The President of the United States clashed with the governor of Maine over transgender participation in government-organized athletics. Quite a hoot.
Behind this fracas looms the legacy of … Richard M. Nixon.
First, the fracas: “In a tense exchange with Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, President Donald Trump threatened to strip Maine of its federal funding,” explains CNN, “if the state refuses to comply with his executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports.”
The brief volley of promises (threats) between the governor and the president made other governors “uncomfortable.” Yes, that’s a news story.
“Is Maine here?” he wondered aloud. “The governor of Maine?”
“Yeah,” Gov. Janet Mills answered from across the room. “I’m here.”
And then came a testy political exchange, the kind you don’t often see, culminating in this from Trump: “You better comply, you better comply, because, otherwise, you’re not getting any federal funding.”
“See you in court,” she promised.
“Good; I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor, because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
Trump may not be wrong. He may have the better
But doesn’t it seem weird that the president of the United States can extort compliance from the states on matters that are not enumerated in the Constitution?
Well, back in his first term Trump signed an executive order to direct a new devolution process of turning back education to the states. But the transgender issue is a big deal, and most Americans (around 80 percent) are against “biological” “men” competing with girls and women in sports, and since much of sports in America takes place in state-directed/taxpayer-funded contexts, Trump is leveraging federal bloc grants against states that balk at his agenda.
Thank Nixon and his “New Federalism.” While an attempt to give power back to the states, it also tied federal money to the devolution, which has effectively turned states into welfare queens begging big bucks off Washington, severely compromising the states’ … basic competence.
It’s this policy that Trump should be fighting.
But that would make governors even more uncomfortable.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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2 replies on “Nixon & Trans Athletes”
Politicians operating at the level of the constituent states naturally want to control how money is spent within their states, but they don’t want to be clearly responsible for imposing upon their constituents those burdens that provide the money in the first place. Senators and Representatives want to provide benefits to those including voters who will help them retain office, but they want to push as much of the burdens as possible on those who won’t help them to retain office, including the voters of other states. And none of the constituent states has been itself capable of using inflationary finance since the adoption of the present constitution. So, naturally, we have a lot of louts who want the Federal government to tax, borrow, and inflate on behalf of the constituent states.
Rather obviously, the constituent states ought not to be receiving block grants, and the Federal taxation, borrowing, and inflation that has been used to provide those grants should be halted.
But, from the perspective of amoral politics, Trump has chosen this fight well, and Janet Mills is undermining the already terribly damaged Democratic Part not just in Maine but in all of America. Even if the courts side with Mills, the general public does not want girls’ and women’s sports wrecked by trans-women — who are not really transgendered women at all, but transgendered men.
In sports, we don’t really have men’s sports and women’s sports. We have open competitions and competitions restricted to female contestants. The open competitions mostly seem male because men excel in so many of them and even mid-ranged male athletes out-perform female athletes.
Still, because underlying sports is the natural and implicit human focus upon reproductive fitness, a large audience exists to see the best female athletes as well. This purpose and interest was served by competitions reserved just for female contestants, but then thwarted by allowing mid-ranged male athletes to compete if they adopted female pronouns. Indeed, in the case of athletes who’ve gone so far as to have their testes removed, what’s on display is quite at odds with reproductive fitness.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. So how is President Trump ‘extorting compliance’ on matters not enumerated in the Constitution? The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution includes a guarantee of equal protection under the law. Title IX applies to all aspects of federally-funded education programs or activities. It includes all operations of educational institutions that receive federal financial assistance. Since it applies to institutions that receive federal assistance, the governor can accept the aid and comply with the law, or Maine can go it alone. In biology, DNA makes all the difference. Like it or not, males and females are built differently. Sex is not ‘gender identity’. Title IX prohibits SEX discrimination. Trump is enforcing the law that Congress wrote. Let them rewrite it if they choose.