area of exclusive federal jurisdiction.

“Federal government becomes a hollow structure that states ignore.” This is the conclusion - functional nullification dressed up as resistance.

“States quietly walking away from each other.” This is secession, not federalism.

The problem is that Armitage presents these as existing on a continuum. He moves seamlessly from “Massachusetts won’t help with deportations” (legal) to “states exploring authority to close airspace” (probably illegal) to “rendering federal authority meaningless” (definitely illegal).

But these aren’t points on a continuum. They’re categorically different legal positions.

He also claims blue states are “finally learning what red states have known” and cites Texas Operation Lone Star as proof the playbook works. But this comparison is legally wrong. Texas isn’t using anti-commandeering at the border - they’re attempting to exercise exclusive federal authority over immigration and border control, which Arizona v. United States (2012) explicitly forbids. Blue state sanctuary policies refuse to help enforce federal law (legal). Texas border enforcement attempts to override federal jurisdiction (illegal). These aren’t equivalent.

Even the cannabis example that Armitage uses to show soft secession working actually proves the opposite. States decriminalized cannabis under state law - that’s legal. But federal law still applies. Federal agents can still enforce it. Dispensaries still technically violate federal law. What happened is that the federal government chose not to enforce aggressively as a matter of prosecutorial discretion. The law didn’t change. Enforcement priorities did. That’s not nullification. That’s federal restraint. (38 states have legalized medical cannabis, 24 for recreational use)

Some advocates point to historical precedent to support their framework. Immigration attorney Mike Baker cites Northern personal liberty laws (1780-1859) that made the Fugitive Slave Act “a dead letter” through state non-cooperation. Only 330 slaves were returned over 80 years despite federal law requiring their return. States passed legislation forbidding use of state resources, providing legal protections, and penalizing officials who cooperated with federal slave catchers.

But this precedent was rejected. The Civil War settled that states cannot nullify federal law. Citing pre-1861 nullification as precedent for modern soft secession is like arguing secession itself is constitutional because states did it before the war. The constitutional settlement after 620,000+ deaths is clear: that path doesn’t work. Texas v. White (1869) made it explicit - there is no right of unilateral secession or nullification.

Baker also invokes Yale Law Professor Heather Gerken’s concept of “uncooperative federalism” - the idea that states derive significant power from their role as servants in the federal system. This is a legitimate framework for understanding anti-commandeering. States can refuse to be drafted into federal service. That’s real constitutional doctrine.

But soft secession advocates extend this beyond what it legally supports. Gerken describes how states can use federally-conferred power to resist federal policy through non-cooperation. What she doesn’t say is that states can make federal authority “meaningless” or create functional nullification. The difference matters: refusing to help enforce federal law (legal) versus actively preventing federal enforcement (illegal).

Most tellingly, Baker states the goal openly: creating “a United States that’s united in name only.” This isn’t aggressive federalism. This is functional dissolution of the union.

So what is “soft secession” actually?

In its legal form, it’s aggressive use of federalism tools - anti-commandeering, compacts, reserved powers - plus coordinated resistance across states. The problem: this is just federalism, and it doesn’t accomplish the stated goals of functional separation.

In its aspirational form - what advocates like Baker openly describe as creating “a United States that’s united in name only” - it’s states “rendering federal authority meaningless,” “walking away from each other,” creating “parallel systems” that function “independently of federal authority.” The problem: this requires either massive federal legislative buy-in OR constitutional violation.

The historical precedent they cite (pre-Civil War nullification) was explicitly rejected by the Civil War and Texas v. White. The theoretical framework they invoke (Gerken’s uncooperative federalism) doesn’t support making federal authority “meaningless.” The examples they use (cannabis, sanctuary cities) prove the opposite - federal law still applies, the federal government simply chooses enforcement priorities.

There’s no middle ground where soft secession is both legal AND effective at achieving functional separation from federal authority.

Either way, soft secession fails the first test: legal viability. But even if it were legal - even if you could wave a magic wand and make it constitutional - it would still be a terrible idea. Here’s why.

