The time has come for a coalition of governors, attorneys general, and state legislators to demonstrate the power of broad-based federalism to interpose against extreme federal tyranny.

Many conservative commentators have finally woken up to smell the stench of the Fourth Reich following Biden’s speech targeting political opposition, reminiscent of the authoritarian language of past dictators. However, they should have been awake since March 2020, when our government declared de facto martial law on our lives, liberty, and property and used our bodies as lab rats with an ever-growing list of experimental therapies. They should have awoken from their slumber after Americans were targeted with solitary confinement and disproportionate punishment for zero or nebulous crimes at the Capitol on January 6, after months of killing, rioting, and looting by BLM with impunity.

If Biden’s speech is really to be a turning point in this one-sided cold war that is heating up, conservatives should resolve to use the power they already wield over Republican governors and demand united action for states to protect constitutional rights from this thuggish Biden administration and national security deep state apparatus that threatens our liberties more than any foreign enemy in our history. Rather than making idle promises of winning back the House with RINOs or winning back the presidency years from now when it’s too late, we should be demanding action now from 20 or so GOP trifecta-controlled state governments. If they fail to take action now, then the entire point of federal elections with divided government is moot.

What would a coalition of federalism look like? A group of prominent governors, attorneys general, and state legislative speakers and majority leaders would initiate a declaration in one state – let’s call it the “Miami Declaration,” for example. The declaration would lay out a list of grievances and examples of the federal government violating the rights of the individual: from medical freedom and bodily autonomy to privacy infringement, collusion with big tech against First Amendment rights, and using federal agencies to persecute political opponents. The declaration would pronounce these states to be constitutional sanctuaries that protect all constitutional rights, including against the federal government. Here are just a few ideas that should be contained in the declaration:

• Criminalize the enforcement of any federal COVID mandate – whether by a federal, state, or private actor – within the boundaries of the states. This would include so-called federal lands within the state.
• Block federal agents from entering the states to target political opposition.
• Order all education and health care institutions within the state to stop complying with recent edicts on transgenderism or COVID with the threat of severe fines.
• Block the distribution of any new vaccines that have not been properly studied.
• Create a commission to study who is responsible for the COVID response and the botched therapeutics, along with an audit of what other therapeutics are in the pipeline that violate bioethical norms.
• Nullify onerous federal regulations on energy and mineral exploration and production within the coalition of states so that states can begin protecting their residents from the coming nuclear winter on energy use.
• Impose severe penalties on tech companies that censor political opponents of the regime until they come clean on the scope of collaboration with the federal government against these individuals.
• Provide legal and financial backing to those political dissidents being targeted by the federal government primarily for their political views.
• Suspend all training and cooperation between state and local law enforcement and the federal alphabet soup agencies.
  

Although Republicans are in the minority in Washington, Democrats still need 10 GOP votes to pass the two remaining bills of this fiscal year that intersect with many of the aforementioned policies and grievances. Republicans, if they really shared our values, would refuse to pass the FY 2023 budget continuing resolution and National Defense Authorization Act unless the federal tyranny is defunded in the relevant agency budgets.

Even if Republicans refuse to block funding for the vaccines, Paxlovid, and Ukraine – most likely because they agree with Democrats on those issues – they should at least withhold support until the extra funding for the IRS is kept out of the bill. Fighting overzealous taxation, especially when it is politically targeted, was always a universal value of the Republican Party. The IRS waited until Friday afternoon before the holiday weekend to admit that information from 120,000 form 990-T filers was inadvertently posted online due to “a human coding error.” These means the names, contact information, and financial information of about 120,000 people who have IRAs in non-security assets were breached. Does anyone really trust that the IRS is telling us the whole truth?

From now until the election, Republicans will seek to distract us with flaccid promises of deliverance in the future. The best way to verify their sincerity is by demanding that they actually use the power they currently hold to counter deeply destructive and unpopular policies from this regime.