Another Trump Accomplishment: Progs Now Taking Federalism Seriously

Trump is doing well despite obstructionist Dems, deep-state saboteurs, and the nay-saying nimrods of Never Trumpism. The stock market is way up, illegal immigration is way down, and a solid conservative, Neil Gorsuch, is a SCOTUS shoo in. 

Add to the list an incitement of interest among lefties in federalism.

Calexit, Bluexit and other secessionisms are just silly and won't happen.  United we stand; divided we fall. We can keep the Union together if we practice some enlightened segregation.  I have been arguing for federalism for years.  We need the political equivalent of divorce.  Members of a divorced couple can remain on amicable terms if they severely restrict their contact to what is patently in their common interest, such as the care of children.  You get the analogy. It limps, but no analogy is perfect. A perfect analogy is an identity and you can't (fruitfully) compare a thing to itself.

I now hand off to William McGurn:

For both historical and philosophical reasons, federalism runs counter to the progressive instinct. Those on the left like government, and their preferred legislature is the Supreme Court. On top of this, the South’s invocation of states’ rights to resist the civil rights movement has tainted the phrase, which many regard as code for “Jim Crow.”

But Mr. Trump’s election may be occasioning a welcome rethink, especially among Democrats who understand they have lost far more than the White House. For all the attention to Hillary Clinton’s popular-vote victory, Democratic influence over state legislatures is now reduced to Civil War levels. In this environment, some progressives appreciate that they might have more to gain from a federalism that empowers minorities—sexual, racial, political, whatever—in locales where their views dominate.

One concern is whether lefties can learn to control their totalitarian instinct.  I am not particularly sanguine about that. So keep your powder dry.