The Governance Architecture Problems

Division creates worse problems than it solves. Armitage’s framework assumes that if red and blue states go their separate ways, each governing according to their own values, this would reduce federal conflict and allow genuine policy diversity.

But interstate issues don’t disappear just because states decide not to cooperate. Rivers cross state lines. Air pollution doesn’t respect borders. Disease spreads. People migrate. Commerce flows. Supply chains connect. You’d still need coordination mechanisms for all of this.

The difference is that now you’d have less institutional capacity and more hostility. You’d be creating the exact coordination problems that the European Union constantly struggles to navigate - except the EU started with sovereign nations that had their own complete governmental systems. We’d be fragmenting an integrated system and then trying to rebuild coordination from scratch. Worse, the EU is actively moving toward deeper fiscal and political integration precisely because their fragmented architecture caused the Eurozone crisis - requiring coordinated responses they struggled to achieve. Soft secession would move us in the opposite direction from where even the EU recognizes it needs to go.

Here’s the irony: the EU is currently trying to move TOWARD deeper fiscal integration precisely because their fragmented architecture caused the Eurozone crisis. They’re attempting what economists call a “Hamiltonian moment” - creating the kind of fiscal union we already have - because fragmentation failed. Soft secession proposes we voluntarily create the problems the EU is desperately trying to solve.

The real problem isn’t centralization versus decentralization. The problem is badly designed governance architecture.

Look at examples of well-designed centralized systems that work: The Federal Reserve, Social Security, the National Weather Service. These function properly regardless of which party controls the White House because they have professional design, clear missions, and proper insulation from political cycles.

The dysfunction we see in government comes from structural misalignments where incentives select for gridlock, lack of professional governance design, missing accountability mechanisms, and 18th-century architecture trying to serve 21st-century complexity.

Soft secession doesn’t fix any of this. You’d still have special interests capturing state governments. You’d still have information asymmetries between citizens and officials. You’d still have perverse incentives built into political systems. You’d still have amateur governance design by politicians who’ve never studied systems engineering. Now you’d also have coordination nightmares between quasi-sovereign entities that used to work together.

Decentralize power to states without fixing the underlying architecture, and you just get the same problems replicated at the state level - plus new interstate coordination problems you didn’t have before.

But here’s what makes soft secession especially dangerous right now: the current crisis of authoritarian capture makes this the worst possible time to fragment institutional capacity.

Meanwhile, Trump’s “America First” posture has shifted from diplomatic friction to active threats against historic partners. Beyond the ongoing tensions with Canada, the administration sparked an international crisis in January 2026 by threatening a 25% tariff on the EU and the UK unless Denmark cedes Greenland to the United States. Simultaneously, Trump has publicly disparaged NATO troops, claiming they “stayed off the frontlines” in Afghanistan—comments that NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called “painful” given the thousands of non-U.S. casualties in the conflict.

This fear of overreach is grounded in the return of unidentifiable federal forces. In January 2026, the administration deployed a massive surge of roughly 2,000 agents to Minneapolis, where masked personnel in full tactical gear have been documented conducting warrantless arrests and suspicionless stops. This practice has created a dangerous lack of accountability that criminals are already exploiting; news reports from late 2025 and early 2026 show a disturbing rise in “fake ICE agents” who use masks and unmarked tactical vests to commit robberies, extortions, and sexual assaults in immigrant communities, banking on the fact that residents can no longer tell the difference between real federal agents and imposters.

Authoritarians want fragmentation. It’s easier to pick off states individually than face united opposition. United opposition is stronger than fragmented resistance. You need collective capacity precisely when facing authoritarian capture.

There’s a historical parallel here. In the 1850s, states were asserting rights while the federal government was captured by pro-slavery forces. The division didn’t prevent the crisis - it accelerated it. The answer wasn’t separation. It was constitutional reckoning paid for in 600,000+ lives.

So soft secession fails legally. It fails practically even if it were legal. But the failure goes deeper than that. It contradicts the foundational American commitment.

The “United” Principle

The United States of America isn’t just a geographic designation or a political alliance of convenience. It’s a constitutional commitment to union. “A more perfect union” wasn’t aspirational poetry - it was a founding principle. We’re bound together by more than proximity.

