Editor's Note: This article was originally published by American Greatness on July 26, 2024, and is cross-posted here with permission.
Decent Americans are disgusted by the July 13 Trump assassination attempt and many are now scrutinizing the incident for proof of involvement by other shooters or by the deep state. The situation is beyond tragic. But as appalling as the violence is, many also see it as an unsurprising outgrowth of inflamed and irresponsible rhetoric—Trump is Hitler, Trump threatens democracy, etc.—itself a result of Trump Derangement Syndrome, the mysterious and hysterical overreaction to a brash New York City businessman entering—and winning at—Presidential politics.
Obviously, this violent physical attack was preceded not only by countless political attacks (how many Trump impeachments?) but also courtroom attacks known as lawfare. In a 24/7 news cycle, we forget what a gross abuse of the law this is. The courtroom is actually supposed to replace chaos and violence with order and deliberation to resolve intense disagreements. It’s not supposed to be a tool of chaos leading to violence. Yet that’s where we are.
Thankfully, some heads-up state officials are fighting back against this devolution. On July 3, for example, Missouri Attorney General (“AG”) Andrew Bailey filed a federal complaint against New York State for its lawfare against Trump. The 99-page document says that New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought bookkeeping charges against Trump simply because he’s a political foe, a claim confirmed even by other New York State officials, including former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Trump then became subject to a gag order—during an election year no less—principally for the purpose of assisting Joe Biden’s campaign (now the campaign of his successor).
These shenanigans are an obvious abuse of process—the opposite of the rule of law—and are hallmarks of banana republics. Missouri says New York has not only violated the rights of Missourians to hear from a presidential candidate but that the prosecutorial overreach has also undermined the foundation of America’s legal system.
Spot on.
Praise for red state officials like Missouri’s AG for taking common sense to court; they’re showing the way to America’s future by checking the overreach of ideologues not only in New York but also in DC.
Consider Title IX, the Congressional ban on sex discrimination in federally funded education now weaponized by radical feminists to advance sex-based identity politics. Biden education bureaucrats just released a Title IX rule that guts due process protections for anyone at a school accused of sex discrimination (including claims of sexual misconduct) by using an “individual meeting” method of adjudication, which gives unchecked powers to the feminists running Title IX. It also imposes fringe sexual politics by redefining “sex” to include “gender identity,” a phrase it doesn’t even define. This will obliterate single-sex spaces like locker rooms, bathrooms and women’s sports teams to favor the demands of transsexuals who claim to be a sex they aren’t and then use spaces where they don’t belong. The DC bureaucrats have charged ahead with the rule despite a record-breaking 235,000 comments against it.
Any big guns to stop this?
Enter the red state Attorneys General.
Within days of the rule’s release, 26 states sued the administration for gross executive overreach. And within a week, 24 of them successfully obtained injunctions, which means the rule now can’t take effect in much of the country. Biden apparatchiks were stunned.
But there’s more.
On June 3, 13 red-state AGs wrote the American Bar Association (“ABA”), saying law school standards were out of date: Specifically, the ABA “Standards and Procedures for Approval of Law Schools” still includes “Standard 206″ requiring “diversity” in legal education, code for race-based admissions, made illegal by the 2023 United States Supreme Court decision, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (or “SFFA”). The letter warned: “We urge the Council to modify its standards in a way that comports with federal law.”
So these state officials are covering all the bases—immediate and long-term. The Title IX rule is basically an emergency, as anyone in almost any American school was going to be subject to it by August 1. But at the same time, these officials are monitoring mischief that might otherwise fly under the radar, with consequences both now and down the road, since law schools produce future prosecutors. America doesn’t need more radical law school graduates to engage in yet more Alvin Bragg lawfare. So these AGs are on top of it.
Obviously, this letter can’t clean up America’s radicalized law schools overnight. But it shows law schools that they’re being watched and checked. This alone deters their lawlessness.
Lastly, on March 14, Kentucky’s Assistant Attorney General Lindsey Keiser told State Representative Jennifer Decker that the Kentucky Council for Postsecondary Education cannot recommend appropriations for state universities based exclusively on race, including by requiring “diversity plans” of schools or by demanding that a certain percentage of the student body be “underrepresented minorities.” The Keiser letter cautions that these practices violate the U.S. Constitution and federal civil rights law, again, under the 2023 Supreme Court SFFA decision: “Kentucky’s Postsecondary Education Council must no longer define “underrepresented minority” in race-exclusive terms.”
So red state officials are not just putting out fires; instead, they’re seriously enforcing the law, then following up in a timely fashion and thinking about the next generation.
Finally!
America’s future must not be determined by the ideologues in Manhattan and Washington, much less by unstable, violent individuals operating alone—or worse.
Let’s hope that America’s future is, instead, with the sober, thoughtful and persistent red state officials who are working not just for the good of their communities but also for the good of the country. They seem to be showing the way.
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash
