Don’t read too much into this. The perpetual argument between federalism and anti-federalism has been going on, unabated, since America was founded. It really has no resolution, *nor is it supposed to*, any more than arguing which branch of the government should dominate the other two. The trick is to find a healthy balance, fully aware that it will change all the time.
I actually noted with some amusement that the federalism-anti-federalism argument is not limited to the US. When we helped establish a new government in Iraq, the argument started right up there, and as with here, acts as a proxy for any number of other arguments.
The US constitution was written to favor federalism, states’ rights, somewhat, but that was based in the assumption that states’ rights are more tenuous than is national authority.
But it was soon realized that the national government *had* to be able to reach into the states, just to fund itself. And this led to the Whiskey Rebellion, done almost as a farce, by George Washington.
A ridiculous, irrational, unenforceable tax put on farmers in the furthest reaches of the United States. Too far away from their markets to sell their crops, they converted them into whiskey. And the tax was leveled on where they were made, not when they had made it to market. The sole purpose was to extend the reach of the national government to every corner of the nation.
Of course the farmers told the tax collectors to go to hell, which gave Washington his excuse.
In any event, since the start of progressivism, the pendulum has swung way too far in favor of anti-federalism and national government power.
So how do we now rebalance the two. And certainly without crippling our nation?
President Trump and Attorney General Barr might get the ball rolling, with the issuing of dozens or hundreds of criminal indictments against the cancerous individuals in government who have gotten away with their crimes so far.
But “time is a-wasting”.
The whiskey rebellion was certainly an early assertion of federal power over the people probably the first. However, the CIC did exert direct control over the situation.
But there is I believe an important difference with federal power exerted over individuals today. Power has been vested in the numerous agencies that are really only under nominal control of the executive. As we are all painfully aware, this started in the progressive era in the early part of the 20th century. Many in government were responsible, but Wilson with his background trained in the new field of “political science” and president of the elite Ivy League institution known as Princeton gave the movement its first real ideological impetus. He and many others promoted the flawed idea that like solving a math problem, government could be based on scientific principles and carried out by trained bureaucrats. No need for the dull, greasy peasants and the ignorant unwashed masses to concern themselves over the “details”.
The technocrats in the federal government have been largely responsible for stripping the States and people of their sovergnity and individual rights. My point is that totalitarians at the NYT cannot conceive of a solution to governing a society in a complex and growing world other than to enlarge the scope and power of unelected officials at the most remote level (at the world level if they could). If states absorbed the functions now held by the federal bureaus, they would be much more accountable to the people.
Getting rid of a few seditious police state thugs at the top (or even hundreds as these agencies have tens of thousands with muliti billion dollar budgets) won’t solve the problem in the least unless these agencies are stripped of their power and mostly dissolved. What is likely is a mere changing of the Praetorian guard. In fact, a superficial “win” could make the situation worse because many conservatives will be tricked into thinking that all is right with the world, now their power has been curbed, no one is above the law, and the balance of power has been restored.
My basic point is that these agencies shouldn’t exist at least in their present form, and the States should assume their duties and functions. I don’t think that this goal is achievable under the usual mechanisms. Like the Wizard of Oz, Barr and Trump will only give people the illusion of solving the problem.