Why Republican victories keep delivering Democratic policies



Conservatives often imagine that winning statewide elections means gaining control over the machinery of government. But this is wrong — and dangerously so. For far too long, red states have confused the two. The assumption that political victory automatically confers political authority is one of the chief falsehoods circulating on the right. It is the reason Republican states often look like Democrat ones, only with different bumper stickers.

This is an uncomfortable but necessary message for conservatives to hear: Red states are facing a major crisis of governance.

Red states have built conservative brands on progressive machinery.

The State Leadership Initiative’s new “Index Report” lays out the evidence in extensive detail. By the most basic measures of lean, accountable, and ideologically grounded government, red states are failing. Many of the policies their representatives are voting for and their governors are signing into law are profoundly out of step with the wishes of voters. Bureaucracies are bloated, universities multiply administrators faster than scholars, schools have fewer teachers than administrators, New York-style regulations pile up in red states like Texas, and seven of the 10 most federally dependent states wear the Republican label.

The key takeaway is not just that red states are doing poorly — it is that red states are almost indistinguishable from blue states on the metrics that matter.

This is not conservative governance. It is branding atop the chassis of managerial progressivism. Governors may cut a ribbon, sign a bill, or post a slogan, but beneath the surface, the operating code of their states is indistinguishable from California’s.

How can this be the case?

The bureaucratic cartel

The deeper reason for this unfortunate reality is explored in the State Leadership Initiative’s second major publication, the “Shadow Government Report.” It shows how state bureaucracies have been colonized — quietly, methodically — by a cartel of national associations and professional guilds no voter ever approved. These groups wield more influence over daily governance than most state legislatures, yet they are invisible to the public, untethered from electoral accountability, and drenched in progressive orthodoxy.

These associations are neither think tanks nor trade associations in the old sense. Yet they wield massive powers: They write standards, provide training, host conferences, and broker grants. These guilds credential personnel and tell agencies what “best practice” means.

Because legislators rarely read the fine print in the legislation they pass, the blueprints crafted by these associations become the law of the land by default. When the public wonders why every state suddenly adopts the same jargon, the same metrics, and the same “tool kits” on climate, equity, and inclusion, the answer is almost always because the same group of associations decided it.

The depth of ideological capture in these associations is astounding. The examples border on parody. The National Association of State Treasurers insists that environmental, social, and governance investing is a fiduciary duty and trains treasurers in diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The National Association of Medicaid Directors declares equity — not health outcomes — the “foundational principle” of Medicaid reform and pushes race-based service priorities.

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials maintains that “structural racism” is a public health emergency and coordinates messaging on abortion, climate, and even online speech with the White House.

The National Association of State Procurement Officials encourages states to embed race- and gender-based scoring rubrics into contracting, turning neutral bidding into an ideological loyalty test.

The National Governors Association, which is supposedly a bipartisan forum of executives, functions as a relay for the left, peddling DEI and ESG tool kits like a traveling salesman.

These examples are far from exhaustive.

National associations operate outside democratic oversight while having a greater influence over shaping state policy than most legislatures. They are the Trojan horses of managerial progressivism. While legislators debate property-tax rates or curriculum, these associations push a suite of prepackaged policies — procurement guidelines, Medicaid waivers, regulatory thresholds — that heavily favor the status quo.

Protecting progressives

Civil service rules protect progressive careerists from political oversight. University boards rubber-stamp DEI because accreditation bodies — another arm of the cartel — say so. Procurement officers copy and paste National Association of State Procurement Officials templates. Medicaid directors take their orders from the National Association of Medicaid Directors rather than the governor.

The bureaucrats Republican governors inherit have been trained in association doctrine, are credentialed by association certifications, and are acculturated in association conferences. Even the vocabulary their agencies use — “resilience,” “inclusion,” “climate readiness,” “public-private partnership” — is imported from slide decks in Washington, D.C.

Our adversaries built the shadow government that now runs the states. The only question is whether conservatives will summon the courage to challenge it.

You may elect a conservative governor. But if his health agency still sends staff to Association of State and Territorial Health Officials trainings, his Medicaid office still uses National Association of Medicaid Directors templates, and his treasury department still follows the National Association of State Treasurers guidelines, the day-to-day governance is leftist by default.

