Idaho is a Conservative State

Time to start acting like it

Action Idaho had a great piece today asking why Idaho’s Supreme Court is so awful. In the last year they have struck down a law that would have made signature gathering for ballot initiatives more equitable, refused to intervene after the new redistricting maps violated the state constitution, and are now working to overturn Idaho’s ban on abortion after fifteen weeks.

What’s the deal? Why does a red state like Idaho have such a leftist high court?

It’s not just the Supreme Court either. Earlier this week I watched as three left-wing journalists questioned three Republican candidates for attorney general in the debate on Idaho Public TV.

Our legislature is 80% Republican. Of the registered voters in Idaho who affiliate with a party, 80% are Republican. So why do we feel an obsessive need to play fair with the Democrats, to our own detriment?

I wrote on my other blog last year that Republicans became accustomed to losing a long time ago. Ever since the New Deal nearly a century ago, Republicans have developed a habit of vociferously defending whatever it was they opposed twenty years prior. The GOP of the 1960s refused to dismantle the New Deal, just as the GOP of the 1990s gave up trying to undo the Great Society. Republicans spent six years campaigning against Obamacare, but once they controlled the House, Senate, and presidency in 2017 they refused to repeal it.

President Reagan liked to say that “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Unfortunately, Republicans internalized that aphorism as a dogma, coming to believe that it was wrong for them to engage in any government action. While the libertarian ideal of small government staying out of our affairs sounds great in theory, in practice it means we have abandoned the playing field and allowed our leftist opponents to run the table.

Republicans treat government power like the Ring of Sauron from Tolkien’s stories, something that must be cast into the fire rather than wielded against our enemies. The analogy breaks down, however, once you realize that the Democrats are wielding that power against us every single day. We have seen Democratic administrations use government power to destroy conservative businesses, impose extreme political positions, and push this country to the brink of destruction, and Republicans will still say we should not stoop to their level.

Source: stonetoss.com

The left has no qualms about using government to reward their friends and punish their enemies. President Obama said it out loud more than ten years ago, telling a Latino coalition that voting for him would literally punish their enemies. The Democratic Party uses their power to distribute tax dollars to corporations who not only return the favor with campaign contributions, but who also use their influence to spread leftist doctrines like critical race theory and transgender propaganda. The Democrats also use their power to attack companies they dislike. For example, they are constantly using government regulations to destroy firearm and fossil fuel industries.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party also distributes tax dollars to big corporations, even those that hate us and all we stand for. Any thought of using their power to reward their friends and constrict their enemies is dismissed as big government. Regulating businesses is considered unconservative, while subsidizing them is a-ok.

Yesterday, the Florida State Legislature passed a bill that strips the Walt Disney Company of its longstanding self-governing status as well as its generous tax breaks. The State of Florida gave those special privileges to Disney half a century ago to induce them to build a theme park there, hoping that increased tourism would provide a return on their investment. Back then, Disney was universally admired as a wholesome, family-friendly company. Today, they have outright admitted their gay agenda and their desire to push racial and gender ideology onto young children. Disney executives took active steps to oppose Florida’s new law prohibiting grooming children up to 4th grade, so Florida responded by removing their special privileges.

Even this was too much for the GOP surrender caucus. Jenna Ellis, who famously failed to save President Trump from losing a rigged election in 2020, tweeted yesterday that “Disney has a right to speak its views even on policy issues without govt retaliation. Chick-fil-A speaks conservative viewpoints as a corporation and if it was receiving the same treatment from CA as Disney from FL, conservatives would be mad.”

Ms. Ellis is being deliberately myopic, of course. The left wants to destroy Chick-Fil-A merely for existing, while the right is only belatedly deciding that perhaps Disney should not be receiving generous subsidies from the taxpayer. The entire situation begs the question: why are Republicans giving special privileges to companies that hate them in the first place? Why did the Idaho State Legislature give $50 million in tax breaks to Meta earlier this year, a company that clearly stands against traditional conservative values? Why did Governor Little veto the Coronavirus PAUSE Act, which would have protected Idaho employees from vaccine mandates?

Too many Republicans still think it is 1981, where the government is the bad guy and private businesses are the good guys. Even after more than two decades of private sector oppression, conservative leaders seem to think that big business can do no wrong. Nearly every big corporation in America bent the knee to Black Lives Matter in 2020, donating billions of dollars (that was later used to Buy Large Mansions). Big Tech continually manipulates our elections and bans conservatives from social media, and many on the right shrug and say private businesses can do what they want. On the other hand, left-wing activists used government power to force bakers and florists to engage in activities they find abhorrent, with bankruptcy their only alternative. Bake the cake, bigot!

I know this is a tough issue for a lot of people, especially Republicans who remember Ronald Reagan and morning in America. But we are against the wall here. Remember that in 2010, conservatives organized the Tea Party to protest big government, while progressives created Occupy Wall Street to protest big corporations. The truth is that both are a problem; both are threats to our freedom, autonomy, and well-being.

What good will it do if Republicans recapture Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024 if they once again do nothing to stop the tide of Marxism that is washing over our country? The biggest accomplishments of the Republican Congress in 2017-18 was a tax cut and a witch hunt against their own president. Do we expect them to do better next time?

The Republican Party in Idaho might be in even worse shape. Our elected leaders rubber stamp millions of dollars for public television that airs left wing propaganda, public schools and universities that indoctrinate children with Marxist philosophy and sexual degeneracy, and subsidies for big corporations that enforce censorship and vaccine mandates. Why did the Idaho State Senate refuse to even vote on a bill that would have criminalized distribution of pornography by teachers and librarians?

Sure, it could be worse if we were a blue state, but look around at some of the other red states and realize how much better it could be if we had real conservatives running our government.

This May, be sure to vote for candidates who understand the gravity of the situation. We must elect a legislature and a governor that are willing to use government power to make Idaho redder. We want would-be progressive activists to flee Idaho in the same way that conservatives are fleeing California. We must discard the idea that government power is something forbidden to us, and instead use it to build communities that are safe places to grow our families.

It is not the 1980s anymore. State after state has fallen to the progressive tide. If we are not careful, then Idaho will go the same way as California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. It is not enough to simply stem the tide; we must take back lost ground. It is not enough to conserve the status quo; we must be explicitly reactionary.

If that is still a bridge too far, then can we at least stop subsidizing corporations who hate us and rewarding schools that are corrupting the minds of our children? That is surely not too much to ask in the red state of Idaho.