A rising number of states are asserting their authority over that of the federal government, making states' rights or nullification arguments in anticipation of policies like increased gun control from the Obama administration, even though there’s no evidence stricter gun policies are coming. There’s also anticipated resistance to health-care reform, though the legislation will likely allow states to opt-out if they want to. According to The New York Times:
Other scholars say the state efforts, if pursued in the courts, would face formidable roadblocks. Article 6 of the Constitution says federal authority outranks state authority, and on that bedrock of federalist principle rests centuries of back and forth that states have mostly lost, notably the desegregation of schools in the 1950s and '60s.
It's impossible to view state's rights -- a compromise forged by a fledgling nation that was half-slave and half-free, and since then typically invoked to support anti-progressive stances -- as unconnected to race. It's no accident that the most obvious examples of its use to do with race (see: the invocation of state's rights to start a Civil War over slavery, and reactions against the integration efforts of the Civil Rights era). And it's probably no accident that they're rising again now that we have a black president.
The mistrust may be aimed directly at the president or at the entire federal government, which some people believe is using health care as a form of reparations. Still, there is a strong bias against everything the president does. It’s hard for some to affirmatively call it racism, because we believe in this country that racism only has to do with intent -- that you can’t judge something racist before you see the heart and soul of the actor. But you don’t need to divine intent. Increasingly, rising racial animosity is clear from action, and this is another example of how it looks when it takes policy form.
-- Monica Potts
