[bmm6o]

People want what they want, and don't usually have a consistent philosophical framework to back it up. They'll just use whatever phrase they've heard that speaks to them and aren't really concerned if they take the other side for another topic. They'll say that state's rights are important when they are arguing for one thing and forget about that principal when it comes to another, and it's not limited to one party or another.

Though there is the odiousness of "state's rights" originally being shorthand for "state's rights to allow slavery". It would be nice if people trumpeting the philosophy remembered that it was the justification for a monstrous institution and a war to maintain it.

[tremon]

People want what they want, and don't usually have a consistent philosophical framework to back it up

And people can be excused for that. A political organization should not.

[bmm6o]

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and any coalition is going to have members who are there for different reasons. An individual person has a hard enough time putting together a coherent philosophy, and if a party is just a sum of its parts, it's easy to believe that the philosophy is going to be less coherent.

Which isn't an excuse for inconsistent or conflicting behavior. Working to restrict access to family planning under the banner of "pro-life" while cutting food and health benefits to poor children and their families under the banner of "cutting waste" is reprehensible.

[nbb]

Both major political parties in the USA are coalitions representing many groups of people with separate interests. It is in the interest of these groups to combine their resources when their goals tend to either align, or at least not conflict with each other.