That Patchwork, On Democracy From a Decentralist Angle, Is On Substack
An original blog about democracy, economics and culture from a decentralist angle
The last decade has yielded widespread interrogation of the established order across a number of domains — capitalism, liberalism, expertise, identity and national security. And yet despite a wave of foreign and domestic events demonstrating the risk of power consolidation, neither the political-media establishment nor its populist critics have confronted the most entrenched axiom in American politics: that what we call democracy and what we seek in a “more perfect union” should be sought through a national narrative or the federal government. That entrenched premise has led to toxic nationalization, a totalizing preoccupation with national conformity where the absence of consensus is mistaken for existential dysfunction rather than the nature of federated and pluralist democracy.
Even as we observe national affective polarization; increasing demographic pluralism; record disapproval of Congress; the emboldening of authoritarianism abroad; the insularity of a federal bureaucracy captured by private enterprise; melodramatic lamentations about a nation splintered on identity, history and values; and especially the stark dangers of an emboldened presidency, about every facet of political discourse and professional analysis has paradoxically become nationalized. Even as the risks of federalization become clearer and unity more elusive, leaders and media tastemakers alike double-down on federal power as the sole means to preserving American democracy.
Introducing That Patchwork (formerly Statehood), an original blog about democracy, economics and culture from a decentralist angle. The term “patchwork” referring to various designs stitched together to form a whole. But the term has also been applied to lament America’s diverse and decentralized political system, usually by journalists and political figures with an interest in advancing national narratives. Today, the reigning presumption regardless of political party, ideology or status is that observations, ideas and solutions are best made with a national interest. That Patchwork rejects this premise.
That Patchwork is premised on the idea that dispersed power is vital to democracy and individual rights. Consolidated systems — whether they are autocratic or the technocratic and socialized systems in the West — exact long-term costs and greater risks that weaken democracy and individual rights. Since it’s founding, the United States has stood as a refuge for its political, economic and cultural decentralist features: federalism, economic liberty and multiculturalism. This trifecta is always under threat, to varying degrees, by the seen and unseen forces that have long pushed power upwards, from extremism to pragmatism to brute self-interest at the federal level.
The aim of That Patchwork will be to underscore the excesses of central power. Importantly, it will question the epistemic approaches in popular analysis that reflexively frame local and opaque trends as those of dire national import, and by doing so, embolden central power.
By subscribing to That Patchwork, readers can expect writing that covers a range of themes, including:
The misattribution of (economic) influence to the American presidency
How federal grants can undermine civic participation
The (un)importance of a national identity
How the national news media facilitates power consolidation
Whether the vitality of democracy depends on its outcomes
How pragmatism can erode federated democracy
Differing approaches to federalism
The untold origins of the American states
How a values-over-policy politics can facilitate decentralization
How international comparison emboldens central power
The impediments to defederalizing U.S. policymaking
Stories about the divergences in culture between states and regions
Subnational observations that capture economic trends more accurately
State-centric electoral analysis, including for the U.S. Senate and governor
The clash over new urbanism, changing cities and citizens’ “sense of place”
That Patchwork recognizes that decentralization is not a panacea but that it, too, comes with its own risks. However, the critical difference being that the risks are dispersed and confined. Insecure systems impose uniformity at the slightest encounter with volatility, and in so doing create a precedent for placing more power into the hands of fewer people. The media ecosystem we have now observes the risks of consolidation but does not question it. The conversation happening now is which side’s version of power consolidation is better or worse. That Patchwork departs from this orthodoxy to posit that the distribution of the power, not its bearer or its outcomes, is worthy of scrutiny.
For all of you who want to fight (or at least question) the power, do remain subscribed! With a paid subscription, you’ll gain exclusive access to future paid content and ways to engage with me.
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-Robert Showah