‘If the New England states formed their own pact and began to separate themselves from the decisions of the federal government wherever they can and formed, in a sense, a resistance alliance, we might be at the beginning of a decentralization process.”
On October 10, 2025 I spoke with author and publisher Jim DeFilippi on his video podcast, Blue Smoke and Black Ink, about my upcoming novel, The Trials of Celia, available Nov, 26, 2025, and experiences managing Pacifica radio almost two decades ago, described in detail in previous books, Managing Chaos and Planet Pacifica. But then the discussion took an unexpected turn — to the current state of American politics. Below is an edited version of that exchange. To watch the complete half hour interview, go to Blue Smoke and Black Ink.
Jim DeFilippi: You;’ve written a book called Fake News: Journalism in the Age of Deceptions. How would it be if you were king of the world? How would you prefer journalism to be processed and distributed? I assume you think it’s mostly phony right now. What’s the solution to that?
First of all, I wouldn’t want to be king. I don’t think we need a king — of the world or the country. But right now we have a very few people with control of very powerful social media vehicles. In a sense, we’ve been captured by people who control algorithms that determine what we see and have a strong influence, even stronger than television networks ever had in the old days, over how we think about issues. Unfortunately, truth is very difficult to find. And with AI it will become even more difficult.
Concerning solutions, diversity is one of the strategies. It requires an educated public; media literacy, taught and encouraged from a very young age, which would encourage people to ask more questions, to be inquisitive and somewhat skeptical. That’s a skill people will need to exercise more and more.
If I was in charge of an organization that could influence public thought, I would encourage people to have diverse sources of information, to question authority, to decentralize power wherever you can. That’s where I may separate myself from some on the left, in this country and around the world, those who want to return to the past. Some say, “if only we could recapture the norms of the past in the United States.” But I think that, although having “United States” may have been a good idea at some point — although the jury is out on that — we no longer have one country. We have several different countries and cultures. The culture of the south and the west are as different from the culture of New England as they are from countries in Europe.
But let’s look on the bright side. If we can encourage more autonomy, regional autonomy, the challenging of repressive or obsolete laws, and the encouragement of regional pacts between states and local communities, we can begin to create regional cultures. If the New England states formed their own pact and began to separate themselves from the decisions of the federal government wherever they can and formed, in a sense, a resistance alliance, we might be at the beginning of a decentralization process. That will not recreate the United States. In a way, the United States has probably ended. It’s been disunited, a process that was probably underway before Trump, but he’s accelerated it. He’s made the differences obvious.
Now you have a strong minority of the country that disagrees with the direction that the other strong minority is going. We don’t have majoritarian control of the country. We have a minority movement of Christian nationalists, which has taken control of one of the political parties and, through it, the national government, and is attempting to force its vision on the rest of the country. And I think that this will continue to be resisted. The question is what is the effective resistance? I would say a gradual devolution and decentralization of power, and giving more power to states and regions to create their own future, is the beginning of a solution.
DeFilippi: That’s an amazing theory. You and I grew up in a world where people listened to Walter Cronkite or read the New York Times, or two or three other trustworthy networks or sources, and it’s all gone, isn’t it?
But that was a myth. I don’t know if you agree with me, but for example, Walter Cronkite used to say “That’s the way it is.” But often that wasn’t the way it was. He was a messenger of the political establishment of that time. The consensus was easier to manufacture, as Noam Chomsky would say. You had three networks, and their anchors all came up through the same journalistic community. There was much more consensus, at least among that particular elite. Now that has broken down and we have a proliferation of voices. The problem is no longer scarcity. It is figuring out what is true, what is relevant and accurate. The problem is overabundance. We’re being assaulted with information to the point where we have trouble deciding what to believe, and what not to believe. And the future is not going to make that any easier.
The idea that we’re going to reach some future consensus, that there is going to be one America again, that we’ll all buy into the same vision again — I think that’s a fantasy.
One of the problems is that with all the different sources of “news” you’d think people would be open to various political and social opinions. But they’re not. People on both sides of the cultural divide have become more hardened in their beliefs and refuse to listen to the other side. You need to free people who feel captives of an oppressive system. The left feels it is being forced to submit to a repressive regime. The right feels it’s been victimized and persecuted and is now seeking retribution and revenge.
But if you free people from those beliefs — some of them myths, some true to a certain extent — if you allow people to feel they can express themselves, then they will be more open to other ideas. Now we have a dynamic where, if you admit the other side has any point at all, you are viewed by your side as a traitor. That produces more conformity. This is the process we’ve seen. Compromise has become a dirty word and the proposed solutions are often maximalist. We can’t just change the police, we got to defund it. Israel is not just wrong in what it has been doing in Gaza, it’s committing genocide. People are forced to take sides and become rigid, and not able to admit that other valid points of view are possible.
We need to liberate people by allowing them to have more choices. But they’re not going to have choices if they feel they’re forced into a bifurcated system that doesn’t permit that.
Europe would still be at war if the Germans had won World War II, still resisting under German values. Because you have the French and Germans and British and Italians, which have different values and priorities. Today they co-exist with the European community. Now, there is an American community. But do we have “united states?” No, the states are not united, and it’s getting worse rather than better.
That’s why I say we need a gradual devolution of power to states and regions. The Supreme Court and some on the right agree with this, the idea that power should be local, and devolve to states when possible.
In the 1970s, I worked with both conservatives and liberals in Vermont to create a group called the Decentralist League. It was led by John McClaughry, a conservative activist, and Bob O’Brien, who had just run for governor as a Democrat. The organization did not survive, in part derailed by Reagan’s election. But the idea was correct, I believe, that there were areas where the left and right could agree. We need to focus on such areas and prioritize them. Right now, saving health care is one of them. The Speaker has kept the House out of session for two main reasons. One is the Epstein files, but the other is to avoid the debate over the future of Obamacare subsidies.
I think if we can prioritize that and a few other issues like the environment, the left and right could find some common ground. There will be obstacles. Right-wing libertarians prefer privatization, for example, and have problems with arguments for equality. And the left has its effort to apply forms of social engineering and needs to find its way back from that. But if you start a process of devolution, although you will still have those debates, you will be more able to find some common ground and a way forward.
As long as we have a dictatorial regime, the country is unlikely to become united again. But even if a Democrat became president, that would not fundamentally change.
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