And even those who should know better like the FoxNews commentators follow suit. It’s one thing for Rachel Madcow to say it, but Hannity and Carlson ?
If it’s accuracy we’re after, I’d say that around the time George Bush’s administration rammed Raisch v Gonzales through the Supreme Court, the last barriers between the federal government and the states came down. We are no longer a republic with a federal government of enumerated powers, but a nation-state.
Think of the US as going from a compartmented dirigible to a large gas bag, or blimp. I think the Civil War made it inevitable.