Have you ever watched a political movement spend years screaming about the sacredness of “democracy” and “rule of law,” only to turn around and brag about breaking both the moment they lose power? That’s where we are right now. The same voices that called a few hours of chaos on January 6 an “insurrection” are suddenly proud nullificationists, sanctuary-city warriors, and even quiet cheerleaders for military disobedience. It would be comedy if it weren’t so dangerous.
Something shifted after the election. The energy on the Left didn’t move toward reflection or opposition within the system. It moved toward open defiance of the system itself. And the rhetoric isn’t coming from random activists in the streets; it’s coming from mayors, governors, members of Congress, and retired four-star generals. They’re not even trying to hide it anymore.
The Sudden Love Affair With Nullification
Let’s start with the basics. For years, progressive cities and states have declared themselves “sanctuaries” that can simply ignore federal immigration law. That always felt a little odd, but now the mask is completely off. Local leaders aren’t just refusing to cooperate with immigration enforcement; some are promising active resistance.
Picture this: a convoy of federal agents doing their job gets surrounded by an angry mob. Local police are told to stand down and watch. That actually happened recently in the Chicago area. The mayor there has already said he’ll fight deportation efforts tooth and nail, even floating the idea of bringing in United Nations monitors. You read that right, an American mayor wants foreign bureaucrats to overrule American laws on American soil.
Out in California, one prominent former House speaker suggested state authorities might arrest federal agents if they cross some invisible line drawn by Sacramento. Think about that for a second. A high-ranking elected official is openly floating the arrest of federal officers doing constitutionally authorized work. That isn’t protest. That’s the language of secession dressed up in progressive clothing.
The Hypocrisy Is Breathtaking
Here’s the part that makes you rub your eyes in disbelief. When a Republican-led state once tried to help enforce federal immigration law, because Washington wouldn’t, the reaction was swift and brutal. Federal lawsuits rained down. Judges blocked the effort. The message was crystal clear: states have no right to step in when the federal government refuses to do its job.
Fast-forward to today. The federal government finally wants to do the job, and those same voices now insist states have every right to block it. Same Constitution, same federal supremacy clause, completely opposite conclusion depending on who sits in the White House. Principles apparently come with an expiration date tied to election results.
If a rural red county tomorrow declared it would ignore federal gun-registration rules or environmental regulations, the outrage would be instantaneous. Cable news would explode with “insurrection” headlines. Yet when blue cities announce they’re immune from immigration law, it’s celebrated as compassion.
From Sanctuary Cities to Sanctuary States
The trend keeps growing. Governors in several deep-blue states have already signaled they’ll use every tool at their disposal to frustrate deportation operations. Some are talking about using state National Guard units, not to help federal authorities, but to monitor them. Others are budgeting millions to provide legal defense for people facing deportation.
In my view, this goes beyond policy disagreement. When elected officials pledge to use state power against the national government, we’re watching the rebirth of nullification doctrine, the same idea that tore the country apart in the 19th century. Only this time it’s wearing rainbow flags instead of gray uniforms.
The Military Gets Dragged In
Perhaps the most chilling development is the open appeal to members of the armed forces to disobey orders. A group of Democratic lawmakers, many with military or intelligence backgrounds, recently released a video telling soldiers and intelligence officers to refuse commands they personally deem unlawful.
Stop and think how insane that is. We have a uniform code of military justice that already spells out, in painstaking detail, when a soldier may legally refuse an order. It’s rare, it’s narrow, and it has nothing to do with partisan politics. Yet here are sitting members of Congress encouraging 1.3 million men and women in uniform to become their own constitutional lawyers every morning at roll call.
No examples were given, naturally. No past order from the incoming administration was cited as illegal. Just a vague, ominous warning that terrible things might be asked of them. The message between the lines was clear: if the commander-in-chief issues orders the Left dislikes, soldiers should feel free to ignore him.
Imagine the meltdown if Republican lawmakers had released a similar video in 2020 urging troops to refuse orders from the Biden administration. The accusations of sedition would still be echoing.
Generals Who Forgot the Law
It’s not just lawmakers. Some of the loudest voices belong to retired senior officers who spent the last administration flirting with open insubordination. We heard talk of removing a sitting president by force, of secretly reassuring foreign adversaries that the U.S. military might not follow its own commander-in-chief. One former chairman of the Joint Chiefs reportedly inserted himself between the president and the chain of command because he didn’t trust elected leadership.
Let that sink in. A general took it upon himself to decide which presidential orders were sane and which weren’t. That’s not civic virtue; that’s the textbook definition of undermining civilian control of the military.
And now these same figures pop up on cable news calling the incoming president a “fascist.” The word gets thrown around so casually you almost forget it’s the kind of rhetoric that inspires unstable people to take shots at political figures. Funny how concerned everyone used to be about “stochastic terrorism” until their own side started wielding the flamethrower.
International Law Over American Law?
Then there’s the growing habit of appealing to “international law” or United Nations authority as if it trumps the U.S. Constitution. One newly elected big-city leader has already threatened to arrest a foreign head of government visiting the United Nations if he felt global courts justified it. Never mind diplomatic immunity or federal responsibility for foreign relations. Local feelings now outweigh treaties.
It’s selective, of course. You don’t hear the same threats aimed at leaders overseeing actual genocides or aggressive wars. Only certain countries seem to trigger this sudden respect for supranational authority. The pattern is hard to miss.
Where This Road Ends
Look, disagreement with a president is as American as apple pie. Protests, lawsuits, investigations, impeachment, all part of the package. But what we’re watching now is different. It’s coordinated, institutional, and increasingly comfortable with the idea that laws only apply when your side writes them.
- Cities declaring themselves above federal law
- State officials threatening to arrest federal agents
- Lawmakers urging soldiers to pick and choose which orders to follow
- Former generals openly musing about coups in bestselling books
- Mayors inviting foreign oversight of American policing
Taken alone, each incident can be waved away as politics getting heated. Taken together, they form a pattern that should worry anyone who remembers how the last nullification crisis ended.
The irony is thick. For years we were lectured that questioning election results was the first step toward authoritarianism. Now the same crowd is laying the intellectual and legal groundwork to ignore an election result they don’t like. They spent four years telling us “democracy is on the ballot.” Turns out what they really meant was their version of democracy is the only one that counts.
In my experience watching politics for decades, movements that believe themselves morally superior rarely feel bound by the same rules they demand of everyone else. And when that mindset takes root in powerful institutions, cities, state houses, even parts of the national-security apparatus, the guardrails start to bend.
We’re not there yet. Cooler heads still exist on both sides. But the temperature keeps rising, and the rhetoric keeps escalating. When one side decides the normal tools of opposition, voting, legislating, persuading, aren’t enough and starts reaching for extraordinary measures, history rarely looks kindly on what comes next.
The question now isn’t whether the incoming administration will overreach; every administration does in some way. The question is whether the opposition will choose to fight within the system that has served the country for two and a half centuries, or whether they’ll keep flirting with the kind of defiance that system was explicitly designed to prevent.
Because once you start down the nullification road, it’s a lot harder to turn around than people think. And the view from the edge of that cliff isn’t pretty, no matter how righteous you believe your cause to be.
