Paul Starobin suggests maybe the United States of America needs to no longer be united:

Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society.

There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas with unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling, entertainment and conventioneer destination. California? America’s broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nation-like state might be saved, truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout, but by a merciful carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world. And while we’re at it, let’s make this project bi-national—economic logic suggests a natural multilingual combination between Greater San Diego and Mexico’s Northern Baja, and, to the Pacific north, between Seattle and Vancouver in a megaregion already dubbed “Cascadia” by economic cartographers.

Devolved America is a vision faithful both to certain postindustrial realities as well as to the pluralistic heart of the American political tradition—a tradition that has been betrayed by the creeping centralization of power in Washington over the decades but may yet reassert itself as an animating spirit for the future. Consider this proposition: America of the 21st century, propelled by currents of modernity that tend to favor the little over the big, may trace a long circle back to the original small-government ideas of the American experiment. The present-day American Goliath may turn out to be a freak of a waning age of politics and economics as conducted on a super-sized scale—too large to make any rational sense in an emerging age of personal empowerment that harks back to the era of the yeoman farmer of America’s early days. The society may find blessed new life, as paradoxical as this may sound, in a return to a smaller form.

This perspective may seem especially fanciful at a time when the political tides all seem to be running in the opposite direction. In the midst of economic troubles, an aggrandizing Washington is gathering even more power in its hands. The Obama Administration, while considering replacing top executives at Citigroup, is newly appointing a “compensation czar” with powers to determine the retirement packages of executives at firms accepting federal financial bailout funds. President Obama has deemed it wise for the U.S. Treasury to take a majority ownership stake in General Motors in a last-ditch effort to revive this Industrial Age brontosaurus. Even the Supreme Court is getting in on the act: A ruling this past week awarded federal judges powers to set the standards by which judges for state courts may recuse themselves from cases.

All of this adds up to a federal power grab that might make even FDR’s New Dealers blush. But that’s just the point: Not surprisingly, a lot of folks in the land of Jefferson are taking a stand against an approach that stands to make an indebted citizenry yet more dependent on an already immense federal power. The backlash, already under way, is a prime stimulus for a neo-secessionist movement, the most extreme manifestation of a broader push for some form of devolution. In April, at an anti-tax “tea party” held in Austin, Governor Rick Perry of Texas had his speech interrupted by cries of “secede.” The Governor did not sound inclined to disagree. “Texas is a unique place,” he later told reporters attending the rally. “When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.”

Such sentiments resonate beyond the libertarian fringe. The Daily Kos, a liberal Web site, recently asked Perry’s fellow Texas Republicans, “Do you think Texas would be better off as an independent nation or as part of the United States of America? It was an even split: 48% for the U.S., 48% for a sovereign Texas, 4% not sure. Amongst all Texans, more than a third—35%—said an independent Texas would be better. The Texas Nationalist Movement claims that over 250,000 Texans have signed a form affirming the organization’s goal of a Texas nation.

Secessionist feelings also percolate in Alaska, where Todd Palin, husband of Governor Sarah Palin, was once a registered member of the Alaska Independence Party. But it is not as if the Right has a lock on this issue: Vermont, the seat of one of the most vibrant secessionist movements, is among the country’s most politically-liberal places. Vermonters are especially upset about imperial America’s foreign excursions in hazardous places like Iraq. The philosophical tie that binds these otherwise odd bedfellows is belief in the birthright of Americans to run their own affairs, free from centralized control. Their hallowed parchment is Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, on behalf of the original 13 British colonies, penned in 1776, 11 years before the framers of the Constitution gathered for their convention in Philadelphia. “The right of secession precedes the Constitution—the United States was born out of secession,” Daniel Miller, leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement, put it to me. Take that, King Obama.

This dovetails with a report by the Telegraph’s Nile Gardiner:

A new Rasmussen poll shows just how disillusioned Americans have become with the direction of their own country, over four and a half years since President Obama took office. According to Rasmussen, barely a third of US voters think the nation’s Founding Fathers would view the United States as a success today. 49 percent think the opposite:

A new Rasmussen poll shows just how disillusioned Americans have become with the direction of their own country, over four and a half years since President Obama took office. According to Rasmussen, barely a third of US voters think the nation’s Founding Fathers would view the United States as a success today. 49 percent think the opposite:

Abraham Lincoln famously declared at Gettysburg that the Founding Fathers “brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” But half of Americans think the Founding Fathers would view the nation they created as a failure today.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 34% of American Adults think that if the Founding Fathers came back today, they would consider the United States a success. Forty-nine percent (49%), however, say the founders of this nation would view what it’s become as a failure. Seventeen percent (17%) are not sure.

There is a considerable ideological divide between Republicans and Democrats in how they respond to this question, though even among Democrats just over half deliver a positive answer:

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Democrats think the Founding Fathers would consider the United States a success. Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans and 55% of those not affiliated with either major party believe the Founding Fathers would view America as a failure.

Significantly, the Rasmussen survey shows strong distrust of the federal government, whose powers have risen significantly since the Obama administration took office:

One of the key foundational concepts in the Declaration of Independence which Lincoln referred to “four score and seven years ago” is that “governments derive their only just powers from the consent of the governed.” Just 17% of Likely U.S. Voters now think the federal government has that consent.

Rasmussen’s gloomy assessment reflects the disillusionment expressed in other major polls that ask Americans whether they believe the United States is moving in the “right direction” or “wrong track.” The recent CBS News/ New York Times poll for example showed 66 percent of Americans believing that the country is moving down the wrong path, with just 29 percent disagreeing. The RealClear Politics average of several polls for the month of September puts the “right direction” figure at 27 percent, and the “wrong track” number at 63.6 percent.

It will be hard for the White House to dismiss these findings as anything other than a resounding vote of no confidence in President Obama’s leadership from half the country. A Gallup poll released in July, asking a similar question, was just as bad, with 71 percent of Americans saying the Founding Fathers “would be disappointed” with “the way the United States has turned out,” up from 50 percent in 2004, and around 60 percent in 2009.

Note on the map the North Star Republic, which is …

The Peoples Republic of the North Star is dedicated to building socialist power in the upper midwest. The Peoples Republic of the North Star is the intended workers governments of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. People living in the target areas are encouraged to share their thoughts on the creation of socialism in America within our lifetimes.

Although this group is centered in Minneapolis, intent is to form a broad international support structure for local activities and affiliated groups, we encourage all who support resistance, communism, socialism, as well as workers, engineers, farmers, educators, and others to join in posting meaningful information here for the proliferation of the peoples struggle.

This, however, may be less than current, based on a 2007 blog commentary …

I give them credit for being overt in their goals and for asking feedback.

As a Badger (Wisconsinite) let me answer, the idea is stupid.

The surest way for my community to lower its individual freedoms and options, standard of living, and future prospects is to go Communists/Socialist and disconnect from the rest of the USA (not to mention how many citizens will be executed to secure the continued harmony of the People’s Republic).

They do not plan to implement this through politics. They plan to do this through violence (they are in the early planning stages) …

One assumes this was before Gov. Scott Walker defanged the public employee unions. You have to be a unique level of moron to believe in a system that killed more than 100 million people during the 20th century. Just in case, though, I should start researching moving vans from here to Texas.