Liberty Exposé: Challenges To Federal Nationalism: Anti-Fed Redux
Lynne Gilbert
Challenges
Whenever a national project gets proposed, it behooves the advocate to acknowledge both the perennial challenges posed by any national endeavor and the complications presented by the particular political context. Though markedly different from most nationalisms in the past, the case for a new federal nationalism in America must also clarify itself by addressing some of the concerns it will inevitably raise.
The term “nationalism” tends to inspire knee-jerk aversion among folks that share any combination of humanitarian, cosmopolitan, and democratic sensibilities, and with good reason. The living traumas of the 20th century and the imperial histories that precede them understandably give the term a negative connotation, for in those eras we witnessed ethno-national movements eventuate human catastrophes of an unprecedented scale. Moreover, these dynamics live on across the globe today—from the dehumanizing treatment of the Uighurs in China, to the xenophobic treatment of Latin peoples in the United States. “Nationhood” seems to imply a warrant for ethnocentric exclusivity: the circumscription of a group identity with clear lines between those within and those without.
Wariness of national movements is nothing new in American history. Even during the founding era preceding the U.S. Constitution, anti-federalists voiced criticisms of the federal project propounded by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison: criticisms that continue to haunt the would-be advocate of national consolidation. For our purposes, five arguments are worth reviving, if only to sharpen the case for federal nationalism.
(1) First, the anti-federalists argued that the scale of the proposed nation would lead to bureaucratic overreach. If granted power over the military and the capacity to establish domestic taxes, the national government as conceived by the Constitution would be able to supersede the authority of the states, whose interests it would in all likelihood lose touch with. Moreover, bereft of the confidence that local governments could inspire in the people, such a government would eventually feel compelled to leverage fear and force to establish its authority, escalating militarization, multiplying laws, and growing the ranks of federal officers—all of which would require further taxation to fund.
This concern about federal bureaucracy has persisted throughout American history and has been refined by new experience. As the conservatives and libertarians of the previous century have clarified, large bureaucracies tend to lack the finesse, adaptability, and growth capabilities wielded by the “spontaneous forces of society,” and exhibit a knack for inefficiency and a resistance to change.
(2) Second, the anti-federalists maintained that consolidated power carries the risk of diminishing democratic agency, which thrives in the immediacy of local experience. With so few representatives in the federal legislatures, they argued that it would be impossible to truly represent the feelings and interests of the various orders of society, and that the closer proximity of the states to local experience made them more suited to the task. Furthermore, the power of the legislatures to modify their own election process was deemed dangerous because it would effectively give them the ability to subvert the process for partisan gain (e.g. gerrymandering). Both of these issues continue to inhibit democratic politics today.
(3) Third, a stronger national government may, if improperly coordinated, serve not as a guardian of the nation’s power equilibrium, but a distorter of it. The anti-federalists prophetically pointed out that the new Constitution did little to mitigate the aggrandizement of a dangerous aristocracy. The small number of representatives left the system vulnerable to bribery, and the disproportionate power of the Senate (the aristocratic branch, as they conceived it) made it too easy to hinder the autonomy of the President and marginalize the more democratic House of Representatives. To make matters worse, the distance and high elevation of federal offices were thought to be out of reach for most socioeconomic groups, granting wealth a disproportionate influence. We clearly have not been successful in averting any of these outcomes.
(4) Fourth, and as already intimated, the appeal to nationhood can easily disguise a politics of exclusion, wherein the implicit aim is not the integration of more people in a productive national endeavor, but rather the denial of participation and dignity to groups perceived to be outside the nation’s circle. The anti-federalists were less thorough in their treatment of this theme, but many of their concerns about political representation and the exclusion of working people (for them, the yeoman) coincide well.
(5) The very name of the United States hints at a further complication, namely its inherent plurality. One of the Constitution’s expressed aims was to construct a strong federal government out of a cacophonous interplay of diverse states that could not reach workable harmony on their own. These states have been made compact only through common trials, difficult compromises, factional controversies, and even war; and throughout the 20th century and our own, we have continually been faced with the task of integrating a national identity out of the melting pot of our diverse peoples. Ours is a heterogeneous democratic experiment.
