The Right has hijacked Congress and State Houses. Now it’s coming for the cities,

[Triana]

Few ideas are more powerful in US politics than local control. The South rallied around states’ rights during the Civil War. Conservatives rage at the federal government for meddling in local matters.

But when local control favors progressives, it turns out to be “a form of collectivism” rather than a cherished conservative principle.

That’s what Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott recently called the trend of city-level bans on plastic bags, fracking and tree-cutting. They form “a patchwork quilt of bans and rules and regulations,” Abbott said, “that are eroding the Texas model” and turning the state into California.

Texas legislators have responded with proposals to preempt local laws, including a bill that would prevent local governments from issuing any ordinance that “conflicts with or is more stringent than a state statute or rule.”

Such bills blocking progressive laws are growing in popularity across the United States, especially in GOP-controlled legislatures. Last year, for example, when Oklahoma City debated raising its minimum wage to $10.10, the state legislature passed a law preventing cities from enacting wage increases.

THE REST:

http://billmoyers.com/2015/05/28/gop-alecs-war-cities/

Bytheway, "collectivism" is a John Birch Society term (now known as the Tea Party). They HATE anything that is for the public good and they hate anything publicly funded and they hate public commons - they call that "collectivism". Most normal people just call it Democracy.