Even though I’m not entirely sure what to say about this, it caught my eye, and I’m sharing it.
From an AP wire service story:
Separated by hundreds of miles and divergent political philosophies, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention starting Wednesday in Chattanooga.
They expect to attract supporters from California, Alaska and Hawaii, inviting anyone who wants to dissolve the Union so states can save themselves from an overbearing federal government.[...]
Harry Watson, director of the Center For the Study of the American South and a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said it was a surprise to see The Middlebury Institute conferring with the League of the South, “an organization that’s associated with a cause that many of us associate with the preservation of slavery.”
He said the unlikely partnering “represents the far left and far right of American politics coming together.”
Of course, if such outlier organizations could tolerate diluting their goals a little bit, I’d suspect that they could attract a bit more mass (and maybe credibility) if they were campaigning for a return to more traditional federalism and a less intrusive national government.
Regardless of that, it’s interesting that a secessionist conference could attract a few seconds of media attention.