2025: That Patchwork In Review
A year of spotlighting deference and questioning reflex centralization
Another year, another skeptical eye turned toward centralized power. First off, I want to thank the thousands of you for reading. It’s cool to know that you’ve decided to stick around. When I started That Patchwork back in 2020, I set out to draw attention to both the risks posed by the consolidation of power at the federal level and the expectations we place on it. I also sought to underscore that states and localities have mature institutions that can be relied on as avenues for reconciling more of our differences—differences we shouldn’t interpret as existential or incompatible with core national goals.
Much of the political-media industry is heavily invested in national narratives, national identity, national policy, and national implications—needlessly, in my opinion. Those stakes are creating an enormous amount of stress in the culture. An insistence on unity, the universalization of policy, and the misattribution of economic influence to the presidency are all deeply entrenched in our discourse and political reporting. There are few of us poking the bear and speaking up to question the wisdom of nationalization—the premise that progress and defending democracy means outsourcing more disputes to the national level. I appear to be the only writer I’ve seen committing to this with any regularity, but I welcome others to join me—or to introduce themselves. If you agree someone should be capturing this badly overlooked angle, consider a paid subscription. If you are part of an institution who may want to sponsor my work, reach out! With your help, I can commit more bandwidth to this work.
This year I wrote about Trump’s disaster federalism and revisited the idea of tearing down the presidents. I wrote about the kayfabe fakery that exaggerates the president’s role over economics, how decades of law enforcement federalization paved the way for the arrest of a local judge, and how states are exploiting Medicaid. I wrote about finding fault in government during disasters, and the rise of far-center technocrats fixing to centralize more power in the name of pragmatism. I explored whether federalism failed 20 years after Hurricane Katrina, how Charlie Kirk’s assassination says more about the risks of nationalization than the volume of the discourse. I also wrote about how progressive vibes and moderate policies won in big cities this year and how artificial intelligence should prompt us to create more legal patchworks — just to name a few. Below though are some highlights from this year.
Decentralization doesn’t necessarily imply small government or large government. And while there are certainly different flavors of federalism, decentralization is, above all, about deference and about the critical role the central government ought to play in facilitating, not subsuming, that system of deference. Traditionally, advocating for states’ rights and local control has carried, and still carries to some extent, the baggage of racists who used “states’ rights” as a pretext to disenfranchise Americans. But if centralists can learn from the perils of centralization while still advocating reforms within centralized systems, decentralists can do the same. And for those of us on the left who still prize a healthy skepticism of central authority, there’s plenty of room—now and going forward—in the decentralization camp.
In the next year, I’m looking forward to tackling more ideas and issues, as well as doing a bit of electoral work as the 2026 campaign gets underway.
Until then, have a great holiday—and thank you again for reading!
-Robert
The Spectacular Vindication of the Anti-Federalists
Patrick Henry was too sharp to be soothed by the Federalists’ assurances. The Constitution, signed on September 17, 1787, he feared, would not merely strengthen the union but consolidate it, turning the states into appendages of a distant authority. Madison and others could hardly be faulted for thinking stronger central power was necessary; the Article…
"America" and the Burden of Unity
The violence simmering beneath American politics isn’t just the product of resentment but the product of expectation. The conventional wisdom among political figures and journalists is that divisions within the country are existential because they threaten the unity of a singular, monolithic entity that Teddy Roosevelt would popularize as “America.” Eve…
Who Is The Abundance Agenda For?
Let’s not be dramatic. Federal Democrats are not banished to the wilderness, but the party does need to revamp their brand and offer a compelling alternative to the Republicans’ nationalism. Federal electoral margins are tight and with minimal effort and by not being the Republicans, they’ll likely find their way back to at least a House majority. The c…
The Vibe Shift That Was Missed
In 2016, the conventional wisdom held that a coalition capable of delivering a Republican to the White House was implausible because of the purportedly shrinking base of the party. Few recognized that the GOP was expanding its coalition and that Donald Trump was building on gains the party had been making for decades. Why didn’t anyone see it that way?
Trump's Very Hamiltonian Presidency
Alexander Hamilton is enjoying a long afterlife. He has a hit musical and an appreciating reputation as the Founding Father of American finance and a strong state to hold it all together. What’s less comfortable to admit is that he was also the prophet of the presidency we live with now: unilateral, swollen with economic power, and edging toward an elec…
Our current train wreck of a federal government happened because "low information" voters opted out of their responsibilites as citizens and off loaded the job to an authoritarian regime who promised big results with minimal effort.
Keeping a modern nation running is now complex and highly volatile. The agarian nation founded in 1776 with a population of approimately 2.5 million was 100x smaller and far different from the high technology, globalized world we now inhabit. Centralization is not simply a choice, but becomes a necessity at certain levels of scale and complexity. Even then, the Continential Congress was inadequate for the task of nation building. The myth of a volunteer citizen government on a part-time basis has proven wanting. Trump attempting to manage the federal government like his private corporation has destroyed centuries of merit-based civil service who specialized in the daily business of governing. A nation "for the people, by the people" has likely met its practical limits.
This brings up the question of the perferred physics of government. Do we want to pay the price of ever greater centralization to manage the complexity of governing a vast, diverse nation of over 340 million or do we "downsize" to become more decentralized and locally represented? The happiest countries in the world tend to be smaller, less diverse, and with populations under 100 million. Rather than attempting to fit a big foot in Cinderella's slipper, maybe we need to slim down to fit the comfort of a nation's humanity rather than force citizens into ever larger and heavier-handed size of central government. This is not simply a random choice, but a practical science of social psychology and political science. Chose well...