I’m sure you’ll hear pundits from across the spectrum condemning the rioters and the increasing divisiveness facing the United States. The fact is: what’s going should not be a surprise.

My family and I left the US 6 years ago because we saw this train coming. And it is still coming.

Instead of joining this or that chorus, I want to talk briefly about root causes.

I’m not going to blame the Internet or social media. After all, lots of places have social media and are not going through this transformation. I’m not even going to talk about Donald Trump. I think he’s more a symptom than a cause.

I want to share something a little different.

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A few months ago, I watched Clear and Present Danger. It was a Jack Ryan movie from 1994. In it, the President of the United States was implicated in a mind-blowing plot to – wait for it – run a black ops team in Colombia to attack the drug cartel responsible for killing an American businessman. When that doesn’t work particularly well, he agrees to shut down US operations in Colombia in return for one cartel leader killing the one who killed his friend. That new cartel leader also agrees to cut back drug shipments to the US as part of the deal.

In 1994, this was a shocking conspiracy. It was a great conspiracy for a movie.

Since the War on Terror began, we’d almost consider this the President’s job.

The power of the Federal Government and the Executive in the United States has been steadily growing for a long time. I’m no a Constitutional Historian, but as I see it, two major inflection points include the New Deal and associated Supreme Court rulings about commerce, and the War on Terror.

We now have a situation in which the central government, decided by a sliver of perhaps 100^th of 1% of voters, gets to claim overwhelming power. That’s why these individual elections matter so much.

We hang on a knife edge and very few people tip the scales. Violently.

It isn’t a tenable situation.

Earlier in the year we had the BLM riots. They were focused on police failures.

At the time, I wrote – with a focus on the Minneapolis riots:

In 1790, the United States had a total population of 3.9 million people. The government was devolved into multiple states and cities, with the Federal government limited in its powers. A simple reading of the Constitution suggests a government with taxing and monetary powers, that enabled the unification of communications and commerce, that managed foreign policy and that oversaw some aspects of justice. Everything else was devolved. In a simple sense, local free citizens didn't want to hand over their power over regional and local priorities to a distant government that would not share those priorities. They wanted a government that was accountable to them.

At that time, Virginia was the largest state with 747,000 people (of whom only 455,000 were free). Pennsylvania came next with 434,000 people and then Massachusetts with 379,000.

These populations demanded some measure of autonomy because they did not share the priorities that a unified government would have.

Today, the Minneapolis Metro area has 3.6 million people. The city itself has 425,000 people. The Minneapolis Metropolitan area is almost as large as the United States in 1790 and the City of Minneapolis has almost as large a population as any state had free citizens in 1790. Despite this, Minneapolis has a unified city government. The police are organized into five precincts but serve a central police organization.

Citizens in Minneapolis various neighborhoods may well feel that the police force is not under their control. Back in 1790, even if all the citizens of Rhode Island voted, there was legitimate fear that a strong Federal government would fail to address their regional priorities and protect their local rights. The same thought process could be applied to a city like Minneapolis. Local areas within the City might legitimately feel that even if they vote, the central powers of the City government will not address their local priorities and rights.

The City government, due to the simple size of the City, is no longer accountable to its citizens.

For me, the answer is simple. Whenever possible, policing and other services should have their management devolved to smaller local areas. Instead of five precincts, Minneapolis might be better served by having a police department in each of its 13 wards. After all, locals should have a far more direct hand in selecting and overseeing those who are there to protect them. 

Of course, 'local' does not necessarily mean 'good' - it just means accountable. In 1790, Virginia wanted its independence in order to keep slavery intact. In order to address this, regional, state and federal bureaus should exist to investigate local civil rights violations, corruption, organized crime and other threats to the proper operation of local police forces. If a local police force looks the other way when an overzealous and trigger happy former employee commits a murder, the state Bureau of Investigation would get involved - just as they did in Georgia. 

The same concept should be more widely applied. We shouldn’t grant so much power to the central government. 50,000 votes here or there in a country of 330 million should make a difference – but not that much of a difference.

But today we have a President who can order the execution of a person anywhere in the world – possibly excluding the United States. The President can do this, and nobody would be shocked. In fact, Presidents do it all the time with drone strikes.

The President can make a deal with one terrorist leader to kill another and cut back strikes against US targets in return for a US withdrawal – the Tom Clancy scenario – and the only people shocked would be those on the other side.

The House and Senate have enormous powers. The US government spent $6.5 trillion dollars this year – almost $20,000 a person. With that kind of money floating around, the risk of corruption is huge.

And with that kind of money floating around, the value of a few Senate seats and the Presidency is enormous. Even the Supreme Court becomes more important. This is why over $830 million was spent no two Senate races in Georgia alone.

For context, in 1992 – the time of the Clear and Present Danger movie – the tab for all 23 Presidential candidates – including Perot – was $550 million. Bill Clinton and President Bush spent a total of $145 million after the Convention. That was in the days of Clear and Present Danger.

Today, two Senate races have easily outstripped those numbers.

The fact is, this heavy emphasis on central power introduces severe oscillations throughout US society, particularly politics.

So, sure, learn to talk to each other. Sure, learn to be work with another. Sure, respect institutions. But at the same time, let’s make it all matter just a little bit less.