Even if personnel are swapped out, the new trainees will be accepting “best practices,” model regulation, and training seminars from supposedly neutral industry experts. But this neutrality is a farce.

The result is a peculiar kind of political theater. Voters think they have chosen a government. Governors think they are in command. But the machinery hums along, indifferent to election returns and guided by national bodies whose values are taken from the faculty lounge and the federal bureaucracy. It is government by autopilot — and the autopilot was programmed by the left.

Rooting out the cartel

The cartel of leftist national associations needs to be dealt with in order for red states to prosper. The remedy is not tinkering around the edges but an aggressive structural overhaul.

First, states must begin by auditing and restricting association membership. Every agency should disclose its dues, trainings, grant pipelines, and template adoptions. Sunshine is a good disinfectant.

Second, agencies should be barred from importing association policies without legislative approval. If a procurement office wants to adopt National Association of State Procurement Officials rubrics, let it defend that choice in front of elected representatives in open hearings.

Third, association-led DEI trainings should be prohibited outright; they are not professional development but bureaucratic catechism.

Fourth, rival associations must be built, as the State Financial Officers Foundation has already done, to provide training and credentials aligned with republican self-government.

Finally, and most importantly, political leadership must penetrate the bureaucracy — more appointed positions, stronger sunset rules, and the restructuring of state agencies that resist accountability.

Some will protest that this sounds radical. It is not — it is the work of self-government. The radicalism lies in the present arrangement, in which anonymous guilds in a faraway capital dictate to sovereign states what their procurement contracts should look like or what principles guide their Medicaid systems. The radicalism lies in states whose constitutions enshrine republican rule yet whose daily operations are outsourced to entities their people cannot name.

This reform in red states is not optional if conservatives mean to govern.

Changing the machinery

The Index reveals the failures; the Shadow Government Report reveals the cause. Paired together, they teach a crucial lesson: Red states have built conservative brands on progressive machinery. They talk like Jefferson but regulate like Albany. They thump their chests about liberty while paying dues to organizations that smuggle equity quotas into their hiring manuals.

RELATED: The deep state is no longer deniable — thanks to Tulsi Gabbard

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

To continue on this path is to win hollow victories, mistaking campaign slogans for statecraft. It is to send governors into battle armed with speeches while the other side controls the maps, the supply lines, and the ammunition. The work ahead is not to shout louder but to actually govern — to tear down the scaffolding of association rules and build institutions that are faithful to the people they’re supposed to serve. Until that is done, every red state risks being a blue state in disguise.

Governance is not automatic. It is not the inevitable byproduct of winning elections. It is the patient, disciplined, steady construction of institutions aligned with the people’s will. Our adversaries have known this for decades. They built the shadow government that now runs the states. The only question left is whether conservatives will summon the courage to challenge it.

Editor's note: This article was published originally at the American Mind.

Joe Biden's a LIAR — here are the REAL threats to black Americans



According to Joe Biden, “white supremacists” are the greatest threat facing black Americans.

He made this very clear in a speech he gave at a historically black college last week.

“It’s never really over, but on the best days enough of us have the guts and the hearts to just stand up for the best in us. To choose love over hate,” Biden said.

He then continued by spreading what Chad Prather says are lies.

In front of the historically black college, Biden added, “The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy.”

“I’ve got an issue with that,” Prather responds, “because here’s the deal: When you say ‘white supremacy’ you’re just saying white people in general. That’s what you’re saying.”

Prather mentions the recent mass shooting in Allen, Texas.

The shooter was Hispanic, but Democrats, activists, and the mainstream media jumped to call him a white supremacist.

“So, anybody that’s not black basically is a white supremacist,” Prather says.

But Prather, unlike Joe Biden, knows what the real enemies of the black community are.

“The biggest enemies in America, and specifically to the black community, folks are not white supremacists,” he says.

Rather, Prather says their biggest enemy is “Democrats, and more specifically, Democratic policies.”

According to Prather, these policies have “consistently and historically kept them in physically, morally, circumstantially, spiritually, economically, psychologically, and emotionally impoverished circumstances.”

