Across the United States, many citizens are wrestling with a familiar dread, the sense that the institutions built to safeguard democracy have become fragile props in a long-running performance.
Donald Trump’s second presidency has exposed not only the weakness of federal guardrails but also the futility of watching each new outrage unfold as if civic norms could somehow restrain the convicted felon determined to shatter them.
He has turned politics into a spectacle, and in that theater, even resistance has become part of the show. The question is whether Americans must keep playing supporting roles in a drama that the majority did not choose.
The alternative is to rewrite the script entirely — to create a different kind of political performance, one that reclaims the language of legitimacy and shifts attention away from Trump’s chaos.
The Founders once did exactly that. In the years before independence, the colonies faced a far more powerful empire that dismissed their grievances and silenced their voices. They responded not through the official channels of royal authority but by creating parallel systems — local assemblies, committees of correspondence, and conventions that operated without legal sanction. These were acts of defiance that redefined law itself.
Today, the United States again faces an executive who ignores the law and sees institutions as threats to be crushed. A serious response requires imagination equal to the crisis. The model for that response may lie not in Washington but among the states themselves.
If a federal government consumed by authoritarian ambition cannot be trusted to defend democracy, then the states must act collectively to do so.
A blueprint exists within the Constitution’s own architecture. Article I, Section 10, allows states to enter into compacts with one another, provided Congress approves them. That clause was designed for practical cooperation — regulating waterways, managing borders, coordinating resources.
But its underlying principle is broader. States have agency when federal authority becomes abusive or inert. Even without congressional consent, an interstate compact agreed on by like-minded Governors can function as a moral and political declaration, a framework for cooperation that sets higher democratic standards than those being dismantled by the current White House.
Imagine a coalition of states — perhaps beginning with California, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts — convening an assembly dedicated to safeguarding democracy. They could invite participation from other states that share the same commitment to constitutional norms and civic rights.
The gathering would not be a rebellion against the Union but a reaffirmation of its founding principles through lawful means. Delegates, selected by legislatures or through popular vote, would draft a shared compact outlining mutual obligations, protections for individual rights, and commitments to scientific integrity, public health, and fair elections.
Such an effort would be audacious, but the nation’s history is built on audacity. The 1787 Constitutional Convention itself was technically illegal, called under the pretext of revising the Articles of Confederation.
Instead, the delegates rewrote the framework of government. They did so in secret, understanding that legitimacy can sometimes emerge not from permission but from necessity. The same spirit of pragmatic defiance could guide today’s states as they face a federal administration willing to subvert truth and weaponize law.
The compact’s preamble could echo the moral clarity of the Declaration of Independence but translate it into twenty-first century language. It would affirm that the people of these states have both rights and obligations.
To ensure that every resident has access to food, housing, education, and healthcare. To protect the environment and mitigate the accelerating damage of climate change. And to regulate emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence that threaten privacy and employment. It could enshrine commitments to reproductive autonomy, racial equity, and humane immigration policies.
At its core, the compact would serve two purposes. First, it would declare that states need not wait for federal permission to defend democratic governance. Second, it would model what a functioning, ethical system of government might look like in a post-Trump era.
Symbolism alone can be powerful when the federal system has descended into farce. But if the compact gained traction, it could evolve into an operational framework for joint state action — pooling research funds, coordinating health systems, and adopting common standards on issues from clean energy to civil rights.
Participation would be voluntary, but its moral weight would grow with each new signatory. Even jurisdictions like the District of Columbia or Puerto Rico could be invited to join on equal footing, establishing a shared platform for self-governing communities long denied full representation.
The compact’s very existence would shift the narrative. Instead of a nation helplessly watching federal decay, it would showcase states asserting agency and solidarity. Such a movement would not be without risks.
Opponents would accuse its organizers of secessionist tendencies or constitutional overreach. But those accusations echo the same warnings issued against every transformative act in American history, from the abolitionist movement to the civil rights era.
When national institutions lose credibility, reform often begins from the periphery in cities, states, and communities that decide to lead where Washington will not.
If executed carefully, the compact would not fracture the nation. Rather, it would remind citizens that the Constitution belongs to them, not to the politicians who distort it. Its authors would not seek to replace the Union but to rescue its democratic core from erosion.
