A Minnesota secession? It’s not as impossible as you might think.

If President Donald Trump can imagine annexing a sovereign nation, then liberals can think about leaving a dysfunctional one. Minnesotans can grasp their political agency by imagining peaceful secession from the United States and joining Canada.

Minnesota history shows how unusual ideas and local organizing can overcome government failure.

In 1977, the town of Kinney, Minnesota, playfully declared sovereignty after the state repeatedly denied it the grants for repairing its water system. The town named itself the Republic of Kinney, produced fake passports and generated embarrassing national attention for the state government. Kinney applied for another grant and quickly received $260,000.

Kinney’s success demonstrated the effectiveness of grassroots self-determination, an enduring feature of Minnesota’s civic culture. Minnesota holds one of the strongest rates of community participation in the country, and regularly posts some of the highest voter turnout in federal elections. 

This feature reappeared in Minnesotans’ response to Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation on record. Despite abuse by ICE agents and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, 38% of residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul participated in anti-ICE protests or mutual aid during Operation Metro Surge. 

Related: Metro Surge in photos

Community organizing confounded federal authorities into recognizing the political costs of continued incursion, and facilitated aid reminiscent of government services. Minnesota resembled a proto-state. 

But achieving sovereignty would face significant barriers. Since the Supreme Court banned secession in 1869, peaceful separation requires a constitutional amendment, a process that involves consent from three-quarters of state legislatures and two-thirds of Congress. 

Imagining past these hurdles reveals Minnesotans’ untapped political leverage. In this thought experiment, the organizing capacity that mobilized 1 million Minnesotans during Metro Surge could pursue the right to secession.

Minnesotans could organize to disrupt close federal elections with a secessionist third party demanding that Democrats support a constitutional amendment. With a divided electorate, Democrats couldn’t afford to lose two Senate seats and 10 Electoral College votes from the state that has voted for Democratic presidential nominees longer than any other. Polling already shows that 23% of Minnesotans support secession — a bloc larger than Democrats’ typical 2%-7% margin of victory in federal elections.

Related: The last Republican to carry Minnesota? Nixon.

Democrats might let Minnesota lean Republican rather than reward a secessionist movement. However, Republicans may balance the difference. Red states like Texas, a state with a history of separatist movements, could support the right to secession, and the Republican Party would benefit from helping a blue state exit Congress and the Electoral College.

Liberals might protest that empowering Texas’s secessionists risks awarding red states the same leverage. But a right to secession is a political tool for any region whose residents feel that the political establishment no longer responds to them.

Some in coastal centers of power could wonder why Minnesota ought to push for a constitutional amendment. While the national discourse focuses on foreign wars and partisanship, the establishment dismisses Minnesotans with regional stereotypes. Organizing secessionist sentiment would reverse Minnesota’s ‘flyover’ political status.

Secession is rooted in focusing political power on voters. If Minnesota seceded and Canada accepted it, the state would be the third-largest province in its new country. In this scenario, politicians would chase Minnesotans’ votes, and Minnesota’s large population and strong economy would give voters greater influence over their federal government.

These outcomes would placate liberals by limiting the resources available to an imperial American government, and liberate conservatives from an electoral system that dilutes their votes in presidential elections.

Beyond secession, supposing a constitutional amendment makes conceivable reforms achieved through the democratic process. An optimistic mindset is essential to inoculating against fatalism before it sows authoritarianism.

Achieving any significant policy reform via community organizing would break cynical beliefs about the limits of political engagement. The plausibility of an extreme like secession suggests that comparatively modest reforms are achievable, and reminds Americans of radical changes taken for granted today.

Related: Organizing for immigrant neighbors

The legacy of World War II produced the highest levels of civic participation ever recorded in the United States. This engagement led to the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act and the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18. With the same participation, concentrated in a state necessary to Democratic majorities, Minnesotans can imagine a constitutional amendment.

Tom Vatterott is a writer and a marriage and family therapy master’s student in Minneapolis. His writing has been published in the Hill, the Minnesota Star Tribune and Minnesota Reformer.

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