I’ve mentioned before, the doctrine of “fringe” groups like Posse Comitatus, sovereign citizens, free men on the land, etc., that the county is properly the preeminent level of government, the elected sheriff the proper authority and repository of civic legitimacy - that’s not coming from nowhere, for most American history and territory (say, everything more than one county away from the big capital or mercantile cities, up until the Civil War, New Deal, or 1970s, depending) that’s a pretty accurate descriptive account of the lived experience of government.

But not a normative account, right? That doesn’t exist as actual American mythology, right? Well then what the fuck do you think is in all those books at the weird booth at the gun show? (“the”, pf). It’s no less American and no less a mythology than the one in your 9th grade social studies textbook.

But throw enough researchers at the issue, you say, and you’ll find most of those ideas date to the 1950s at earliest. (Actually you say “O great Kontextmaschine, if you throw enough researchers at the issue…”, because the fun part of Socratic dialogue is making you look like a huge ass-kisser.)

Well how do you think mythologies, ideologies get established in the first place? Someone, at some specific time, up and decides them.

“But they aren’t the ones to decide!”

What the hell did I just say? Ideologies are established by up and deciding on them, and the first up and decision the up and deciders make is that they’re the ones that get to up and decide.

The “official” American constitutional order as it now stands comes from the Supreme Court, through “Incorporation” doctrine, up and deciding that it had supremacy over the states

Which comes after the FDR-era executive/legislative machine up and decided that it had supremacy over the judiciary

Which comes after the Lincoln-era federal executive up and deciding that it had supremacy over the states

Which comes after Madison v. Marbury where the Supreme Court up and decided that it had supremacy over the legislature*

Which comes after the Constitutional Convention up and decided it had the authority to throw out the Articles of Confederation and write a new Constitution

Which comes after the Continental Congress up and decided it had the authority to kick out the British governors and establish the Articles of Confederation

Which comes after the British governors up and decided to be the authority of the North American Atlantic seaboard

Which comes after the Glorious Revolution when the Parliament up and decided to have supremacy over the throne

Which comes after the Magna Carta when the English lords up and decided that the King didn’t have supremacy over them

Which comes after William the Conqueror up and decided to be the King of England

etc., etc.

Of course, they all had enough power, in various forms - loyalty, ideology, economic power, military power, control over media channels, leverage over other actors with these various things, what the Soviets called the “correlation of forces”, to make their decisions stick. That’s the difference, that’s all the difference, that’s the only difference.




* this is of course nowhere explicitly stated in the Constitution, and as long as we’re freestyling it’s only in retrospective apologetics obvious that the judicial branch should have the power to overturn “wrong” laws, but NOT to depose “wrong” governments or nullify “wrong” elections (a power the judiciaries of countries like Turkey, Thailand, Germany, and Egypt do claim and wield, often in class-based coalition with the military officer corps)