What makes America supposedly different from other nations isn’t power - lots of empires have had power. It’s that we’re united not by blood, religion, or language, but by commitment to democratic self-governance across our differences. People from anywhere can become American. Democracy can work at scale across profound diversity. Pluralism is a strength, not a weakness. Proper governance architecture matters more than who governs.

This is the exceptional claim - not that we’re better than others, but that we’re attempting something genuinely different. A nation built on shared principles rather than shared ethnicity.

Soft secession abandons this claim. You can’t say you believe in the United States while advocating separation. Even “soft” secession is still secession. Division by design contradicts the constitutional project.

The Civil War settled this question. Texas v. White (1869) made it explicit: there is no right of unilateral secession. The union is permanent. States have rights, but not the right to leave. This was paid for in blood - 600,000+ deaths to establish that we don’t re-litigate this every time politics gets hard.

I’m not invoking the Civil War lightly. But the constitutional principle is clear. The answer to federal dysfunction isn’t dissolution. It’s reform.

Consider what we’d be giving up. Shared defense - and think about this carefully. You think Trump is bad on foreign policy? Imagine 50 different foreign policies while authoritarians are consolidating power globally. Economic integration - the United States is the world’s largest common market. Free movement of goods, services, capital, labor across state lines with no tariffs, no customs, no currency exchange. This creates enormous economic efficiency. Scientific and infrastructure coordination - interstate highways, CDC disease surveillance, National Weather Service, GPS, air traffic control, internet backbone, research funding through NIH and NSF, the space program. Constitutional rights enforcement - federal courts can protect rights across state lines. Without federal enforcement, you get pre-1960s dynamics where rights depend entirely on which state you live in.

The irony is thick here. People want soft secession because the federal government isn’t functioning. But federal dysfunction comes from bad architecture, not from federal government existing. Fragmenting the system would multiply the problems while eliminating the tools to solve them.

The current crisis tests whether the American idea can survive. Can we maintain union when authoritarians capture federal institutions? Can we govern ourselves when one side abandons democratic norms? Can we preserve the experiment when politics gets this hard?

Soft secession says: No, the experiment failed. Time to divide.

The governance architecture answer says: Yes, but we need better systems.

And this is where soft secession reveals its deepest contradiction - the moral and philosophical incoherence of advocating division while claiming to value diversity.

The Profound Irony

Here’s what makes soft secession particularly hard to watch: it comes from people who champion diversity, pluralism, and unity across differences.

The stated progressive values are clear: “Unity in diversity.” “We’re stronger together.” “Celebrate differences.” “Inclusive democracy.” “No one is free until we’re all free.” “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

But soft secession says: “Actually, let’s separate from the people we disagree with. Red states can do their thing, blue states can do ours. We’ll just... not live together anymore.”

You can’t hold both positions. Either you believe we can live together across our differences, or you don’t. You don’t get to believe it selectively - championing diversity when it comes to race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, but then saying “we can’t handle political diversity, so let’s segregate.”

The civil rights movement fought against “separate but equal.” It fought for the principle that we’re one nation and rights apply everywhere. You can’t invoke that legacy while proposing political segregation.

Soft secession revives “separate but equal” logic for politics: “They can have their laws, we’ll have ours.” “They can govern their way, we’ll govern ours.” “We just can’t live together.” This is segregationist thinking applied to political differences. And it comes from people who would rightly condemn that logic applied to any other form of diversity.

The deeper issue is what this says about democracy itself. Democracy isn’t just majority rule. It’s the commitment to govern ourselves across disagreements. To resolve conflicts through institutions rather than force. To protect minority rights while enabling majority governance. To make collective decisions even when we profoundly disagree.

This is hard. Much harder than autocracy where one person decides, theocracy where God supposedly decides, or separation where like-minded people govern themselves.

Soft secession gives up on democracy’s core challenge. It says we can’t actually govern ourselves across differences. We need ideological homogeneity to function. If that’s true, democracy was never viable at scale. And if you believe that, you’re not just abandoning the American experiment - you’re anti-democratic, not just un-American.

