Thanks.

Well, the talk of states' rights assumes the democracy is functioning well. On the contrary, Republicans have infiltrated the state legislatures and gerrymandered the hell out of them. So Republicans are only opportunistically deferring national matters to the states because that same political party has captured and neuturalized democracy at the state level. It's a cynical, disengenuous ploy, as far as I can tell. Indeed, it's best to err on the side of assuming that the conservative has no principle to speak of. Instead of principles, look there for social Darwinian prejudices and bigotries.