Donald Trump delivers remarks at the Invest America Roundtable in the State Dinning room at the White House. Win McNamee / Getty Images
By Timothy Noah, June 10, 2025
LEMON FEDERALISM Trump’s Version of Federalism Is a Perverse Death Trap
Call it “Make America Dead Again”: If it’s a peaceful anti-ICE protest, send in the Marines. If it’s a hurricane, no disaster aid for you!
As on many other policy questions, MAGA doctrine regarding the proper division of power between states and the federal government departs from traditional Republican ideology.
For half a century after Richard Nixon declared “the New Federalism” in August 1969, Republicans echoed Nixon’s admonition that responsibility should “flow from Washington to the States and to the people.” (Nixon actually said “funds and responsibility,” but President Ronald Reagan took it one step further and killed off Nixon’s federal revenue-sharing program.) The New Federalism, later known just as federalism, said that states and cities were closer to the people and therefore ought to take the lead. In practice, federalism was simply a way for Republicans to limit the federal government’s responsibilities and, eventually, its expenses.
The Trump administration’s view of the proper division of state and federal responsibility is less consistent than traditional federalism. That’s amply evident from Trump’s diverging policies regarding immigration protests in Los Angeles and the start of hurricane season along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The only unifying principle I see is “Do whatever maximizes the likelihood of physical harm.”
MAGA’s vision of federalism started to come into focus for me last Friday. It was a beautiful day here in Washington, D.C., so I bought myself an Italian hoagie at Bub and Pop’s and walked over to Dupont Circle to eat it under a tree in the small grassy park situated there. But when I arrived, the Circle was barricaded. The National Park Service had done this to keep out revelers from WorldPride 2025, a celebratory LBGTQ gathering scheduled the next day—even though, as the Park Service’s own website points out, Dupont Circle has been a gathering place for gay pride celebrations for 50 years.
