Across a growing number of issues, from immigration to taxes to health care, President Donald Trump is harnessing federal power to constrain—and even punish—the blue states outside of his political coalition.
One recent move escalated that offensive: Yesterday Trump tweeted that the Environmental Protection Agency will revoke a federal waiver that California received from former President Barack Obama to set its own standards for reducing vehicle emissions, a key contributor to climate change. …
Trump’s move to revoke the waiver stands at the intersection of three broad trends in his presidency. First is his clashes, on many fronts, with California, which has emerged as the symbol of blue-state resistance to his agenda. The second is his systematic effort to undo Obama’s initiatives to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. The third, and most sweeping, is the president’s growing attempt to shift resources from blue to red states, to hobble blue states’ ability to resist federal initiatives, and even to inhibit the ability of blue states to pursue liberal policies within their own borders. CONT.
Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic