Jonathan Taplin on why he thinks states’ rights can save us from a second civil war. (11/16/18)
“The national security expert Keith Mines estimates, as he told Foreign Policy, that the United States faces, over the next 10 to 15 years, a 60 percent chance of civil war—some variety of violent political conflict on a large scale,” writes Jonathan Taplin in his cover article from the latest issue of Harper’s magazine, “Rebirth of a Nation: Can states’ rights save us from a second civil war?” He continues, "there is a solution built into the Constitution for defusing tensions created by such imbalances of power that conservative Supreme Court justices have shown great deference for: the Tenth Amendment, which declares that any power not specifically reserved for the federal government is granted to the states. The origins of the amendment stem from Thomas Jefferson’s debates with his friend James Madison during the 1787 Constitutional Convention.” In this installment of “Leonard Lopate at Large” on WBAI, Jonathan, who serves as the director Emeritus of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at USC, tells Leonard why he believes empowering the 50 states could save the nation.