This basic reality of American plurality has recently been given profounder meaning by the work of Colin Woodard, who argues in American Nations (2011) that America has never been a singular nation at all, but rather an amalgam of eleven distinct nations with different cultural origins, values, and political outlooks. While cooperation among these competing nations has at times been possible (particularly during crises), the idea that they make up a single national ethos is more a mythology than a palpable reality. Thus, we might infer from Woodard’s thesis that there is not enough value continuity in America to build a healthy nationalism, and in turn, that any nationalistic project is bound to involve the imposition of some nations’ values onto others’.
How should the advocate of a new American national project, aimed at the implementation of bold federal enterprises on behalf of the common interest, respond to these veritable challenges?
Responses
Regarding concerns about bureaucracy and worsening inequalities in power, it is worth noting that these malaises already weigh down the American system and require the kind of intervention that only a strong national government can spearhead.
Bureaucratic overreach became a major issue back in the 1970s and 1980s, and should remain a concern for not only conservatives, but Americans of all political stripes who are committed to the principle of democratic accountability. Government mass surveillance through big data platforms proves the most conspicuous issue in our day, largely as a consequence of Edward Snowden’s heroic efforts.
However, the greater enemy to freedom today is not bureaucratic overreach, but government inaction. Bureaucracy thrives in stagnant waters. If there are limited streams for the meaningful resolution of standing issues, or if voters continue to believe that their freedom depends on the shrinkage of government agency, then the incentive to retroactively correct for this lack with after-the-fact regulatory patchwork will persist. Action must be taken to address the core issues that incentivize compensatory patchwork in the first place.
A national project with clear aims and support from folks on the Right would replace the pseudo freedom of legislative inaction with the real freedom that could be enjoyed under a more responsive, energetic, and proactive government. Long standing issues relating to the healthcare system, crippling student loan debt, job displacement due to automation, widening urban-rural divisions, narrowing economic prospects for working Americans, susceptibility to pandemics, and the opioid crisis—in short, the greatest impediments to our freedom—require the kind of bold, concerted action that only the national government can coordinate. It is the office of government to resolve the systemic conditions that stifle the enjoyment of freedom.
The issue of government incompetence relates to the problem of unequal power along class lines. There is no greater aid to the continuation of oligarchic arrogation than the unwillingness of national government to take up its proper role as the mediator of factional interests on behalf of the common good. Those with the most political power have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and that status quo persists because the would-be referee of the country continues to sit by the sidelines. We need strong federal intervention to restore the equilibrium of power in the country.
Concerning the cause of democracy, a new national program need not work at cross purposes. On the contrary, federal nationalism in the 21st century should make democracy reform one of its top priorities by forwarding legislation to limit the influence of big money on politics, and to narrow the distance between popular will and the legislative agenda. Only the national government has the scope and authority to spearhead such changes, and it should.
To those that fear the repercussions of exclusionary nationalism, the advocate for federal nationalism should respond that its basis derives not from racial or religious ties, but from a forward-thinking enterprise of cooperative projects, rooted in the conviction that America should aim at the redemption of its highest moral promises. Ours is an action-oriented nationalism predicated on the idea that we are a unique experiment whose ultimate significance lies not in the origin of our inheritance, but what we do with it on behalf of those living and those yet to be born.
Moreover, to deny our national errand is to diminish the moral cause of the Union and to make a dangerous concession to the rogue nationalisms (e.g. those expounded by white supremacists) that are attempting to fill the vacuum of identity created by the absence of an invigorating national project. By elevating national government as a legitimate center for patriotic unity and national pride, we would partially succeed in channeling the natural desire for group distinction, and at that, in a manner becoming of a generous, broad-minded people.
The implications of this argument relate directly to the issue of American plurality. It remains true that meaningful disagreements over core values persist across the country—disagreements rooted in cultural histories that precede the founding of the country itself. However, the test of our Union has already been tried and proved in its opening centuries. Through formative trials and common historical experience, America has built a basis for its nationalism in the enterprising efforts of its succeeding generations. Despite division, we’ve acted nonetheless; and every act of political coordination aimed at the common interest marks a partial settlement of otherwise intractable disagreements. So let us, like our predecessors, dare to act anyway, like we’ve proven we can.