Wisdom from Mr. Wold

Idaho's new Solicitor General already has a wealth of experience to share

The first time that Theodore Wold made an impression on me was at an April meeting of the Ada County Republican Party. We hosted the primary candidates for the office of Attorney General, giving them each a few minutes to speak to the committee. Art Macomber spoke for himself, while incumbent Lawrence Wasden and Raúl Labrador each sent men to speak on their behalf. While Deputy AG Brian Kane’s entire argument for supporting Wasden essentially boiled down to he’s such a nice guy, Theo Wold gave a riveting and dynamic speech in support of Labrador. I wrote in my notes that night that, “Theo Wold will be a force in Idaho very soon.”

Now more than ever, I believe my initial impressions were spot on. Wold helped Raúl Labrador win a solid victory over not only Tom Arkoosh but the same Idaho Republican establishment that Labrador has been fighting for nearly two decades. Now, Labrador has tapped Wold to be Idaho’s first Solicitor General in quite some time, maybe ever. (Edit: Lynn Thomas was the most recent Idaho SG, serving in that capacity until 1991. See this thread on Twitter for more.) As SG, Theo Wold will be at the front lines of Idaho’s fights with the federal government, and thus directly responsible for defending the liberties we enjoy.

This week, American Moment published an hour-long interview with Theo Wold, discussing his background, his time in the Trump Administration, and his ideas on how the conservative movement can succeed in changing our government and our society. The whole thing is worth watching if you have the time:

Wold shared his experiences growing up in what he calls “Steinbeck Country,” the relatively poor heartland of California. He watched his father struggle with joblessness and addiction, which gave him an appreciation for the way that Donald Trump reached out to the forgotten men and women of America. The fact that Trump, a gold plated parody of a billionaire, would be the one man who could capture the loyalty of poor blue collar Americans, is a great irony, but to Wold and his family, there was a deep sincerity in Trump’s message. Most political leaders spend their time either hobnobbing with wealthy donors or reaching out to supposedly under-served minority groups. The white working class really was forgotten until Trump, as the jobs that sustained them were outsourced to China and their children scarred by foreign wars and killing themselves with opioids.

Wold took any opportunity he was given to learn and to work his way up in the world. He achieved his B.A. at the University of Georgetown, read English literature at St. Andrews in Scotland, and studied law at Notre Dame. It was there that he studied under future Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Wold later clerked for DC Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who told him that, “If you get a chance to work for a good man in politics, that is worth everything.” This inspired Wold to accept an internship with Senator Mike Lee of Utah, working with him on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The fact that Judge Brown’s exhortation to work for a good man led Wold to work not only for Senator Lee but also President Trump and now our new Attorney General Raúl Labrador speaks extremely highly of all three men.

Source: Leigh Brown Art

Despite, or perhaps because of, his experiences in higher learning, Wold believes that the academy is broken. Too many people are coming out of the university system unprepared for the real world, and instead finding themselves in out-of-touch think tanks. He said that conservative legal organizations are stuck in the past, unable to adapt to the modern era. He used health freedom as an example - despite millions of working Americans facing the choice between an experimental vaccine on one hand and unemployment on the other, the denizens of the Federalist Society and other right wing think tanks are completely insulated from such issues.

He suggested that the system currently values credentials more than actual knowledge or experience. Graduates of Ivy League law schools can be sure to gain clerkships with federal judges, opening the door to the political world. He worries that conservative judges are too naive about who they hire as clerks, and that left-wing activists can easily learn the lexicon and pass themselves off as fellow travelers. On the other hands, conservative students fail to infiltrate progressive circles, as shibboleths such as pronouns trip them up every time.

