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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 governm

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.

jakelazaroff 6y ago
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.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > 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.
  - wool_gather 6y ago
    Current party lines blur to to the point of falling apart in the context of the 1964 Act, because it was a huge precipitating event for politicians switching parties (particularly Southern Democrats becoming Republicans). You can't directly map "Rs voted for the Act" onto party membership today: there was a very different mix of platforms at that time, only loosely comparable to what we have now.
    - kmonsen 6y ago
      This is the real answer, due to the civil rights movement the DNC lost the south due to the less civil minded parts of the party switched to the republicans.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        That makes literally no sense. Republicans supported the civil rights acts of 1957 through 1968 with supermajorities, by far larger margins than democrats did. How can it be that "due to the civil rights movement," "less civil minded" people switched from a party that voted for the Civil Rights Acts, to the party that voted for the Civil Rights Acts by even larger margins? The realignment of southern democrats is due more to the fact that, once segregation--which democrats tolerated and republicans didn't--was off the table, they were more aligned with republicans on other issues, such as religion, gun control, abortion, business regulation, taxes, etc.
        kmonsen 6y ago
        You are either willfully cherry-picking facts here or being ignorant. This info is widely available and it was the racists south that was against the civil rights movement and the union states pushed it through. When the 64 law passed the DNC had 21 out of 22 confederate senators, 1 of whom voted for the act. GOP had 1 southern senator, who voted against it. Looking at the union numbers, DNC had 46 senators of whom 45 voted for the act while the GOP had 32 of which 27 voted for it. So in union numbers the DNC senators voted 98% for it, while GOP did so with 84%. Here is a longer article with this information: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republicans-party-of-civil-rights https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republ... As a result of this both parties changed. The DNC took a stand for civil rights and the southern democrats left. At the same time the GOP got a lot new members that influenced the party and created the new power base for it. Later GOP close victories all relied on the previous southern democrats. Bigger picture, it is clear that the party depending on the south needs to cater to a voting base that is not very positive to civil rights movement, and the opposite for a party that wants to hold the north. It is important to understand that the DNC took a stand here that lost them the south long term because it was the right thing to do (in their minds).
  - FireBeyond 6y ago
    > Every law called "the Civil Rights Act" passed with overwhelming Republican support. The PATRIOT Act is hardly a champion of many patriotic things. Names mean... very little, so I'm not sure your point. "Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters."
    - harryh 6y ago
      The Civil Rights Acts were not bills with misleading names. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968
      - kasey_junk 6y ago
        The Voter Rights Act was a landmark civil rights act that isn’t obviously civil rights.
  - afuchs 6y ago
    The GP's focus on the republican party over the individual voters is misplaced in a historical context [1], but holds for the alignment of modern day voting blocs [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Party_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Party_System [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System
  - Larrikin 6y ago
    You forgot to mention that Lincoln was also a Republican while pretending that the party names of decades ago have anything to do with the party names currently.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      First, the specific claim was that Republicans invoked "states rights" to oppose the Civil Rights Acts, which is just demonstrably untrue. Second, we're talking about the 1960s, not the 1860s. By that time, the Democrats were already the party of FDR and JFK, and Republicans were already the party of Richard Nixon. JFK won the Carolinas, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and beat Nixon in Alabama and Mississippi, because it was perceived that he had a poor record on civil rights. The idea that the “party labels flipped” is just blatant historical revisionism. By the 1950s and 1960s, Democrats were the party both of African Americans (who switched from Republicans during the FDR era), the War in Poverty, and southern segregationists. What happened is that, at some point, support for outright discrimination became unviable, and the battle front moved to other issues, such as affirmative action. That naturally fit into Democrats’ willingness to use the power of government to address social inequities.
      - jakelazaroff 6y ago
        > First, the specific claim was that Republicans invoked "states rights" to oppose the Civil Rights Acts, which is just demonstrably untrue. I have since changed it to “conservatives”, which is the ideology that supported Jim Crow and opposed the Civil Rights Act regardless of what the party name happened to be.
        rayiner 6y ago
        That's still inaccurate. Republicans in the 1930s-1960s were ideologically conservative. Southern democrats, meanwhile, were in many respects ideologically liberal, for example supporting the New Deal: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-deal-democrats-republican-party https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-deal-democrats-rep.... > There were conservative tendencies in American politics before the 1930s, but the modern conservative movement was founded on opposition to the New Deal. The segregationist Democrats, on the other hand, were for the most part eager supporters of the New Deal—provided it was administered in a way that would exclude African Americans from most of its benefits. You do not have to take my word for it—consider the votes: on labor reform, on entitlements, on financial regulation, etc. If the southern Democrats were “conservatives,” then the New Deal was passed on conservative support, which is a very odd claim to make.
czzr 6y ago
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.
kmonsen 6y ago
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.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

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.