Some soft secession advocates embrace this conclusion openly. Baker writes approvingly of creating “a United States that’s united in name only.” This isn’t a bug in the framework - it’s the feature. The goal is functional dissolution of the union.

This connects to what American exceptionalism should mean, versus what it’s become.

American exceptionalism has been perverted into “we have the biggest military, therefore we’re special. Might makes right. Respect us or else.” This is just imperialism with a flag. It’s not exceptional - it’s what every empire throughout history has claimed. Rome, Britain, Soviet Union - all claimed their power proved their righteousness.

What American exceptionalism should mean is that we’re attempting something genuinely different. We built a nation not on kinship, conquest, or crown, but on the idea that proper institutions can unite diverse peoples. That democracy can work at scale. That you can become American regardless of where you’re from. That pluralism makes us stronger.

This would earn respect - not through demanding it, but through demonstrating something others want to emulate. Not “respect us because we’re powerful” but “respect us because we built something that works.”

Soft secession abandons the exceptional claim. If we can’t govern ourselves across our differences, if we need to separate into like-minded regions to function, then American exceptionalism was always a lie. The experiment failed. We’re just another collection of tribes that couldn’t figure out how to live together.

So soft secession fails on every level we examine it. Legal: constitutionally impossible without Article V amendment. Practical: creates worse governance problems than it solves. Philosophical: abandons the American commitment to union. Moral: contradicts stated values about diversity and democracy.

What’s the alternative? Not fantasy. Professional governance architecture.

Why Governance Architecture Is Superior

Governance architecture succeeds on every level where soft secession fails. Let me show you the parallel.

On the legal level, governance architecture actually works constitutionally. The honest path forward for fundamental restructuring is Article V amendment. Either 34 states call a convention and 38 ratify the amendments, or two-thirds of both houses of Congress propose amendments and 38 states ratify them.

This is hard. But it’s proven. We’ve successfully amended the Constitution 27 times. We know how to do this. Article V creates durable change through proper constitutional process. It survives legal challenge because it’s the legitimate mechanism for constitutional change. You don’t waste political capital on court battles you’ll eventually lose.

Compare this to soft secession, which is legally dubious, would face years of court challenges, and would likely fail when it reaches the Supreme Court. Even if it wins in lower courts initially, the constitutional questions would eventually be resolved against state attempts to nullify federal authority. Meanwhile, the real structural problems continue getting worse.

On the practical level, governance architecture maintains collective capacity instead of fragmenting it.

Shared defense matters more now than ever. We have united military command, shared intelligence infrastructure, and NATO credibility that depends on US unity. In a world where authoritarians are consolidating power globally, fragmenting our defense capacity would be strategic suicide.

Scientific and infrastructure coordination that we take for granted would be impossible to replicate at state level. Interstate highways. National weather forecasting. Disease surveillance through the CDC. GPS that works everywhere. Air traffic control. Internet backbone infrastructure. Research funding through NIH, NSF, DARPA. The space program. These create enormous value precisely because they’re coordinated nationally.

Constitutional rights enforcement across state lines has been hard-won. Federal courts protecting rights even in states that wouldn’t protect them. Without federal enforcement, you get pre-1960s dynamics where your rights depend entirely on geography.

The European Union is trying to build what we already have. They constantly struggle with coordination problems between member states. Brexit showed just how painful and complicated separation is even between entities that started as sovereign nations. They’re trying to build the integration we have. We’d be voluntarily fragmenting advantages they desperately want to create.

And in the current crisis with authoritarians capturing federal institutions, this matters even more. Authoritarians want fragmentation because it’s easier to pick off states individually. United opposition is stronger than fragmented resistance. We need more institutional capacity to resist authoritarian capture, not less. Soft secession creates power vacuums that authoritarians exploit.

On the philosophical level, governance architecture works regardless of who’s in power.

This is the key insight about architecture: it outlasts administrations. Well-designed systems function properly even when operated by people you disagree with.

