So is the US slipping into Civil War?

Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 871 points – 5 months ago

People keep talking about "Federalizing the National Guard" and now you've got other States pledging their NG to Texas in defiance of the Supreme Court (see image).

So is this what CW2 looks like?

P.S. I'm a Brit

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The United States government has a federal structure, unlike most governments.

Most large countries have a federal structure. Just from my memory, Canada, Mexico, Brasil, Germany, Spain, Italy, Nigeria, South Africa, the UAE, Russia, China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia at least.

Dual federalism is this divide between the power of the federal government and the state governments.

Isn't this just normal federalism?

The vast majority of governments around the world are not federal. However, it is a popular system in countries that have diverse territory and demographics.

From Wikipedia:

Dual federalism, also known as layer-cake federalism or divided sovereignty, is a political arrangement in which power is divided between the federal and state governments in clearly defined terms, with state governments exercising those powers accorded to them without interference from the federal government. Dual federalism is defined in contrast to cooperative federalism ("marble-cake federalism"), in which federal and state governments collaborate on policy.

If you grew up in the United States, it stands to reason that dual federalism would be the default form of federalism to you. Also, since the 1930s, the 10th Amendment has been largely (and illegally) ignored, so today we mostly experience "marble cake federalism". The way the Constitution is written, however, does not legitimize any form other than dual federalism with distinct and separate powers granted to the federal government and the states.

Thank you. I guess my country has a mix of these, depending on subject.

Thanks for explaining this. Your wording has a distinct bias of American exceptionalism, since your first sentence is patently incorrect - federal and unitary governments are roughly evenly represented across the world's 200-odd governments. Not an attack, just a reasoned criticism, which may help explain the downvotes.

I was interested to learn about dual federalism and Eisenhower's layer- and marble-cake metaphors. I didn't realise that dual federalism was distinct, as I'm not a constitutional lawyer and am primarily familiar with Australian federalism and secondarily those of the US and Canada. In retrospect it's unsurprising that the Australian federal system can be described with the layer cake metaphor, since our federation in 1901 was based on the American model!

It's an interesting observation about the layer cake system, where states have primacy, becoming a marble cake, where constitutional law has been (probably deliberately) overlooked in the US over the years. It reminds me a bit of the gerrymandering and malapportionment issues, not to mention the electoral college systems affecting fair and open democracy in your country.

Good luck with it all - your insights will help me keep a keener eye on Australian developments to slow Australia's slide towards the corruption of the fine American model. As seen in the (alarmist and fearful) question posed by the OP, the decay of democracy happens slowly until it becomes utterly obvious to most that the rot has spread throughout.

Thanks for explaining this. Your wording has a distinct bias of American exceptionalism, since your first sentence is patently incorrect - federal and unitary governments are roughly evenly represented across the world’s 200-odd governments. Not an attack, just a reasoned criticism, which may help explain the downvotes.

Thanks for your response. I am currently taking an American government course in my university and in the class it was explained that relatively few countries have federal systems. The Wikipedia page on the topic only lists 20 countries that currently have federal systems.

I'm always looking for more knowledge and information, so I'm curious what your source is that around 100 countries have federal systems of government. It seems like a large discrepancy from the information that I am aware of.

Good luck with it all - your insights will help me keep a keener eye on Australian developments to slow Australia’s slide towards the corruption of the fine American model. As seen in the (alarmist and fearful) question posed by the OP, the decay of democracy happens slowly until it becomes utterly obvious to most that the rot has spread throughout.

Yeah, it's definitely alarming. The fact that the US government has basically given itself power that it's not supposed to have freaks me out a bit whenever I think about it. Something for citizens of any country to watch out for.

The Wikipedia page on the topic only lists 20 countries that currently have federal systems.

Fair enough - I knew I should have supported that claim. An earlier commenter did, listing many - my claim probably represents a lot of countries with larger populations and/or enough wealth to support regional representative government. It may not be the majority - smaller countries like Tonga and Eswatini are notionally unitary monarchies, but I'd still be surprised if there weren't chiefs on each island or in each significant town or region in most countries. It's harder to qualify - my claim probably comes from looking at a world map and seeing 50-50, but it's probably Mercator projection and recognition bias (I may be able to name all countries and their capitals, but not the ins and outs of their government systems, given it gets murky).

The fact that the US government has basically given itself power that it’s not supposed to have freaks me out a bit whenever I think about it.

Again this is an unsupported gut feeling, but this is what corrupt countries do, and I was going to say the US is nearly the only 'marble cake' democracy but I suppose people might be able to say "what about the Democratic Republic of the Congo?" which everyone knows is neither democratic nor a proper republic, but a barely-functioning government representing a large and valuable area of land easily manipulated by richer countries for its wealth. I suppose what I mean is that the US has, at least until recently, been the country most others and commentators sycophantically praise as a true democratic marble cake federation, when it is not truly democratic, it's just wealthy, and that wealth is held by oligarchs in the same way as federations like Russia or Brazil.

Maybe my point wasn't valid. Maybe it was a gut feeling. I don't know any more, I'm just a downtrodden man.

Oh, that makes sense. You're not talking specifically about countries with federal systems of government, you're talking about countries that have any form of local government in addition to a national government. That's technically not federalism, but I see what you're talking about.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about this:

In a federation, the division of power between federal and regional governments is usually outlined in the constitution. Almost every country allows some degree of regional self-government, but in federations the right to self-government of the component states is constitutionally entrenched. Component states often also possess their own constitutions which they may amend as they see fit, although in the event of conflict the federal constitution usually takes precedence.

According to the textbook my American Government class uses (We the People, 14th Essentials Edition by Ginsberg, Lowi, Tolbert, and Campbell), less than 15% of the world's countries use federal systems.

I was talking about both, and thinking about federations by population and influence (e.g. India, Russia, Brazil, Germany, Canada, Australia and the US) as well as regional representation which of course is not federalism per se. Thanks for citing your source, I concede to your point, but remonstrate by arguing that <15% of countries by number is not necessarily a useful statistic. I'd argue that the proportion by population, land area and political/cultural influence is a better metric (and I don't have a source for that but expect by population it'd be closer to 50:50). Fair?

I concede to your point, but remonstrate by arguing that <15% of countries by number is not necessarily a useful statistic. I’d argue that the proportion by population, land area and political/cultural influence is a better metric (and I don’t have a source for that but expect by population it’d be closer to 50:50). Fair?

No, I don't think that's fair, because 1) I was specifically referring to the relative scarcity of federal governments out of all the governments in the world, and 2) you're moving the goalpost in order to win the argument. You stated:

Your wording has a distinct bias of American exceptionalism, since your first sentence is patently incorrect - federal and unitary governments are roughly evenly represented across the world’s 200-odd governments.

In reality, your statement was patently incorrect. Federal and unitary governments are not roughly evenly represented across the world's governments. In fact, the percentage of the world's population that resides in a country with a federal system of government is only 38.05%, and that drops to 20.28% if you don't count India, a significant outlier. The total physical area of the world claimed by countries with federal systems is closer to your 50% guess, at 42.53%, but that drops to 29.89% if you don't count the Russian Federation, another significant outlier.

Your claim of roughly even representation between federal and unitary governments isn't accurate by any of the metrics you used: Number of governments, population, and land area. I'm not sure how political/cultural influence can be quantified, but I dispute its relevance.

Sources: I sourced my populations from World Meter, Wikipedia, and Census.gov, and I used Wikipedia as a source for land areas.

All fair points, you win!

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