On Friday, the Washington Post ran an unintentionally encouraging story headlined, “Energized by next Trump term, red states move agendas further right.” The sub-headline explained, “Governors, legislators and attorneys general ready plans for the ‘perfect storm of conservative policies’ coming to many state legislatures and Washington.”
The article wasn’t so much a news story as it was a warning to its far-left readers to get ready. “Red state leaders,” it ominously began, “emboldened by Donald Trump’s presidential victory, are not waiting for him to take office to advance far more conservative agendas at home.”
Okay, but far more conservative than what? Than Biden?
The WaPo was mostly concerned about the ocean of bills pending in red states, all of which deepened more red during the recent election. In Idaho, a bill would let teachers carry handguns, and let parents sue school districts over LGBT pornography in libraries. In Arkansas, a bill would let police arrest pharma executives for vaccine injuries absent informed consent. Texas is eyeing a raft of potential new laws making life hard for illegals loitering in the Lonestar State, like by cutting off various taxpayer-funded benefits and giving cops more legal tools.
In Florida, Governor DeSantis has requested another $5 million in the budget to continue busing illegals from the Sunshine State to Massachusetts and California.
Remarkably, the story actually quoted several conservatives, including Charlie Misseijer, Florida’s state policy director for Moms for Liberty, who noted that “Florida has been an incubator of ideas.”
Matt Sharp of Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal advocacy group focusing on religious liberties, predicted that Republican attorneys general will shift their tactics, to work with the new Trump Administration to roll back Biden policies.
WaPo was troubled that there are now 27 states run by Republican governors. In 23 of them, Republicans also control both state houses and senates, making a “trifecta” of conservative governance. That, combined with full Republican control of the federal government, created what partisan Democrats called a “perfect storm.”
But don’t worry — Democrats are getting ready. The article also quoted Skye Perryman, an AWFL and the president of “Democracy Forward,” a far-left legal NGO with over 800 lawyers. Perryman said her overfunded group is planning a massive avalanche of lawsuits at all levels of government to try to thwart conservative priorities.
Maybe.
Republicans currently enjoy both the moral high ground and all the momentum. I don’t envy Democrat lawyers, who will be starting from a difficult place similar to where we freedom-loving attorneys found ourselves stranded around May, 2020.
I say good luck to them, but I hope they fail. We still have much work to do.