The Federal Reserve demonstrates this. Professional monetary policy that works under Trump, works under Biden, works under any president because the architecture - independence, professional staff, transparent methodology - ensures stability regardless of political cycles.

Social Security works the same way. Clear mission. Proper structure. Automatic operations. Presidents can’t easily dismantle it because the architecture protects it from political whims.

The National Weather Service provides data quality that doesn’t depend on which party controls the White House because it’s designed as professional infrastructure.

Soft secession fails this test completely. It’s reactive to the current crisis - Trump in power, authoritarians capturing institutions. It requires constant political mobilization. It only “works” (in theory) when your political side controls state government. What happens when states flip? What happens when the political landscape shifts? You’ve fragmented capacity but haven’t fixed the underlying structural problems.

What governance architecture does is separate design from operation. The Governance Design Agency would design governance systems while elected officials operate within them. Professional insulation like Federal Reserve independence means design decisions aren’t subject to electoral cycles. The mechanisms outlast administrations. The systems work for everyone regardless of who wins elections.

This is the maturity test. The amateur approach says “let’s restructure everything when our side loses.” The professional approach says “let’s design systems that work well regardless of who wins.”

Think long-term. Twenty-five years from now, the political landscape will be different. Fragmentation based on 2025 political alignments will create problems for 2050 reality.

Architecture designed for durability serves future generations. This is cathedral work, not crisis response.

On the moral level, governance architecture actually lives the values soft secession claims to hold.

It genuinely believes in unity across diversity - doesn’t give up when pluralism gets hard, commits to democracy’s core challenge of governing across disagreements, makes actions match rhetoric.

It preserves the American idea. Democratic self-governance across differences as lived practice, not just aspiration. E pluribus unum - out of many, one - as actual institutional architecture.

It earns respect through example, not through demanding it. Not “respect us because we’re powerful” but “respect us because we built something that works.” Demonstrating that democracy can function at scale. Showing that pluralism makes us stronger through proper institutional design.

Let me synthesize the three key advantages of governance architecture:

First, it maintains collective capacity. This combines the legal and practical arguments. We preserve economic integration, shared defense, scientific coordination, and constitutional rights enforcement. We build institutional capacity rather than fragmenting it. United opposition is stronger than fragmented resistance, especially critical when facing authoritarian capture.

Second, it works regardless of who’s in power. This combines practical and philosophical arguments. Architecture outlasts administrations. Professional design beats political reaction. We create durable change, not temporary fixes that reverse every election. The systems serve the future regardless of political shifts.

Third, it builds rather than fragments. This combines moral and philosophical arguments. We create new institutional capacity. We strengthen democratic infrastructure. We leave the next generation better off. This is constructive rather than destructive.

What would the Governance Design Agency actually do? Whether power ends up more centralized or more distributed, you need professional design. The GDA would be the meta-solution that enables all other reforms.

Campaign finance corruption? The GDA would design systems that structurally remove pay-to-play incentives, not just regulate around them.

Policy whiplash every administration? The GDA would create institutional continuity that survives electoral cycles.

Regulatory capture? The GDA would design accountability mechanisms with real enforcement authority.

Government shutdowns? The GDA would redesign the budget process so this literally can’t happen.

Federal-state coordination problems? The GDA would professionally design the federal-state interface.

Compare the approaches directly:

Soft secession is legally dubious. Governance architecture is constitutionally sound through Article V.

Soft secession creates division. Governance architecture maintains union.

Soft secession fragments capacity. Governance architecture builds institutional capacity.

Soft secession is reactive to current crisis. Governance architecture is proactive structural reform.

Soft secession reproduces problems at state level. Governance architecture fixes underlying systems.

Soft secession is a fast path that fails. Governance architecture is a long path that works.

Soft secession is anti-democratic, requiring ideological homogeneity. Governance architecture is pro-democratic, designed to work across differences.

Soft secession betrays stated values about diversity and unity. Governance architecture lives those values through institutional design.

This is the choice: give up on the American experiment, or build the architecture to make it work.

The Path Forward

Don’t fall for fantasy solutions that feel emotionally satisfying but fail on every level.

