When Federal Overreach Was Bad, Actually
California Governor Gavin Newsom vows to sue former President Trump for deploying federal agents to Oregon during 2020 protests, a move the FT implicitly frames as an abuse of power. This convenient amnesia overlooks that same media's muted concern when federal agencies like the FBI or DOJ have, for decades, unilaterally targeted domestic groups, from civil rights activists to environmentalists,
without gubernatorial consent. Suddenly, a state's sovereignty matters—but only when the optics align with the preferred narrative. One might wonder where this impassioned defense of state's rights went during, say, the War on Drugs' federal incursions into local policing, or the Patriot Act's broad sweep. The concern for 'troops on the ground' seems to fluctuate wildly based on who's deploying
them and who's complaining. How many 'constitutional crises' manifest only when a specific federal administration is out of favor?