And even if Congress refused to recognize such an agreement, the act of creating it would signal a fundamental shift. That resistance need not consist solely of outrage and protest, but of construction — of building parallel structures that embody the values under assault.
The success of any such compact would depend not only on its principles but on its practicality. A declaration of rights is meaningful only when it is backed by the will and capacity to act. That means money — and political courage.
States that join would need to pledge financial cooperation, perhaps establishing a shared fund to support healthcare, renewable energy, public education, and election security. Instead of appealing to a federal government hostile to these goals, participating states could channel resources directly into regional initiatives, setting examples that other states could emulate or eventually join.
The compact’s fiscal model could resemble existing collaborations, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast or the Pacific Coast Collaborative, which already coordinates climate policy between California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.
These partnerships prove that states can create quasi-federal systems when Washington falters. What distinguishes the proposed democratic compact is its scope: a moral and institutional rebirth of federalism grounded not in opposition to the United States but in fidelity to its founding ideals.
In the short term, the compact would provide a symbolic counterweight to Trump’s authoritarian spectacle. Each meeting, vote, or public signing would turn the spotlight away from presidential theatrics and toward governance that actually works. Over time, it could mature into a network of mutual defense — not of armies or borders, but of democracy itself.
The states could coordinate legal strategies to protect voting rights, environmental safeguards, and reproductive freedoms against federal encroachment. Universities and civic institutions could serve as advisory bodies to draft shared legislation. Civil society groups could organize public assemblies mirroring the state conventions that preceded the Constitution.
Opponents would almost certainly challenge the compact in court, arguing that it undermines federal supremacy. But legal battles could themselves be clarifying. They would force the judiciary to confront whether the Constitution still protects the right of states to collaborate for the general welfare — a principle long taken for granted.
A well-drafted compact, rooted in constitutional language and democratic consent, would reveal how fragile authoritarian power becomes when tested by collective legitimacy.
What matters most is not whether the compact gains immediate legal force but whether it shifts imagination. Politics is sustained by narratives. Trump’s toxic narrative thrives on chaos, grievance, and domination — a vision of power that feeds on attention.
The compact offers a rival story: that Americans can choose cooperation over conflict, shared progress over personal gain. It is a script that turns spectators of decline into authors of renewal.
There are precedents for this kind of symbolic constitution-making. When Abraham Lincoln faced the dissolution of the Union, he invoked the moral authority of the Declaration of Independence to redefine national purpose.
During the Great Depression caused by Republican greed, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal reshaped federalism by compelling states and industries to participate in programs that would have been unthinkable under the old order. The proposed compact would continue that lineage of creative federalism, proving that the machinery of democracy can adapt to existential threats.
Critics might scoff that such a plan is utopian, that states cannot save democracy when the federal government itself is corrupted. But history suggests otherwise. In every era of crisis, reform has begun from below — from the people and their local institutions. If blue states can coordinate environmental standards, healthcare policies, and economic protections without waiting for federal approval, they demonstrate that constitutionalism is a living practice, not a fixed text.
The framers in 1787 understood this truth when they drafted a constitution in secret, knowing that legality would follow legitimacy, not the other way around. Their courage lay not in defying the law for its own sake, but in redefining it to serve the common good. That is the spirit the compact must reclaim. It is not an act of rebellion but of renewal — a way to rescue self-government from the grip of performative tyranny.
Trump’s political theater depends on the illusion that no alternative exists — that his dominance defines the horizon of American life. By building their own stage, the states can prove otherwise. They can demonstrate that politics can still be a tool for progress rather than a weapon of division. And if their compact inspires even a fraction of the creativity that birthed the first Constitution, it may yet restore the moral center of the American experiment.
In the end, this is not merely about resisting one man’s authoritarian ambition. It is about reviving the idea that democracy is not handed down from the powerful but built by those who refuse to surrender their agency.
States have both the authority and the obligation to act when federal governance collapses into an authoritarian regime run by like-minded criminals. Forming a compact is not an escape from the Union. It is a reminder of how the Union was born, from the courage to escape tyranny and imagine a better one.
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M. Spencer Green (AP) and Mike Stewart (AP)
