(C) Ohio Capital Journal
This story was originally published by Ohio Capital Journal and is unaltered.
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Republican playbook in Ohio mirrors Trump's union-busting and attacks on voters and education • Ohio Capital Journal [1]
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Date: 2025-04-01
Last fall, heading into the final stretch of a uniquely traumatizing presidential election year, I worried about us. I feared we were adapting to abnormal, becoming desensitized to appalling and shrugging off horrific.
Like the metaphorical frogs in a pot of water on slow boil, we were simmering in the surreal, lulled into complacency as a coping mechanism. Now we’re sitting in a fully boiling cauldron clamped shut and I worry that the speed and scale of our impending fate doesn’t even register with many of us.
But there’s still time to escape the intense autocratic heat in America and reclaim our sovereignty. The first step to saving our right to self-determination is awareness. The authoritarian regime in Washington mirrors the authoritarian regime in Ohio. One-party rule in our state government ignores court orders, voter mandates and overwhelming public opposition to muddled, catastrophic policy.
In our federal government, a convicted felon seizing unilateral control of everything under compliant one-party rule, ignores court orders on due process, congressional mandates and immense public outcry over reckless agency shutdowns, blanket firings, and unchecked data mining by an unelected billionaire.
The DeWine administration replicated the bullying and financial extortion of universities and colleges in the Trump administration to crush academic independence and chill speech.
Ohio’s profile-in-cowardice governor even mimicked Trump’s performative signings of executive orders by posing with his own signature on ruinous state legislation designed to own the libs and teach “woke” public universities and colleges a right-wing lesson on cancel culture and funding cuts.
When Gov. Mike DeWine made the fiercely opposed Ohio Senate Bill 1 law — prohibiting all diversity, equity and inclusion activities on campus and setting regulations around “controversial” issues — he also sanctioned SB1’s anti-union edict to rescind certain collective bargaining rights and tenure protections for faculty no longer allowed to strike.
The state’s union-busting rule followed Trump’s executive order that abolished union rights at over two dozen federal agencies.
As the powerbrokers in Columbus and Washington sync their agendas to control and subjugate, they are laser focused on removing whatever stands in their way — chiefly, free, fair and accessible elections.
Undermining them is a coordinated MAGA goal of the utmost priority before the 2026 midterms. To that end, Trump recently issued a sweeping executive order dictating the law of the land on federal elections — which he has no constitutional authority to do — that could stop millions of Americans from registering to vote in federal elections if they don’t have proof of citizenship (which many don’t or can’t easily access).
Voters already attest to their citizenship under penalty of perjury. The added hurdle is purely to suppress votes, especially those that trend Democratic.
Trump’s directive severely limits voting by mail and gives more uncurbed power to Elon Musk’s DOGE to comb through sensitive state voter files. What could go wrong?
Unrestrained voter purges. Database errors. Leaks. It’s all good if it keeps voters from holding unlawful leaders to account.
Trump’s allies in Congress have teed up a nearly identical voter suppression scheme called the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
It could block more than 21 million eligible Americans from voting because they’re unable to supply a birth certificate or passport or enhanced driver’s license or jump through more gratuitous GOP hoops for permission to vote.
U.S. House Republicans are expected to consider their massive barrier to voting this week. It would require everyone registering to vote or updating their registration to prove their citizenship. Mail, online, and voter registration drives would be functionally eliminated because of the new, in-person, show-us-your-papers requirements.
This is a full court press by GOP lawmakers on the federal and state level to stay in power by disenfranchising active voters with the Trumpian-fueled myth of rampant voter fraud.
Ohio Republicans are quietly rolling out legislation now that would also reduce participation at the polls. As always, they justify their so-called anti-fraud measures as election “integrity” insurance — even as they boast of our “gold standard” election system and can’t produce evidence of a problem. Ever.
A bill was just introduced in the Ohio Senate (SB 153) that would require proof of citizenship to vote in the state and ban ballot drop boxes altogether because why not?
State Sen. Theresa Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, obsessed with dreaming up new ways to solve a phantom dilemma (a post-election audit last November showed a perfect accuracy rate and no voter fraud in the presidential race in Ohio) touted SB 153 as “a simple fix that strengthens trust and integrity in our institutions.”
She posted her enthusiasm for Trump’s sham executive order that attacks free and fair elections. “President Trump is right; we need to do everything to protect the integrity of our elections.”
Poor thing must have amnesia about Trump’s lawless attempt to overturn a free and fair election, his blatant lies about a stolen election that wasn’t, and his incitement of a violent attack on the seat of our democracy to stay in power.
We are in boiling hot water. The only way out is with eyes wide open. Then you have to decide whether you care enough to exercise your fundamental rights with resolve and not a minute to spare.
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[1] Url:
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/04/01/republican-playbook-in-ohio-mirrors-trumps-union-busting-and-attacks-on-voters-and-education/
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