Theo Wold focused on immigration law in the Trump White House, helping craft policies that sought to restrict the same illegal immigration that is out of control today. He helped produce the “Remain in Mexico” policy, but admitted in the interview that it was a bandage rather than a long term solution. He believes that immigration needs to be a front-line cabinet-level issue rather than something passed around between endless federal departments. He is absolutely right, of course. Immigration has been used as a political football for decades. President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Acts of 1986, granting amnesty to some here illegally while promising better enforcement in the future. Both parties have kicked the can down the road since then, but until Trump neither did much substantive to solve the problem.

Theo Wold was part of the team that tried to substantively curtail the illegal immigration problem. Unfortunately, Trump’s defeat in 2020 ended that endeavor. Wold believes that Trump’s messaging changed for the worse between the two elections. He suggested that Trump and the GOP assumed that the political realignment currently underway was in fact completed, that the white working class that had given Trump his victory in 2016 could now be taken for granted and resources diverted to minority outreach. This proved a fatal error. No matter what issues there were with mail in voting and tabulating ballots that year, it is clear that Trump’s support from the blue collar voting block suffered.

Wold believes the Republican Party needs to come back to these men and women who have been forgotten by both parties with a positive economic message. Simply preaching tax cuts will not win back families who face poverty, addiction, and homelessness. We need a message of hope. People did not support Donald Trump in 2016 because they liked his specific policies, but because they believed him when he said he would fight for them.

Wold also believes that the GOP had no plan for victory in the wake of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. For fifty years, the pro-life movement had but one goal: repeal Roe. Wold explained that when his personal hero General MacArthur was forced to evacuate the Philippines during World War II, he already had a plan in place to conquer and occupy Japan. On the other hand, what Wold called Conservative Inc. had no plan for what to do once Roe was finally overturned. Now we are having the debates that we should have had ages ago - can we ban abortion entirely? Should there be any exceptions? What about abortifacient drugs through the mail?

These are issues we must address, but in the meantime, the Democrats are going to use this issue to drive engagement in all fifty states. It has already begun - Terri Pickens Manweiler, despite a crushing defeat in her race for Lt. Governor, has announced plans to draft an initiative to legalize abortion in Idaho. Theo Wold advised us to look at this strategically, take a page from the Democrat playbook, and make sure to fill our state courts with pro-life judges. Idaho has not had a good track record in this area, as our Supreme Court tilts consistently leftward despite decades of Republican dominance in the state. Perhaps our new Attorney General Raúl Labrador and his Solicitor General Theo Wold will have an opportunity to be a better influence in the legal environment in our state going forward.

Indeed, Wold wants to see conservatives go on the offensive. “Anything but aggression is a waste of time,” he said. He pointed out that leftist judges have no problem ordering nationwide injunctions whether the letter of the law allows them or not. Conservative judges will too often use the Constitution as a shield to avoid taking a stand that is too controversial. This needs to change. Wold says that Democrat lawyers are like bare-knuckle boxers, not afraid to get in the fight, while Republican lawyers are more like acolytes in a monastery, reading great books and crafting interesting philosophies while doing little to actually change the outside world. “Training up another generation of essentially Benedictine monks might be a mistake,” he said. “Maybe we don’t need any more well-credentialed lawyers; maybe we need s**tposters from Twitter.”

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As I listened to this interview I came to see that Theo Wold is a man after my own heart. He is a happy warrior, fighting the good fight but not letting it turn him toward despair. “Cultivating joyfulness is a discipline,” he said, quoting a mentor of his. “Not giving over to the left’s pervasive inclination which is resentment.” These are wise words. If our battle is worth fighting, then it is worth fighting with a positive spirit, because we are not so much fighting against something, but for something. We are fighting for our liberties, our future, and the nation that our children will inherit.

Unlike so many Republican leaders, Wold understands what time it is, that we are at a precarious moment in the life cycle of the American Republic, and he understands that we need creative solutions to modern problems. I am thrilled that he and his wife (a distinguished lawyer in her own right!) have chosen to make Idaho their home. As I recognized last spring, Theo Wold is going to be a great leader in the ongoing fight for liberty, and I am glad he is on our side.