By Erick-Woods Erickson
My friends on the right have long decried the habit of the Republican Establishment deploying shiny objects to distract from failure. It has been a long time pattern. The establishment throws the base some shiny object they claim they want, like passing an abortion restriction. The base seal claps with delight and completely misses the establishment re-upped Planned Parenthood funding in the budget.
It is a recurring pattern the right has long decried, but now the right is embracing shiny objects to distract from their own failures and betrayals and, predictably, the right wing beltway activists are seal clapping.
Louisiana’s legislature passed a law mandating the Ten Commandments be displayed in every classroom in the state. The poster will not be paid for with state funds, but donated funds. Schools will not be able to opt out. The legislature claims in the legislation that this is not about religion, but about the founding documents of Western Civilization.
Undoubtedly, the law is designed to take advantage of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022), which definitively killed off Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602 (1971). Lemon was a damnable Supreme Court case that set out an impossible to meet standard for religion in the public square. Lemon played a role in Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980), which is an almost identical fact pattern. In that case, the State of Kentucky demanded the Ten Commandments be posted on the walls of classrooms and private donations were used.
Louisiana wants a test case on how far into the public square the state itself can push religion through a “historical context” argument. For example, it is permissible for public schools to teach the Old Testament or New Testament as literature or history, but not theology. So can posting the Ten Commandments on the wall by state order be treated the same?
The problem is its supporters, including its legislative proponents, are publicly making it about returning God to the classroom, and those statements will be used in federal court to stop the law. By the way, putting up a poster is not returning God to a classroom and some of the politicians and pundits cheering it on really should read the first, second, seventh, and eighth commandments. Maybe even the ninth and tenth ones too.
Also, maybe actually pass laws to incentivize businesses closing on the Sabbath, per the fourth one.
Supporters of the legislation say the law brings God back into the classroom and claim if a federal court says the law cannot be enforced that the state can just ignore the courts and keep the law and posters.
I suspect this will all play out very predictably.
The Fifth Circuit will affirm the legislation after a district court probably stops it. The Supreme Court will reject the argument with Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, possibly with Brett Kavanaugh, joining the Court’s liberals on the issue of stare decisis. The state will bluster and the Governor will claim the judges can come take down the posters because he won’t. The local school boards will have the posters taken down, if they are ever even put up to begin with. The lawyers will get rich. The right will convince themselves they are victims and cry harder.
And some on the right will demand we just fight. I’m not sure what for, but fight and pay the lawyers.
My public school in Louisiana had the Ten Commandments on the wall. They were posters donated by a local church group and teachers did not have to hang them. All of them did except the liberal Teach For America band teacher who’d come down from Boston.
I support the Ten Commandments being on the wall of the classrooms. The state, contrary to the silly claims of some, is not forcing teachers to put up Pride flags in classrooms. They are doing it on their own volition. Christian teachers should respond by putting up the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, or useful proverbs as posters. The Kennedy case would clearly allow the teachers to do it on their own.
But, in this case and with this law, only the lawyers will win.
And while I’m getting yelled at by alt-right guys on Twitter about being a conservative who never wants to win, they will lose. Again.
And the rest of you are distracted by this shiny object you all think is a great idea so you spend your time arguing over it and defending it and ignore exactly what Louisiana’s legislature wants you to ignore.
Why did Louisiana’s legislature advance this legislation? They wanted to distract you from them gutting a school choice bill that would have allowed kids from public schools to go to religious schools where they’ll get actual religious education, not just a poster on the wall.
The state claims it passed Education Savings Accounts as “universal school choice.” They did. But they not only failed to fund those accounts, but made them annually funded. So every year the legislature must give the accounts money. This year, they claimed they are universal, but only allocated money for a small number of kids in existing public schools to get out. The parents already working multiple jobs to afford private education for their kids will get no relief, nor will most parents whose kids are in public school. “Just wait till 2025,” the supporter claim. Sure. There’s now a budget shortfall in the state and the legislature only advanced this legislation after gutting the program’s expansion.
In other words, everyone got distracted by a likely unconstitutional bill to put a poster on the wall so nobody would notice the very constitutional education savings accounts that could get kids into private, religious schools was super underfunded, not actually universal as claimed, and subject to annual renewal.
Additionally, the Governor of Louisiana, who is championing the Ten Commandments posters, vetoed common sense tort reform that would have lowered insurance costs for Louisiana residents. He did so after a massive donation to his campaign from the trial lawyers.
So, the lawyers will get rich in the courts and get taxpayer dollars to defend an unconstitutional law. The lawyers will win against tort reform. And the students, parents, and taxpayers will get no relief. They won’t even get the poster, ultimately.
But that’s okay. The grade level literacy rate for third grade in Louisiana is only 49%, so more than half the kids wouldn’t be able to read the poster anyway.
How easily the base is distracted by shiny objects and how easily are the young jackasses of social media worked up to defend the shiny objects as wins when the things we could win and make permanent are snatched away by our own side’s political leaders.
We keep losing because our supposedly strategic thinkers make more from defeat because, after all, they fight! They’d rather own the libs than own the future. Losing is a feature, not a bug, for them. So too is blaming anyone who’d like to win instead of engaging in failure theater.