rayiner 6y ago
> 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.
- wool_gather 6y ago
  Current party lines blur to to the point of falling apart in the context of the 1964 Act, because it was a huge precipitating event for politicians switching parties (particularly Southern Democrats becoming Republicans). You can't directly map "Rs voted for the Act" onto party membership today: there was a very different mix of platforms at that time, only loosely comparable to what we have now.
  - kmonsen 6y ago
    This is the real answer, due to the civil rights movement the DNC lost the south due to the less civil minded parts of the party switched to the republicans.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      That makes literally no sense. Republicans supported the civil rights acts of 1957 through 1968 with supermajorities, by far larger margins than democrats did. How can it be that "due to the civil rights movement," "less civil minded" people switched from a party that voted for the Civil Rights Acts, to the party that voted for the Civil Rights Acts by even larger margins? The realignment of southern democrats is due more to the fact that, once segregation--which democrats tolerated and republicans didn't--was off the table, they were more aligned with republicans on other issues, such as religion, gun control, abortion, business regulation, taxes, etc.
      - kmonsen 6y ago
        You are either willfully cherry-picking facts here or being ignorant. This info is widely available and it was the racists south that was against the civil rights movement and the union states pushed it through. When the 64 law passed the DNC had 21 out of 22 confederate senators, 1 of whom voted for the act. GOP had 1 southern senator, who voted against it. Looking at the union numbers, DNC had 46 senators of whom 45 voted for the act while the GOP had 32 of which 27 voted for it. So in union numbers the DNC senators voted 98% for it, while GOP did so with 84%. Here is a longer article with this information: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republicans-party-of-civil-rights https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/republ... As a result of this both parties changed. The DNC took a stand for civil rights and the southern democrats left. At the same time the GOP got a lot new members that influenced the party and created the new power base for it. Later GOP close victories all relied on the previous southern democrats. Bigger picture, it is clear that the party depending on the south needs to cater to a voting base that is not very positive to civil rights movement, and the opposite for a party that wants to hold the north. It is important to understand that the DNC took a stand here that lost them the south long term because it was the right thing to do (in their minds).
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  > Every law called "the Civil Rights Act" passed with overwhelming Republican support. The PATRIOT Act is hardly a champion of many patriotic things. Names mean... very little, so I'm not sure your point. "Every faction in Africa calls themselves by these noble names - Liberation this, Patriotic that, Democratic Republic of something-or-other... I guess they can't own up to what they usually are: the Federation of Worse Oppressors Than the Last Bunch of Oppressors. Often, the most barbaric atrocities occur when both combatants proclaim themselves Freedom Fighters."
  - harryh 6y ago
    The Civil Rights Acts were not bills with misleading names. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968
    - kasey_junk 6y ago
      The Voter Rights Act was a landmark civil rights act that isn’t obviously civil rights.
- afuchs 6y ago
  The GP's focus on the republican party over the individual voters is misplaced in a historical context [1], but holds for the alignment of modern day voting blocs [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Party_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Party_System [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Party_System
- Larrikin 6y ago
  You forgot to mention that Lincoln was also a Republican while pretending that the party names of decades ago have anything to do with the party names currently.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    First, the specific claim was that Republicans invoked "states rights" to oppose the Civil Rights Acts, which is just demonstrably untrue. Second, we're talking about the 1960s, not the 1860s. By that time, the Democrats were already the party of FDR and JFK, and Republicans were already the party of Richard Nixon. JFK won the Carolinas, Georgia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and beat Nixon in Alabama and Mississippi, because it was perceived that he had a poor record on civil rights. The idea that the “party labels flipped” is just blatant historical revisionism. By the 1950s and 1960s, Democrats were the party both of African Americans (who switched from Republicans during the FDR era), the War in Poverty, and southern segregationists. What happened is that, at some point, support for outright discrimination became unviable, and the battle front moved to other issues, such as affirmative action. That naturally fit into Democrats’ willingness to use the power of government to address social inequities.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      > First, the specific claim was that Republicans invoked "states rights" to oppose the Civil Rights Acts, which is just demonstrably untrue. I have since changed it to “conservatives”, which is the ideology that supported Jim Crow and opposed the Civil Rights Act regardless of what the party name happened to be.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        That's still inaccurate. Republicans in the 1930s-1960s were ideologically conservative. Southern democrats, meanwhile, were in many respects ideologically liberal, for example supporting the New Deal: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-deal-democrats-republican-party https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/new-deal-democrats-rep.... > There were conservative tendencies in American politics before the 1930s, but the modern conservative movement was founded on opposition to the New Deal. The segregationist Democrats, on the other hand, were for the most part eager supporters of the New Deal—provided it was administered in a way that would exclude African Americans from most of its benefits. You do not have to take my word for it—consider the votes: on labor reform, on entitlements, on financial regulation, etc. If the southern Democrats were “conservatives,” then the New Deal was passed on conservative support, which is a very odd claim to make.

czzr 6y ago

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.

kmonsen 6y ago

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.