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Trump Waging War Against Blue States and Cities -- Jennifer Rubin
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/trump-waging-war-against-blue-statesSo much for "states’ rights"
A federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois on Friday threw out the government’s lawsuit claiming federal law preempts local laws limiting cooperation with Trump’s mass deportation effort. (The latter are improperly labeled “sanctuary city laws.” Localities are not claiming federal law is inapplicable, but rather, as discussed below, are declining to provide shock troops for Trump’s police state.) It was the latest round, and latest MAGA defeat, in Donald Trump’s war against states that resist his cruel, lawless, and dangerous agenda.
Trump’s war against blue states is central to his dictatorial ambitions. To achieve unlimited control, he must subjugate independent sources of power and information—from TV network news operations to universities to civil servants to Congress itself. Ironically (for a party that once fetishized states’ rights), Trump’s MAGA GOP consistently seeks to obliterate federalism and force states—generally blue ones—to do his bidding.
. . .
In sum, states have protection under the 10th Amendment to set their own policies. In demanding that blue cities and states follow the feds’ direction, the Trump regime impedes localities from translating “voter preferences into policy.” And, Jenkins wrote, such action denigrates state autonomy by seizing control over local jurisdictions’ employees (unconstitutionally “commandeering” them)—something at the heart of state sovereignty. (States’ refusal to be dragooned into manning Trump’s police state does not, as the government claimed, amount to impairing federal policy; rather, it constitutes exercising constitutionally protected sovereignty.)
Despite Trump’s executive decrees and legally dubious suits, states have every right to make their own law enforcement priorities and fund the policies they select. As Pritzker put it in a written statement, “Illinois ensures law enforcement time and energy is spent fighting crime—not carrying out the Trump Administration’s unlawful policies or troubling tactics.” Jenkins’ ruling protected its right to do so. . . .
Trump’s war against blue states is central to his dictatorial ambitions. To achieve unlimited control, he must subjugate independent sources of power and information—from TV network news operations to universities to civil servants to Congress itself. Ironically (for a party that once fetishized states’ rights), Trump’s MAGA GOP consistently seeks to obliterate federalism and force states—generally blue ones—to do his bidding.
. . .
In sum, states have protection under the 10th Amendment to set their own policies. In demanding that blue cities and states follow the feds’ direction, the Trump regime impedes localities from translating “voter preferences into policy.” And, Jenkins wrote, such action denigrates state autonomy by seizing control over local jurisdictions’ employees (unconstitutionally “commandeering” them)—something at the heart of state sovereignty. (States’ refusal to be dragooned into manning Trump’s police state does not, as the government claimed, amount to impairing federal policy; rather, it constitutes exercising constitutionally protected sovereignty.)
Despite Trump’s executive decrees and legally dubious suits, states have every right to make their own law enforcement priorities and fund the policies they select. As Pritzker put it in a written statement, “Illinois ensures law enforcement time and energy is spent fighting crime—not carrying out the Trump Administration’s unlawful policies or troubling tactics.” Jenkins’ ruling protected its right to do so. . . .