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Idaho: Where Democracy Goes to Die [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-03-10

I’ve lived in Idaho almost my entire adult life. While it’s never been easy to be a thoughtful, compassionate liberal in this blood-red state, the beautiful landscapes, kind people, safe communities, and lack of natural disasters have always balanced things out. But as our political leaders work relentlessly to undermine basic freedoms and impose Christian nationalism on the state, for the first time in my life, I find myself eyeing the exits.

Conservative think tanks and dark-money groups use Idaho as a testing ground for all their worst ideas. So, even if you’re not from the state, it’s worth watching our politics to see what new abominations are on their way down the Republican pipeline. I don’t write about Idaho’s politics often, but I assure you it’s not for lack of content.

I could write about Idaho’s legal battle to ensure that pregnant women who have complications die rather than safely abort a nonviable fetus. I could write about H0176, a pending bill that would dismantle Idaho’s medical education program. (Idaho already has the fewest doctors per resident of any state.) I could write about Idaho leading the charge to outlaw gay marriage nationwide or the blatantly unconstitutional attempt to require Bible readings in public schools. (Better stick to Old Testament; the new one focuses almost entirely on some radical, leftist, immigrant Jew preaching compassion for the poor. Liberal indoctrination much?)

I could write about the attempts by Idaho legislators to repeal Medicaid Expansion, a popular, voter-approved measure that insures 90,000 Idahoans while saving the state money. Or how our state is setting aside $50 million to pay for religious “education” and private-school subsidies for the wealthy even as our public schools crumble. Or the fact that over 86 percent of the voters who contacted the governor about this asked him to veto it and it meant nothing. I could write about legislators trying to give Idaho its own DOGE committee to, I dunno, fire and rehire every state employee in the name of “efficiency”? Or I could reflect on the bill to make firing squads Idaho’s primary form of lethal execution, which definitely has nothing to do with insecure legislators wanting to feel like big, tough men.

I could write about HJR001’s attack on public schools. Or S1070’s attack on public schools. Or H0298’s attack on public schools. Or S1094’s attack on public schools. (It is, in fact, an attack on the levies that are only necessary because the state doesn’t fund public schools as the constitution requires.) Or HJ0042, S1007, S1023, H0292, H0295, H0041, S1032, H0275, S1046, H0273, H0293, SCR108, and others that…well, you know.

But why bother? What can Idaho voters do with that information?

Vote for someone else next time? Who cares. This is Idaho, and the Republican always wins. If Jesus was facing off with the Antichrist, the average Idahoan would demand to know who was on the Republican ticket before picking a side.

Contact their representatives? Idaho’s politicians don’t care. They can do anything, or nothing, and still get reelected. No matter how overwhelming the public input on an issue, our “leaders” always do what far-right, dark money groups tell them to.

Protest? See previous paragraph.

Primary incumbents to get more responsible Republicans? Our closed primary system ensures that only the most recklessly far-right candidates get to the general election. And after that, they don’t even have to try.

Change the system? We tried that with a ballot measure called the Open Primaries Initiative, which would have opened up the state’s primaries and instituted ranked-choice voting to increase political participation and encourage more moderate candidates. It failed spectacularly after Republican leaders told Idahoans they were too stupid to put four names in order of preference…and Idaho voters agreed.

Launch a ballot initiative? Even if voters go through the nation’s most arduous signature-gathering process to get a measure on the ballot and then get it passed, Idaho’s legislators can just overturn it, which they did when a recent initiative to increase school funding was set to pass, and like they’re doing now with Idaho’s Medicaid Expansion.

Bribe our legislators to do their jobs? This one would probably work, actually, but the only Idahoans who could afford to outbid the dark-money lobbyists already in place are probably funding those very groups.

Voting in Idaho has become an empty ceremony to pacify voters into thinking they’re part of a democracy. As long as Idaho’s elections remain noncompetitive, politicians have no incentive to care what voters want.

And they don’t.

Republicans’ blind loyalty (i.e., obedience) has killed democracy in Idaho, and they’re doing a good job of taking their authoritarian fever dreams nationwide. I suspect most Republican voters couldn’t be happier to be ruled by stern daddy figures, though.

Some will say I’m just bitter because liberals never get what we want from Idaho’s political system. Well, no shit. This state would be downright idyllic were it not run by the most ignorant, amoral, freedom-hating nutjobs in the Pacific Northwest.

That’s not the point. Liberals and independents have never had a voice in Idaho, but now even Republican voters have been sidelined. Every means of political participation has been nullified by power-hungry politicians and the devout Republicans who enable them. Too cynical? I would love for somebody to prove me wrong.

To Idaho’s nominally elected leaders, I would like to offer some advice: cutting voters out of the political process may not be in your long-term best interests. The stability and relative peacefulness of our politics is the direct result of citizens having peaceful means to participate in governing. Take those away and what are we left with?

Ask the CEO of UnitedHealthcare.

In the words of JFK, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

And if you do live in another state, heed Idaho’s example, because this kind of rank authoritarianism and white Christian nationalism is the model they hope to expand to the nation as a whole. Fight them on every front while that’s still an option where you live.

*If you enjoyed this piece, please consider following my free newsletter on Substack. Thanks!

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