California and New York alone sent the federal government $352 billion more than they received in fiscal 2024. Kentucky took in $2.28 for every dollar it sent in fiscal 2023. Blue states are funding their own oppression. The solution is simple: stop.

We don’t live or die on the 2026 midterms. There is so much more we can do no matter what.

Let’s start with federal tax resistance. Not individual but institutional. California’s state controller “accidentally” delays federal transfers. New York’s banking system develops “technical difficulties” processing federal revenues. Illinois has “compatibility issues” with IRS systems. Make the federal government sue for every dollar.

The leverage here is extraordinary. California alone sent the IRS $766.5 billion in fiscal 2025. New York added another $411.4 billion. This is the federal government’s operating cash. Delay it by a month? The Treasury starts bouncing checks. Delay it by a quarter? Federal agencies shut down. The government can sue, sure. But lawsuits take years. Meanwhile, every delayed payment triggers another crisis, every technical difficulty requires weeks of troubleshooting, every system incompatibility needs months of expert review. Problems cascade into catastrophes while lawyers argue about jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, states that are actually interested in running functioning governments are free to do so.

The leverage isn’t in transferring money, it’s in the infrastructure. Every federal tax payment runs through banks, and 79% of U.S. banks are state-chartered. Blue state banking regulators could require “enhanced security reviews” for all federal transactions. New York’s Department of Financial Services supervises more than 1,300 banks and financial institutions holding more than $3.3 trillion. California’s tech companies run the payment platforms. Illinois hosts the commodity exchanges.

Imagine if blue state systems developed simultaneous “compatibility issues” with federal payment processing. Or if state-chartered banks needed to “verify compliance” for every transaction involving federal agencies. The IRS can’t function without state cooperation, they need state tax records for audits, state DMV data for collections, state banking systems for processing. Make that cooperation contingent. Make it slow. Make it repetitive. Make it hurt.

The beauty is plausible deniability. It’s not refusal, it’s incompetence. Sorry, our systems are from 1987. Sorry, we’re upgrading our security protocols. Sorry, new compliance measures require manual review of every transaction. So sorry. Republicans weaponized bureaucratic obstruction for decades. They turned administrative delay into an art form. Use their masterpiece against them.

Maryland has already enacted part of this. Since July 1, 2026, its comptroller can stop the state’s payments to the federal government when federal agencies defy court orders to pay Maryland money Congress approved. That is the third of the four tiers of state tax resistance we described in September 2026.

We can go so much further than finances.

Texas criminalizes reproductive healthcare? Their medical licenses become void in California. Florida persecutes doctors for treating trans kids? They can’t practice in New York. Red state medical schools lose accreditation partnerships. Their residency programs lose access to blue state hospitals.

Their doctors can’t get specialty training at Johns Hopkins or Mayo Clinic. Make the medical brain drain official: if you practice in a state that criminalizes healthcare, you can’t practice in states that protect it. Let red state governors explain why their best doctors are fleeing and their medical students can’t match at top residencies. Meanwhile, blue states fast-track licensing for any doctor fleeing prosecution for providing actual medical care.

Conservatives have spent decades demonizing blue states while leeching off our functioning economies and infrastructure. This must end.

Republicans have also been ignoring federal law for decades. Texas kept its abortion bounty system running while courts declared it unconstitutional. In 2025 they passed a second one. Alabama ignored Supreme Court orders on redistricting and drew new discriminatory maps anyway. Wisconsin Republicans stripped gubernatorial powers during lame duck despite court challenges. Florida keeps banning books, 2,304 times in the 2024-25 school year, despite clear First Amendment violations. Their response to losing in court? Do it again tomorrow with slightly different wording.

Here’s how it actually works: A federal court strikes down Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban in 2018. Mississippi passes a six-week ban in March 2019. U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves opens his ruling on the second ban with “Here we go again.” Each law takes months to challenge, years to litigate. States enacted 108 abortion restrictions in 2021 alone. By the time one reaches the Supreme Court, five more are already in effect. In June 2022 the Supreme Court upheld the 15-week ban and overturned Roe v. Wade.

The courts literally cannot keep pace. Texas’s Senate Bill 8 created the bounty system where citizens sue each other, making the state impossible to sue. A state judge ruled it unconstitutional in December 2021 and it stayed in force. Idaho copied it in March 2022 and Oklahoma in May 2022. In 2025 Texas passed it again: House Bill 7 lets private citizens sue anyone who mails abortion pills into the state for at least $100,000. Every version is slightly different, and every one requires a separate lawsuit.

Alabama perfected malicious compliance. Courts ordered them to create a second district with a Black majority or close to one. They drew one that was 39.9% Black. The court rejected the map and had a special master draw the lines. Meanwhile, the 2022 elections happened under illegal maps.

Even when finally forced to comply, the damage was done. The illegal maps had already been used. Representatives had already been elected. Power had already been seized.

The cheat code is this: enforcement requires cooperation. When states refuse to cooperate, the federal government has surprisingly few options. They can sue, but suits take years. They can withhold funding, but blue states give more than they take. They can send federal agents, but states control the infrastructure those agents need.

