Comment by praestigiare
5 years ago
Because, while this is not true of individual republicans, republican party media strategy has been based on positional ethics for a long time. Free speech is good when it is our free speech. Executive orders are bad when they are your executive orders.
Both parties do this. For instance, Republicans are generally the party of "states' rights", but Democrats are jumping up and down about how the federal government shouldn't overrule the rights of liberal states now. Things like the fighting the FCC trying to prohibit states from making their own net neutrality rules, or legalizing marijuana, which is still technically illegal nationwide according to the federal government.
Generally, if you run the federal government, you don't want states objecting to your agenda. And if the opposition is running the federal government, you insist on your right to do things at the state level.
Watching Democrats and Republicans make the exact same arguments depending on whose in power is absolutely hilarious, and it leads to great soundbites, like those of Trump and McConnell talking about what the President should and shouldn't do... depending who the President is.
Conservative support of "states' rights" has always been a dog whistle for restricting civil liberties.
Civil Rights Act? States' rights issue. Same–sex marriage? Let the states decide. Abortion? States should be free to ban.
Edit: swapped "Republican" with "Conservative", since the parties' ideologies have shifted over time.
> Civil Rights Act? States' rights issue.
Every law called "the Civil Rights Act" passed with overwhelming Republican support. All but one passed with more Republican support than Democratic support. The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 received 80% of the republican vote in the house, but only 61% of the democratic vote.
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I don’t believe the Democratic Party has ever advocated that states should have no rights, so I don’t see how your argument makes any sense. Of course in a specific instance they could advocate for states rights.
It is also perfectly fair on the Republican side.
That is a bit disingenuous. It is true to some degree that both parties do it to some degree, for example LGBT rights and abortion rights. But bigger picture "conservatives" have a long history of saying state rights when they mean white rights. There are still a significant portion of the population that pretends to believe that the civil war was over state rights.