Someday, the Republicans will again want to be seen as conservative. Don’t let them
Someday, the Republicans will again want to be seen as conservative. Don’t let them
To retreat back to states rights, they’ll need us to forget their assault on them.
I was reading a Times report this morning about state and local election officials preparing for the election. Floods, fires, computer glitches – these are normal concerns, the Times said. But now there’s a new risk: the federal government.
That’s not what jumped out at me, though. I am well aware of Donald Trump’s phony fraud claims. I am familiar with his desire to steal the election if he can pull it off the crime. What jumped out at me was what Maine’s secretary of state said.
“This is the first time ever that we have had to engage in scenario planning to safeguard against potential federal interference in elections,” Shenna Bellows told the Times. Then she added a vital nuance to that statement. “It seems like the federal government is now adversarial to the states.”
The federal government is now adversarial to the states.
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SubscribedWe have been living with Trump for 10 years. During that time, we have forgotten – I have forgotten, I guess – one of the load-bearing columns of so-called conservatism, which is that the federal government is the problem, not the solution.
For decades, the Republicans built up a body of rhetoric to convince many Americans, most of them white, that it’s oppressive to be taxed, tyrannical to be regulated, downright communist for the federal government to tell states what to do. With that rhetoric, they made liberal values, like equality and justice for all, seem radical, while policies designed to manifest those values were made to seem treasonous.
A classic example is Strom Thurmond’s “Dixiecrat” speech in 1948, given after Harry Truman desegregated the military. Thurmond was a defender of southern apartheid to the day he died. Tapping into the fear that the government would ask the same of the states, he compared civil rights to totalitarianism.
“[The Civil Rights Act] simply means that it’s another means, that it’s another effort on the part of this president to dominate the country by force and to put into effect these uncalled for and the damnable proposals he has recommended under the guise of so-called ‘civil rights.’ And I tell you, the American people, from one side to the other, had better wake up and oppose such a program, and if they don’t, the next thing will be a totalitarian state in these United States.”
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Over the years, the lyrics changed, but the tune stayed the same. If there was a Democratic president who wanted to do something good for the electorate that elected him with the power of the federal government, Republicans acted like it was an effort to dominate the country by force. They would declare it either impossible (because it cost too much) or a violation of the sovereignty of the states. On that “constitutional” basis, the Supreme Court could usually be trusted to back them up.
I mean, the whole point of the “gun rights movement” was that an armed citizenry was the best defense against “government tyranny.” It should now be clear they never meant a word. You don’t hear “states rights” people complaining about Trump’s violation of state sovereignty. You don’t see the “Second Amendment” people complaining about his paramilitary police. You don’t see “free speech” people complaining about his attempts to censor the backlash. They spent decades accusing Democratic presidents of being “adversarial to the states,” but they were looking in the mirror the entire time.
Which brings me back to Maine’s secretary of state. I am grateful for her reminder, because there will be a future. There will be a time when Trump is gone and a new normalcy sets in, whatever that is. Voters will put a Democrat in the White House again. The moment they do, there will begin a huge effort on the part of the Republicans to trade their offensive posture, maga-ism, for a defensive posture, so-called conservatism. They will ask us to forget their complicity in creating “a totalitarian state in these United States.”
The new Democratic president will want to enact laws and policies that empower and liberate individuals and communities in states controlled by the GOP, and any chance Republicans have in resisting those efforts will depend on you, me and everyone we know believing they actually believe what they say about morality, the Constitution and the rule of law.
They do not.
Let’s remember that.
Ask Me Anything: October 29, 2026
I asked you to ask me anything. Here are some questions I got. If you want to ask me something for the next Ask Me Anything, leave a comment below or send a reply.
Will Trump accept a GOP rout in the midterms? Will he acknowledge that is what Congress is, or will he refuse?
My answer:
The president will never ever concede defeat. He didn’t admit to losing the 2018 election. He didn’t admit to losing the 2020 election. He’s an 80-year-old narcissistic suffering from age-related dementia. He ain’t changing for the better.
The question isn’t whether he will accept defeat. It’s about what he will do in the face of it. He’s already done frightening things – sending ICE agents to patrol mail-in ballot boxes, sending subpoenas to election officials, sending FBI agents to raid the home of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
That said, it’s still kinda meh.
Here’s how Will Bunch put it Monday in the Inquirer:
“When the president orders a raid on the home of a political opponent like Omar, or when he files lawsuits that are likely to again be laughed out of the courtroom, America’s wannabe strongman is not displaying strength. These are acts of weakness and desperation, and they are bound to fail. …
“The fundamentals of what the political scientists call competitive authoritarianism — right-wing populists staging pretend elections — are failing because their misrule has imploded so badly that they can no longer win even those rigged contests.”
So what Trump is doing is scary but weak, Will said.
“Trump’s coup may be underway, but it’s already fizzling.”
Carl asks:
What are your thoughts on whether Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer should remain majority leaders following January 3. Should power struggles be a distraction?
My answer:
I am on the fence when it comes to Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. We need to give leaders grace. We also need to raise hell when they stray. I think an intra-party fight is possible but unlikely. If the Democrats prevail next week, Schumer will lead the Senate, Jeffries will be the speaker.
The problem is neither seems ready to fight to the degree they should. Jeffries is good at talking about it. Schumer isn’t good at even that. But we can’t write them off. First, because they’re leaders. Second, because they have put up good fights in the past. For me, it’s the back and forth – fighting, then peacemaking; peacemaking, then fighting – that’s dispiriting.
I’m reminded of remarks by Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan. In a recent interview, he talked about Donald Trump and administration officials using language that’s both refreshing and startling in that we rarely hear that kind of talk from Democratic leaders in Washington. He speaks as if grounded in a community of normal people, not a community of poll-brained campaign strategists.
AES said:
“We are being actively bullied by the dumbest people in the room. Donald Trump is an idiot. Whatever you think about him, he has one genius, which is the genius of getting attention, which is because his dad never gave him enough. Because he was a nepo baby, because he had resources, he realized quickly that he just craved attention, then used the bullying tactics that he uses right now to get it. But the man is an idiot. I mean, when it comes down to it, just a fool.”
And:
“So part of the responsibility I think we have is not to allow them to use their power to bend the rest of us to their will, and that means standing up. And the thing about is if you ever stood up to a bully, you realize that they’re very fragile. Once you get past the immediate bullying and the fear that they strike people, there’s no there there, and when you hit them back, they back off. I’m not looking to bully anybody, but if you’re walking around bullying people, and you are causing them harm as a function of it, I’m gonna show up and I’m gonna do exactly what you do to everybody else.”
I accept that I can’t always get what I want. But if I had my druthers, Schumer and Jeffries would learn from this.
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© 2026 John Stoehr
New Haven