Republicans discovered you can just say no. When the Supreme Court ruled for the Biden administration on border razor wire in January 2024, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared that his state’s authority “is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary.” Twenty-five Republican governors signed a statement backing him. No, we won’t follow that ruling. No, we won’t change the law. No, we won’t stop. What are you going to do, invade Texas?

The strategy isn’t one big dramatic stand. It’s flooding the zone. Pass ten unconstitutional laws while courts review one. Implement fifty illegal policies while they litigate five. By the time a judge rules, you’ve already moved on to the next violation. Texas has perfected this: abortion bans, bounty systems, border walls, book bans, trans persecution, all running simultaneously. The legal system can’t keep up. That’s the point.

Even when they lose, they don’t comply. The Supreme Court ordered Alabama to draw fair districts. Alabama submitted racist maps again. The consequences? On June 2, 2026, the Supreme Court let Alabama use its 2023 map in the November 2026 midterms. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent that the order “corrodes the rule of law by rewarding Alabama’s gamesmanship and outright defiance of court orders.” Texas was told their abortion ban was unconstitutional. They made it more extreme: up to life in prison for doctors. What happened? Zero accountability. The lesson is clear: just do what you want. Make MAGA-stan stop us. That’s how you stand up to bullies.

This isn’t a schoolyard, we don’t have someone to run to about the bully. Nobody is going to save us from the absolute insanity. Except us.

Think blue states don’t have the stomach to defy federal law? We already did. Every dispensary in California is proof that states can tell the federal government no. We just need to start doing it for democracy, not just drugs. Marijuana was Schedule I federally, in the same category as heroin. Yet 41 states legalized it anyway. They licensed dispensaries, collected $28.4 billion in recreational sales taxes, created entire regulatory frameworks while the DEA insisted it was illegal. The federal government could raid every dispensary tomorrow. They don’t. They can’t. In April 2026 the Justice Department moved state-licensed medical marijuana to Schedule III. Recreational marijuana is still Schedule I, and 24 states license and tax it. State non-cooperation made federal drug law meaningless.

The Second Amendment sanctuary movement went further. By 2022, about 2,000 counties, 60% of the country’s total, had passed resolutions against gun laws they consider unconstitutional. Wyoming made it a state crime for its officers to enforce federal gun restrictions it considers unconstitutional. Missouri let residents sue their own police departments for $50,000 for helping enforce federal gun laws. A dozen Missouri officers withdrew from ATF task forces. The Justice Department sued Missouri and won, and the appeals court still wrote in August 2024 that the state “may lawfully withhold its assistance from federal law enforcement.”

The playbook exists. Flood the zone. Pass everything at once. Because we are fighting for actual freedom. Freedom of speech, religion, and due process, bodily autonomy, collective bargaining, and truly so many other things people take for granted.

We can pass laws to protect all the freedoms Republicans hate, all simultaneously. Make them sue to stop each one. While they’re in court over healthcare, pass consumer protections. While they challenge that, start the wealth tax. Never stop. Never comply. Just keep governing.

They wanted mass deportation.

We can deport them from the functioning economy.

So what do we do with this information?

Educate, Activate, Recruit, and Repeat. These are the stages for all effective social movements. They’re what build a movement that grows as circumstances become more challenging, making success inevitable. Learn more in The Existentialist Republic Library of free resources, all at the bottom of this article.

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CALL TO ACTION

Who you’re contacting and how: Reach out to one of your state legislators. You can do that by email, phone, FaxZero or even a printed letter. You could even go to their office, and you could even invite friends to join you. If participated in this call to action yesterday, pick a different contact method and/or a different officeholder to contact.

Find your legislators by clicking on this sentence.

What you’re asking for: Ask them to publicly endorse all eight of these for your state:

• a state voting rights act

• automatic voter registration

• same-day registration

• a ballot mailed to every registered voter

• prepaid postage on every returned ballot

• a drop box for every 15,000 registered voters

• a voters’ pamphlet mailed to every household

• Election Day as a state holiday

Let them know who you are, what you want, and why you care. Offices count identical messages once, so write it in your own words.

The Existentialist Republic Library

By clicking this sentence you can buy a physical copy of my book “Toppling Tyrants: A Field Guide to Removing Fascism in America”

You can get a FREE PDF of the book in the BMAC shop for $0.00 by clicking on this sentence.

The Existentialist Republic Library

Conservatism: America’s Personality Disorder — physical copy / free download

Intro to Soft Secession — physical copy / free download

Oppositional Federalism and You — physical copy / free download

Toppling Tyrants: A Field Guide to Dismantling American Fascism — physical copy / free download

Grab Them By The E.A.R.R.: How to Get Politicians to Do What You Want — physical copy / free download

Being Dangerous: Go From Activist to Operative

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The Opposition Guide to Tax Warfare

Six-Panel Soft Secession Brochure

Prosecution Memo: Jonathan Ross

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