'Steamrolling anything in his way': How Trump is 'bulldozing state and local power'

03 February

"States' rights" has long been a major rallying cry on the right. Many conservatives and libertarians maintain that what is right for Massachusetts and Maryland isn't necessarily right for deep red states like Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi and North Dakota — and that liberals and progressives are too quick to push a national solution to issues that should be addressed on a state-by-state basis.

But The New Republic's Matt Ford, in an article published on February 3, emphasizes that President Donald Trump, during his second term, is "steamrolling" individual states along with "separation of powers."

"In a series of executive orders since taking office," Ford explains, "Trump has sought to pressure, command, and even intimidate state and local officials across the country into carrying out his whims. Tensions between state and federal power are hardly new to American history. But the president's eagerness to bulldoze state and local power is a disturbing escalation of his autocratic approach to government."

Ford continues, "Education, for example, is a policy area that is typically guided by state and local governments. The federal Department of Education exercises some influence through its funding programs; Trump and other conservatives have long sought to abolish it and claimed they wanted greater local control over what students learn. That goal appears to be on hiatus for now: Trump issued an executive order last week titled 'Ending Racial Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling' that hopes to use the Department as an ideological cudgel."

Trump, according to Ford, isn't calling for states' rights when it comes to education or immigration, but rather, is demanding his own national standard.

"Trump's most aggressive efforts to alter the state-federal relationship can be seen in immigration policy," Ford observes. "Where education is traditionally a state responsibility, immigration exclusively falls within federal jurisdiction. To that end, the White House is targeting 'sanctuary' cities and states that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement."

Ford adds, "One of his initial executive orders directed the federal government to 'evaluate and undertake any lawful actions to ensure that so-called sanctuary jurisdictions.… do not receive access to federal funds'…. Trump is not interested in rewriting the balance of power between Washington, D.C., and the states. He is simply steamrolling anything that stands in his way."

Matt Ford's full article for The New Republic is available at this link.

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