State Rights

The 10th amendment of the United States Constitution limits the federal government's power to only powers granted by the Constitution. This can complicate situations such as a pandemic. The federal government can provide guidance, but they can't control the response in all 50 states.

There were a lot of people who thought we should have imposed a nation-wide lockdown. Such an act would have been illegal. Regardless of what you think of Donald Trump, avoiding such a lockdown was clearly the right decision.

Trump followed this with a horrible idea. He insisted that opening the country would be his decision rather than the decision of the states. Again, this would be illegal. The federal government does not have this power.

This was followed by something I never anticipated encountering. Democrats made a 10th amendment argument. They acknowledged that Trump's proposed action would take away state rights granted by the 10th amendment. From a party that has continuously pushed the idea that the federal government can make whatever laws they want, this was quite shocking.

There are a lot of people who think that Trump is deceptively intelligent. Getting Democrats to show support for the 10th Amendment plays right into that perspective. Personally, I don't think this was about Trump being a genius. I think it was more a matter of the Democrat pretending to be a Republican not knowing what Republicans actually believe. When called out on his blunder, he quickly backtracked.

Even within the pandemic, state rights provided a drastic shift in the Democratic party. From the very beginning, they insisted that Trump was wrong not to lock down the country. They criticized him because governors were left to make decisions themselves. They wanted the federal government to take full charge of the pandemic. They only changed their minds when Trump hinted at a decision they didn't like.