I understand the temptation. Soft secession feels satisfying. “Just use existing mechanisms!” sounds faster than cathedral work. Division feels like fighting back when you’re watching authoritarians capture federal institutions, attack allies, deploy unidentifiable federal agents, defy court orders.

But the reality is that legally dubious shortcuts waste political capital. Court challenges would bog everything down for years. The Supreme Court would eventually strike down attempts at functional nullification. Meanwhile, the real structural problems continue getting worse.

Even if soft secession were somehow legal, it would create worse governance problems than it solves. Even if it were practically workable, it would violate core American principles about union and democratic self-governance. Even if it aligned with those principles, it would contradict every stated value about diversity, pluralism, and unity.

What should you demand instead? Real structural change that succeeds on all four levels we’ve examined.

Constitutional amendment for professional governance architecture. The GDA or similar institutional innovation that separates governance design from political operation. Proper federal-state rebalancing through Article V that’s legally sound, practically effective, philosophically consistent, and morally coherent.

Not shortcuts. Not fantasies. Real constitutional reform.

This is cathedral work. The timeline is 8-25 years depending on how much political will we can build. This is hard. Harder than soft secession sounds. But it’s the path that actually works.

The alternative is to keep pursuing shortcuts that fail in court, keep fighting over federal control every four years, keep watching dysfunction accelerate, or fragment the union and make everything worse.

It makes me profoundly sad to watch people advocate for fragmenting the country. Not because I question their sincerity - I understand why they’re scared and angry. I’m scared and angry too, watching what’s happening. But soft secession betrays everything we claim to believe in while solving nothing.

You can’t champion diversity and then say “but we can’t handle political diversity, so let’s separate into like-minded regions.” You can’t claim to believe in American exceptionalism while abandoning the American idea that proper institutions can unite diverse peoples. You can’t demand unity in the face of injustice while proposing division as the solution to political disagreement.

We’re the United States of America. United not by blood, religion, or language. Not by power or conquest. But by commitment to democratic self-governance across our differences.

When that commitment gets hard - and it’s harder right now than it’s been in generations - the answer isn’t dissolution. The answer is better architecture.

The Federal Reserve shows us that professional governance design can work. Social Security shows us that well-designed systems outlast political cycles. The National Weather Service shows us that some things should be built as professional infrastructure, not political battlegrounds.

We can build governance systems that function properly regardless of who wins elections. We can create accountability mechanisms with real teeth. We can design institutional continuity that survives electoral chaos. We can architect federal-state relations that work for everyone.

Here’s what that actually looks like:

Short-term (what you can do now): Push your state legislators to support constitutional reform. Demand they use every legitimate constitutional mechanism while being honest about what requires Article V amendment. Build political will by sharing the structural analysis - show people the loading ring, explain why government is buffering, make governance architecture part of the conversation.

Medium-term (building the movement): Support candidates who understand the difference between policy positions and governance architecture. Pressure existing politicians to stop pretending shortcuts will work and start being honest about what real reform requires. Create constituencies that demand professional governance design, not just partisan victories.

Long-term (cathedral work): Constitutional amendment for the Governance Design Agency or similar institutional innovation. This is the 8-25 year timeline depending on how much political will we build. This is hard. But it’s the path that actually works.

The work is constitutional amendment through Article V. Professional governance design as a field. Real structural reform, not shortcuts or fantasies. But it starts with you demanding something better than division.

This is what separates governance thinking from political despair. We can build a functional government within the United States. We just need to build it right.

That’s harder than soft secession. It’s also possible. It’s legally sound. It’s practically effective. It’s philosophically consistent with what makes America worth preserving. And it’s morally coherent with the values we claim to hold.

The choice is ours. We can give up on the American experiment and fragment into like-minded regions. Or we can demand the professional governance architecture that makes democratic self-governance work at scale across profound differences.

One path leads to division, weakness, and the betrayal of everything we claim to believe. The other leads to a more perfect union, built on proper institutional foundations, designed to serve generations.

I know which one I’m choosing. I know which one is consistent with actually believing in the United States of America.

The question is: do we believe in it enough to build it right?