The second biggest enemy to the black community is again, not white supremacists, Prather explains.

It’s a direct result of Democrat policies, and it’s called fatherlessness. And Prather has the receipts to prove it.

“72.3% of black births are out of wedlock,” he says.

He says that this is more than likely a result of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, or AFDC.

It was signed into law by Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, who was a Democrat.

The AFDC helps provide cash welfare payments for needy children who have been deprived of parental support or care because their father or mother was absent from the home.

Prather says policies like this have been weaponized to incentivize members of the black community to be a part of single-parent homes.

But according to Prather, the black community's true mortal enemy is abortion.

“You want to know what kills black people? It’s abortion,” Prather says.


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Energy industry pro annihilates clueless Buttigieg, Democrat policies causing gas price hike



Pete Buttigieg had a completely nonsensical solution this past week for Americans feeling the major sting from rising gas prices: just get an electric vehicle!

Pete Buttigieg wants people to simply buy an electric car so they don't have to worry about rising gas prices.pic.twitter.com/VBcIfRotvE
— TheBlaze (@TheBlaze) 1646672497

"So much is wrong with that statement, from start to finish,” said Jacki Daily, host of "The Jacki Daily Show."

“We need to use what we have right now, in place already, for the immediate crisis. Does he understand there’s a war going on that can quickly explode into something much bigger? Does he understand it?! We don’t have time for this," Daily continued.

Daily, whose career spans two decades of experience in the energy industry, politics, and law, joined Allie Beth Stuckey on "Relatable," to discuss the intricacies of the current situation with oil and gas production that are causing these record-high gas prices, and how Democrat 'green' policies are basically thinly veiled schemes to funnel more money to the wealthy.

"He clearly doesn't understand that electric vehicles are made from oil. Every piece of them are made from oil: the fiberglass, the paint, the battery, everything is made from oil,” Daily pointed out, becoming more impatient with Buttigieg’s cluelessness. “Moreover, I mean, the battery components themselves are made of rare earth elements, the supply chain of which is controlled by China. He’s giving more supply-chain control to China!”

Germany is also doubling down on building more solar and electric-powered vehicles at this time, claiming they control their solar energy, but it’s China that controls solar, and it’s China that controls the electric vehicles, Daily told Stuckey. To top it off, Germany sits atop a sea of natural gas, but because the green movement succeeded in stopping them from fracking, they’ve become totally dependent on Russia for natural gas, which is the same thing seen happening in America.

"Pete Buttigieg clearly doesn't understand that electric vehicles are made from OIL...moreover, the battery components themselves are made of rare earth elements, the supply chain of which is controlled by China."\n\n@JackiDailyHost drops knowledge on Buttigieg, w/@conservmillenpic.twitter.com/Q8ZJIgi5p4
— TheBlaze (@TheBlaze) 1646968654

Despite what the Biden administration would have you believe, Daily explained that the blame for what's going on truly does rest with Biden and Democrats, not Russia. While Donald Trump directed his administration to invest in American energy as much as possible, Biden's administration is using ESG scores to dissuade anyone from investing in oil and gas, becoming a perfect example of how liberal politics negatively affects the everyday person.

Daily also warned against falling for what media and the government spew in their attempt to hype up the fear in Americans over issues, especially during a time of crisis.

“Nothing’s more dangerous than government,” Daily warned. “Government is very powerful. As Elon Musk said, ‘It’s the biggest corporation and has a monopoly on legal violence.’ How about we not hand over our money, and our sovereignty, and our rights, to a handful of people who obviously don’t know what they’re doing, and can’t be trusted.”

Get all the details surrounding the rising gas prices the Democrats don't want you to know below, or listen to the podcast here.


You can catch all episodes of ‘The Jacki Daily Show’ here.


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Dozens of Democratic climate warriors, whose policies drive up energy costs, beg regulators to get gas and electricity prices under control



Remember the feds' warning to Americans in the fall that heating bills could jump greatly this winter — by as much as 54%? Well, as the country has seen cold temperatures and serious snowfall over the last couple of weeks, liberal lawmakers are taking notice and demanding that something be done.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday highlighted a letter in which 41 Democrat members of Congress — all of whom have repeatedly supported and advocated for onerous climate change policies that have a proven history of hiking energy prices — begged federal regulators at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to use their "power to influence retail rates for natural gas and electricity."

