Voter pressure exploded like a supervolcano. Our politics will rebuild itself.
Originally published in the Columbus Dispatch, this is a slightly expanded version that goes into more detail. I truly appreciate the Dispatch for their willingness to include contrarian voices and headlines that help to sell newspapers.
Democracy is unpredictable. Our constitutional constraints of order, process, and distributed power — designed to dampen passions — can instead build systemic tensions that release like an earthquake. Such is the state of our politics today.
I’m a lifelong resident of Central Ohio, and it will always be home. I’ve also had the good fortune to spend time in the mountains of Western Wyoming, a place of incredible contrast. The jagged mountains rising from earthquakes in the Teton fault give way to the quiet rivers, forests, and meadows of the valley below. And the beauty of Yellowstone National Park sits atop the boiling cauldron of the world’s largest super volcano.
And, just as nature rebuilds after the tumult of earthquakes and eruptions, so too will we in our politics.
It’s no doubt jarring for those who believe their preferred policy is the only acceptable option to confront the fact that half the people and an overwhelming majority of states, cities, and towns across the country disagree with them. But that’s the beauty and wisdom of our constitutional republic.
The earthquake of reality is that — after a multi-decade march of progressive excesses across our nation’s institutions — the pressure rose enough for the people to look for a relief valve.
Immigration isn’t a right. It’s a privilege reserved for those willing to assimilate and follow our laws — starting with lawful entry. Helping fellow citizens in need is good but our 60 year “war on poverty” welfare state costing trillions of dollars and fostering an entitlement mentality that demands more for worse results isn’t.
Education is vital for our children, but not public schools that can’t teach kids to read, think they own our children, seek to keep secrets from parents, and demand more money from us to do so. And our nation’s colleges and universities, once instruments of enlightenment, have chosen instead to become over-priced, taxpayer-dependent bastions of divisive nonsense fundamentally at odds with our nation’s values and laws.
These excesses led to the volcano of citizen frustration that erupted last November. Americans elected Donald Trump over Kamala Harris. Ohioans elected Bernie Moreno over Sherrod Brown and strengthened the GOP’s hold on the General Assembly and statewide offices. For many, this was less a preference for any given candidate than it was a fuming rejection of regressively progressive overreach.
Recent Supreme Court decisions have reinforced the policy choices of the 2024 electorate even as the losers hoped the judiciary might restore the status quo that voters cast into the fire. Though those decisions didn’t involve Ohio cases, similar legislation recently passed in Ohio is now protected by them.
Probably the most consequential SCOTUS decision this term stops lone federal district judges from exceeding their authority by issuing nation-wide injunctions against Executive actions on behalf of hypothetical claimants. Writing for a majority of six, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, highlighted the profound disparity between progressive and conservative thought.
Referring to the dissent by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Justice Barrett declared: “We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.”
This was hardly the worst of Justice Jackson’s argument. In arriving at her preferred conclusion, she rejected the majority’s adherence to the actual letter of constitutional and legislative text, deeming it mere “legalese” that obscures questions she’d prefer the Court address.
Justice Barrett rightly responds that Justice Jackson should take her own advice — following the law isn’t just the obligation of “everyone, from the President on down” but for “judges too.”
No imperialism is needed because the Constitution is unambiguously clear; legislatures make the law.
Ohio’s General Assembly and Governor DeWine passed the biannual budget and it reflects the will of the people by virtue of their votes. I don’t like all of it, particularly the funding for a new Cleveland Browns football stadium. Instead, the state should tax Ohio citizens less, spend accordingly, and hold schools more accountable for results.
Unfortunately, reality hasn’t yet sunk in on Capital Hill. Trump’s 900 page “Big Beautiful Bill is a reminder that no bill that big is ever beautiful. Congress’s inability to release the pressure of our massive overspending and debt only portends another earthquake.
On the other side of the aisle, voters in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary nominated Zohran Mamdani, an avowed Democratic Socialist — who aspires to actual socialism. Mamdani is also a rabid anti-Semite determined to “globalize the intifada” right in the heart of the nation’s largest Jewish population.
If he wins the general election, voters should get their choice. And Ohio should welcome the capitalist and Jewish refugees who flee in our direction.
Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser predictably lets off steam every 90 minutes or so. Voters do it unpredictably every election. In both cases it’s a relief valve that lowers the pressure enough to prevent even bigger eruptions.