OPINION:
As the 2024 presidential election approaches, a new poll shows former President Donald Trump beating President Biden by 10 points.
Is the poll an outlier? Probably. But the RealClearPolitics average of recent presidential polls shows Mr. Trump up by a point. Ironically, given the closeness of the polls, the rhetoric from the two candidates is widely divided. Mr. Biden rails against “ultra-MAGA Republicans,” while Mr. Trump speaks of “retribution.”
The stakes in this election are high. In fact, too high. Given the diversity of the country — diversity measured in ideology and geography, not just race and ethnicity — it makes no sense that so much power is centralized in Washington, where the federal government inevitably seeks to impose one-size-fits-all solutions.
Will the commander in chief be Mr. Biden, or Mr. Trump? To roughly half the country, either outcome will be scary.
In a peaceful republic, politics shouldn’t be scary.
This scariness came clear when Education Secretary Miguel Cardona was asked about conservative activists protesting such matters as transgender mandates in schools.
“I don’t have too much respect for people that are misbehaving in public,” Mr. Cardona answered, “and then acting like they know what’s right for kids.”
That quote, dismissing parental rights, recalled Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, who said in September 2021, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Those words cost Mr. McAuliffe the election.
In response to Mr. Cardona, Ryan Walters, the Republican superintendent of public instruction in Oklahoma, posted on social media: “@SecCardona should never be allowed in Oklahoma. The government will never take the place of a parent.”
These sharp words seek to block, at least in spirit, the effect of the federal Department of Education. As Mr. Walters also wrote on X, “Common sense = NO drag queens in ANY school in Oklahoma.”
Drag queens and transgenderism are, of course, central to the Biden administration’s education policy.
We can see quite the conflict brewing: Oklahoma and many other red states vs. the federal government and many blue states.
What to do? Fortunately, we already have the answer: the Constitution, which delineates the power of the states to decide key policy issues. It’s called federalism, or states’ rights.
The hope, of course, is that good ideas could be replicated if other states were interested, while bad ideas could be canceled, with the damage being limited to the single state that did the dumb thing. Back in 1932, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis encapsulated this process in the vivid phrase “laboratories of democracy.”
Back to transgenderism. Good idea? Bad idea? The Brandeisian answer is: It depends on where you are. If you’re in Massachusetts, where this year the state’s lesbian governor staged a drag show on the statehouse steps, transgenderism is celebrated. If you’re in Oklahoma, it’s discouraged — on school property, for sure.
It shouldn’t be surprising that two different sets of U.S. citizens living 1,500 miles apart have widely varying opinions. Is it so bad if they do? If they do, shouldn’t both opinions be respected?
The Constitution’s answer seems to be yes.
The 10th Amendment proscribes that if the Constitution doesn’t enumerate specific powers to the federal government, the powers “are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Since there’s no mention of the Department of Education in the Constitution, the rights of the states come before the power of the Department of Education.
Blue-state liberals are no doubt aghast at Mr. Walters’ words, defying Washington. But before they get too riled up, they should consider what would happen if the shoe were on the other foot: What would happen if Mr. Walters were the education secretary and he were denouncing drag queens in Massachusetts?
Given the presidential polls, it’s more than possible that Mr. Trump can win. If he does, he might well appoint someone such as Mr. Walters to fill the education slot in his Cabinet, in which case, the same 10th Amendment that protects Oklahoma would also protect Massachusetts. If it protects red, it also protects blue.
Bay Staters might not have always thought of states’ rights as their friend, but if Mr. Trump were president again, they’d think anew.
If we pursue the point, we see that if the Department of Education is unloved in half the country — the half that loses — then maybe the whole idea of an education ministry isn’t such a good idea. Maybe imposing national control over education was a bad idea when Congress enacted it in 1977.
But if the experiment in the federal laboratory turned out badly, it can be fixed. That’s in the Constitution toolkit as well: Article 1 gives Congress the authority to abolish the Department of Education.
If so, people in both Oklahoma and Massachusetts would have one thing less to worry about, as national elections come to matter less and state elections matter more.
• James P. Pinkerton served in the White House domestic policy offices of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He worked at Fox News for 20 years, and has also worked for political campaigns and think tanks.
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