As the Journal noted, these Democrats certainly have "chutzpah."

These same left-wingers' party and political allies have repeatedly forced energy prices higher and have even said they want to make using fossil fuels more expensive — you know, to cut down on emissions. It was their standard-bearer, President Barack Obama, who admitted that his policies would force electricity prices to "necessarily skyrocket."

In fact, as Bjørn Lomborg recently pointed out for the Journal, the left's "net zero" emissions dream is largely ineffectual when it comes to the climate but will cost "many trillions," as the soaring prices we see today are "only the beginning."

Energy prices are soaring, and it’s likely a sign of things to come. The rise can be blamed on a variety of things, including the demand rebound after the lockdowns ended, a drop in renewable electricity output from a lack of wind in Europe during most of 2021, and increasingly costly climate policies. But while the pandemic will end and the wind will blow again, climate policies to achieve “net zero” emissions will keep hiking prices.

Barack Obama acknowledged in 2008 that electricity prices “would necessarily skyrocket” under his proposed climate policies. He was more candid than many of today’s politicians and advocates. Limiting the use of fossil fuels requires making them more expensive and pushing people toward green alternatives that remain pricier and less efficient.

And Lomborg predicts things will continue to escalate:

Costs will continue to rise if politicians remain bent on achieving net-zero emissions globally. Bank of America finds that achieving net zero globally by 2050 will cost $150 trillion over 30 years—almost twice the combined annual gross domestic product of every country on earth. The annual cost ($5 trillion) is more than all the world’s governments and households spend every year on education. Academic studies find the policy is even costlier. The largest database on climate scenarios shows that keeping temperature rises to 2 degrees Celsius—a less stringent policy than net zero by midcentury—would likely cost $8.3 trillion, or 3.3% of world GDP, every year by 2050, and the costs keep escalating so that by the end of the century taxpayers will have paid about $1 quadrillion—a thousand trillion—in total.

These estimates are based on the heroic assumption that climate policy costs will be spread efficiently, with big emitters China and India cutting the most. New Delhi says it will only keep moving toward net zero if the rest of the world pays it $1 trillion by 2030, which won’t happen.

The predictions only get worse. Read the whole article here.

Naturally, President Biden and his fellow climate fearmongers deny their policies have anything to do with rising energy prices. They, of course, claim energy companies are somehow manipulating the market.

The Democrat letter-writers claimed, "There are many overlapping factors leading to this rise in energy prices, including profiteering from oil and gas companies and high oil and gas exports."

As the Journal pointed out, the lawmakers should read the document from the U.S. Energy Information Administration that their letter cited.

The high prices follow changes to energy supply and demand patterns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We expect that households across the United States will spend more on energy this winter compared with the past several winters because of these higher energy prices and because we assume a slightly colder winter than last year in much of the United States.

Even when we vary weather expectations, we expect the increase in energy prices as the United States returns to economic growth to mean higher residential energy bills this winter:

● We expect that the nearly half of U.S. households that heat primarily with natural gas will spend 30% more than they spent last winter on average—50% more if the winter is 10% colder-than-average and 22% more if the winter is 10% warmer-than-average.
● We expect the 41% of U.S. households that heat primarily with electricity will spend 6% more—15% more in a colder winter and 4% more in a warmer winter.
● The 5% of U.S. households that heat primarily with propane will spend 54% more—94% more in a colder winter and 29% more in a warmer winter.
● The 4% of U.S. households that heat primarily with heating oil will spend 43% more—59% more in a colder winter and 30% more in a warmer winter. [...]

Nearly half of all U.S. households heat primarily with natural gas. We expect households that use natural gas as their primary space heating fuel will spend $746 this winter, 30% more than they spent last winter. This increase in natural gas expenditures comes from both higher expected prices and higher expected consumption.

Americans' bills will be higher because of higher prices and increased demand, which has outpaced the increase in production. It's the president and his fellow climate change warriors who have pushed polices aimed at phasing out the domestic production of fossil fuels and driving up prices.