Best bet is to find a way to build up states that can defend those rights and concentrate people there. In response to the evisceration of the federal government, set up equivalent agencies in those states that can do those jobs. The rest of America should be abandoned.
Wouldn’t this just cause progressives to lose every subsequent presidential election, with those rights eventually being federally outlawed? 270 gets harder to reach the more concentrated a mindset is.
Yes. In my opinion, it's clearly been a wasted effort to try to convince the rest of the country those rights are important. They need to be defended where they can, and the states that defend them need to separate themselves more and more from their parent country. Secession is silly, at least today. If what you're saying comes to pass—and it could even without what I'm suggesting—then at that point secession is the only correct answer.
Either way, it doesn't make sense to spend effort where it's not making a difference.
EDIT: Another part of this idea that I struggle with, is that we shouldn't ask people who aren't accepted to stay in places where they aren't accepted. They deserve rights. They should go to places where they can get them, and we should get them out of the places that don't respect them. And doing that, which I think is the moral thing to do, leads to what you're describing.
Also federal government will continue to weaken under Trump. Its primary domestic power is by acting as a big hose of money, if that dries up then what does it matter? EPA, NLRB, all the executive offices are basically gone already anyways, and it's not like they've even had teeth for the last two decades. Strong blue states enacting their own agendas aggressively, independent of and unassailable by the federal government is a way more achievable goal IMO, especially if the alternative is to pin everything on being able to sufficiently turn out the entire blue coalition one day every four years. I can make a difference at the county and state level, and I have lots of opportunities to do so. My heart goes out to people stuck in red states right now, but at the end of the day some things are within my power and some things are not.
Good points. I’ve always had negative preconceptions around secession, but I suppose that if the government fails to be productive in adding value to its people and the world, I can see the benefit in being broken up into smaller, more independent or interdependent components.
And then, when the uncaring federal government with its army comes along to enforce federal law, what do you do?
I think the exact opposite solution is better: blue every state you can by undoing "the great sort". We will learn more that much of the division is media amplified, and that at the core of it, most humans want the same few things. This guy called Maslow even arranged these needs in a hierarchical framework.
You may believe that, but American conservatives do not:
> “If transgenderism is false—as it is—if men really can’t become women—as they cannot—then it’s false for everyone,” the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said at CPAC. “If it is false then for the good of society and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”
Best bet is to find a way to build up states that can defend those rights and concentrate people there. In response to the evisceration of the federal government, set up equivalent agencies in those states that can do those jobs. The rest of America should be abandoned.