Progressive/Conservative Who? What? Red/Blue

shit·storm

ˈSHitˌstôrm/

noun

vulgar slang

noun: shit-storm

a situation marked by violent controversy

Source: The Atlantic March 2017 Issue 


. . .  if liberal advocates are clinging to the hope that federalism will allow them to create progressive havens, they’re overlooking a big problem: Power may be decentralized in the American system, but it devolves to the state, not the city.
Recent events in red states where cities are pockets of liberalism are instructive, and cautionary. Over the past few years, city governments and state legislatures have fought each other in a series of battles involving preemption, the principle that state law trumps local regulation, just as federal law supersedes state law. It hasn’t gone well for the city dwellers.
Alabama and Arizona both passed bills targeting “sanctuary cities”—those that do not cooperate with the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Even though courts threw out much of that legislation, other states have considered their own versions. Arizona also made sure cities couldn’t ban the gifts in Happy Meals (cities elsewhere had talked about outlawing them, on the theory that they lure kids to McDonald’s), and when some of its cities cracked down on puppy mills, it barred local regulation of pet breeders, too.

Close observers of these clashes expect them to proliferate in the years to come, with similar results. " . . . We are about to see a shit storm of state and federal preemption orders, of a magnitude greater than anything in history,” says Mark Pertschuk of Grassroots Change, ..By the group’s count, at least 36 states introduced laws preempting cities in 2016."
Most of these laws enforce conservative policy preferences.
That’s partly because Republicans enjoy unprecedented control in state capitals—they hold 33 governorships and majorities in 32 state legislatures.
The trend also reflects a broader shift: Americans are in the midst of what’s been called “the Big Sort,” as they flock together with people who share similar socioeconomic profiles and politics. In general, that means rural areas are becoming more conservative, and cities more liberal.
 An important lesson of last year’s presidential election is that American political norms are much weaker than they had appeared, allowing a scandal-plagued, unpopular candidate to triumph—in part because voters outside of cities objected to the pace of cultural change.
Another lesson is that the United States is coming to resemble two separate countries, one rural and one urban.
Only one of them, at present, appears entitled to self-determination.