Sullivan - REPUBLICANS AGAINST FEDERALISM: Steve Chapman has a superb essay on Slate, delineating the GOP's long slide away from Goldwater's embrace of states' rights. The FMA is the worst example, but there are many others. Chapman gives one reason for the change:
[W]hat alienated Republicans from federalism? It's not simple hypocrisy. True, their sympathy for states' rights was partly the product of a historical accident. From the New Deal onward, state governments were generally less activist than the federal government, where the legislature was under almost unbroken Democratic control for half a century. So, conservatives preferred to keep decision-making in places where they could prevail.
But their fondness for states' rights also stemmed from conservatives' sincere distrust of government power and their belief that one crucial way to constrain it was to diffuse it among 50 capitals instead of channeling it all into one.
That perspective lost much of its appeal once the GOP found it could not only elect presidents with reasonable consistency but also dominate Congress as well. Virtue is harder to practice once temptation is beckoning.
I think that's true. But I also believe the fusion of Republicanism with fundamentalist Christianity is also antithetical to the federalist impulse. If you believe you are right, and you believe that God is behind you, it becomes much harder to allow others to try other things or experiment or differ. That doesn't just apply to people, but to states as well.
Today's Republicans, when it comes to something like, say, medical marijuana, cannot get past their visceral hostility to individuals' experiencing pleasure or even medical help not licensed by their God. So they seek to ban it - quick. If that means violating states' rights, so be it. Religious zeal as well as hypocrisy and opportunism are the factors here. None is conducive to the tolerant spirit of principled conservatism. |
