Hey, the Left, as they have with everything having to do with constitutional freedom from government coercion, eviscerated the 14th Amendment and and have wrested the intent of the ratifiers.
The 14th Amendment was simply one of the Post-Civil-War Reconstruction Amendments intended to instate blacks as full citizens and restore our union.
The so-called “Incorporation Doctrine” ( “incorporating” the feds as enforcers of the first ten amendments against the states - EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of the wording and intent of the first ten amendments which are pointed directly and exclusively at LIMITING federal power) is Leftist counterfeit which must be rejected and decisions based on that false doctrine nullified and overturned.
The 14th Amendment was NEVER ratified by the states to expand the power of the federal government beyond the constitutional sovereignty and independence of the states by such an order of magnitude. This is a deception and a lie and Patriots must stand up against this Leftist trash and stand up for the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended.
While the 14th was as you well point out, intended simply a post-CW reconstruction amendment, it has sinister language written by crafty devious attorneys. Effectively, while the 13th freed slaves, the 14th then reversed it, making ALL ‘citizens’, both blacks and whites, slaves to the federal government.
What the 14th started for the death knell of the states, the 17th finished them off.