When I read that liberal Democrat officials in the state of Maine are defying federal law by rejecting President Trump’s new Title IX rules barring biological men from participating in women’s sports, my initial thought was: What do they care? Many of Maine’s citizens long ago quit having children. Like much of secular New England, Maine is a national leader in birth control. The wealthy, liberal New England states — specifically, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire — have the lowest fertility rates.
Time to violate Title IX laws, liberals! Grab your Confederate flags!
So, unlike states with residents giving birth to and raising children, Maine’s citizens as a whole can be less concerned about boys beating up their girls in sports.
But that aside, what’s especially striking is that the Maine case offers yet another example of how liberals can be states’ rights fanatics. Yes, it’s true. Progressives provide examples constantly.
Sure, progressives howl that invocations of states’ rights are the unique province of racist Republicans. If you’re a Republican supporting states’ rights — that is, federalism, the 10th Amendment of the Constitution — then you’re an ugly segregationist. You’re sounding a “dog whistle” for your advocacy of Jim Crow laws.
Where’s your white hood, closet Klansman?
I noted in a review here a couple of weeks ago how Reagan biographer/character assassin, Max Boot, employs this slimy tactic against an iconic president who was reelected by winning 49 of 50 states. And Boot is hardly alone. Left-wing polemicists and Democrat hacks wield this race club all the time. “States’ rights,” they say, is “code language” for Republican “racism.” It’s the cry of loathsome confederates.
But now, here we are, at the start of the second Trump term, and liberal Democrat governors and state officials are once again — predictably — adamantly asserting states’ rights. They are doing so to resist the Republican administration, this time on immigration, sanctuary cities, deportation, birth control, education, to allow boys in girls’ locker rooms, and a myriad of other issues.
“The federal government has no right to deport [illegal] migrants from our cities!” shouts the liberal mayor or governor. “States’ rights!”
“Abortion access is safe in New York,” declares New York Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul. “To the women of Texas, I want to say I am with you. Lady Liberty is here to welcome you with open arms.” She vows: “We will help you find a way to New York.”
To any federal authorities who try to stop this interstate commerce, Gov. Hochul hoists her middle finger and snaps defiantly: “States’ rights!”
The liberals in Hochul’s state and nationwide applaud and cheer her on: “States’ rights! States’ rights! States’ rights!”
A few years ago, liberal Democrat officials were states’ rights fanatics in a particularly aggressive way when they carried out their COVID shutdowns and lockdowns and mask and vax mandates.
Now, they’ve again emerged as unflagging states’ rights advocates, and nary a progressive will step forward to bat an eye. This hypocrisy will go utterly unremarked upon by the MSNBC moonbat.
To be sure, the rare thoughtful liberal, as if struck by lightning, might on occasion notice the hypocrisy on display. See, for instance, a July/August 2013 (pre-Trump) piece in The Atlantic magazine called “States’ Rights Are for Liberals.” That liberal author noted how leftists were fully embracing states’ rights to push for everything from marijuana legalization to same-sex “marriage” (this was pre-Obergefell).
So, that thoughtful liberal noticed. But unfortunately, most liberals aren’t thoughtful. They’re dictated by emotion. For conservatives, it rather sucks to have deranged ideological opponents who every time you disagree with them start hyperventilating, foaming at the mouth, and screaming “RACIST HATER!!!” at the top of their lungs. But alas, that’s our cross to carry in dealing with these people.
Anyway, liberals decade after decade have generously invoked states’ rights for themselves and their projects while not even seeming to realize that when conservatives do the same they denounce the act as some sort of hate crime. (Actually, state-based hate crimes are another example of where liberals aggressively invoke states’ rights.) Decade after decade? Yes, of course.
Barry Goldwater over 60 years ago in his classic The Conscience of a Conservative quoted at length New York Democratic Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The liberal icon was a vigorous promoter of states’ rights in defense of what he called “a great number of … vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, of insurance, of business, of agriculture, of education, of social welfare, and a dozen other important features.” FDR was adamant: “Washington must not … interfere” in these areas that are the domain of states.
Democrat Extremism on States’ Rights
Democrats were the ultimate extremists on states’ rights, which they pushed to enshrine the inhuman institution of slavery. The Democratic Party was the party of slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow. Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party was founded as the anti-slavery party. In fact, when today’s liberal Democrats assert that Republicans want states’ rights to push segregation, they’re historically confusing Republicans with Democrats; that is, with their own party. They should be looking in the mirror.
Democrats have long been states’ rights fanatics, for a variety of evolving issues over the centuries.
To be clear, let it be understood that the U.S. Constitution most certainly recognizes states’ rights. The 10th Amendment asserts: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Indeed, that’s why both Democrats and Republicans have invoked that power and their prerogative of states’ rights for centuries, sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly.
The only times these claims are consistently objected to are by liberals looking to slime their opponents as racists, acting as if states’ rights advocates exist only on the right. It’s mindless hypocrisy.
And now, the liberals of Maine invoke states’ rights for their ideological preferences. The executive director of the Maine Principals Association (MPA) asserts that the New England state will not abide by President Trump’s executive order to “keep men out of women’s sports.” And Maine is just one example.
Time to violate Title IX laws, liberals! Grab your Confederate flags!
The hypocrisy never ceases to take your breath away. My advice: Keep track of these daily appeals to states’ rights by liberals over the next four years. You’ll find a new example somewhere in America every day.
Meet the great states’ rights advocates once again: Democrats. They’re baaack!
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