Republicans wishing to stand in Walters', Stitt's and others' way must go further

A screen grab from one of Ryan Walters’ many in-vehicle videos. Though he may look as though he’s falling asleep, he wasn’t. Instead, he appears to have been caught mid-blink. Nothing was altered to capture this picture.

Here’s the truth.

I thought about headlining this column, “Ryan Walters is full of $%&@, Chapter 396.”

I mean, it could be chapter 456, 682, 793 or 1,013.

With him, it’s hard to keep up.

But that’s not the headline because it’s about more than that. It’s also about the folks in his party who have no time for him, but are not quite willing to really — really!! — go after him.

About that, former state rep Mark McBride, who clashed regularly with Walters while in office, penned an editorial in The Oklahoman this week and, I have to say, it’s a strong piece, so easily readable he ought to give Substack a try.

It began like this:

“Let’s just take a look at where we’re at with Ryan Walters.

“It’s starting to feel like the funny papers from when I was a kid. You’d open them up to see what kind of mess Dennis the Menace got into that day. Only difference is ― I liked the funny papers. This? I’m getting tired of it.

“Seems like every time you turn on the news, there he is again ― Ryan Walters making headlines for all the wrong reasons. The nonstop drama. The political stunts. The ego. His need to be front and center. None of it is helping our schools, our teachers or our kids.”

Later, McBride got to the heart of the state superintendent’s most recent malfeasance:

“And now, here we go again. He’s pushing a brand-new unfunded mandate — trying to slash administrator pay and meddle with school breakfast and lunch programs. But the legislature already addressed administrative pay. It’s in statute. This isn’t his call to make.”

That’s a reference to Walters’ Monday edict that school districts must provide meals to all students, without cost, despite offering no way to fund the mandate.

In a video explaining the directive, Walters said this:

“For far too long, we have seen public schools take taxpayer dollars that are there for students and continue to grow administrative costs, then turning around and charging parents for school lunches. We need less administrators and more of the taxpayer dollars going to kids directly.”

It’s classic Walters and classic unserious performative Republican politics.

Many will applaud Walters, thinking, “Yeah, they ought to put kids first,” yet they’ll do it without understanding school begins very soon, budgets have already been set, districts cannot just go fire a bunch of administrators following a vague, unenforceable statement from the state superintendent, not to mention in well-run districts they wouldn’t want to anyway and even in those districts they might, they’d be opening themselves to lawsuits bound to raise property taxes in their districts if they did.

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That’s one, here’s another.

Labor commissioner Leslie Osborn, a virtuous politician belonging to a party in which they’re utterly hard to find, penned her own column back in May, also for The Oklahoman, in which she went about torching the priorities of her own party.

Here’s how that began:

Why does the state of Oklahoma consistently race at breakneck speed to get to the bottom? With passage of appropriations this year, we will once again prove that we are satisfied with being 45th to 50th in every measurable outcome that humans and businesses quantify.

Strong educational outcomes, mental and physical health care access, infrastructure quality ― these are what I, as an Oklahoma resident, want. It is also what people that scout for new industry locations look for, as well.

We are doing a good job with fast-food restaurants, call centers, distribution centers and convenience store locations. We are succeeding in getting businesses to move here that want low-wage workers with low expectations for health care coverage, companies that might want a state lax on environmental infractions, and companies with high risk that love extreme tort reform.

What we are not getting is high-paying jobs from strong companies that value an educated populace who want a high quality of life.

Great, great stuff.

She also wrote this:

“In the last few years, we have started subsidizing children going to private schools, though the vast majority are from wealthy families. That's $200 million per year, and it is set to increase.”

Author’s note: It did increase, to $250 million, and the legislature had to disagree with the governor, who wanted to no-cap it, just to do that.

It’s a sentiment worth revisiting given the other monstrously dumb thing Walters tried putting into motion this week when, on Wednesday, he doubled down on the state’s relationship with PragerU.

Read all about PragerU here.

Basically, Walters announced the state education department would task PragerU with assessing the ability and willingness of teachers coming from educationally progressive states — you know, states with night and day higher education ratings than Oklahoma — to teach a regressive so-called “America First” agenda instead.

What’s Walters thinking?

Via press release, he offered this.

“We’re sending a clear message. Oklahoma schools will not be a haven for woke agendas pushed in places like California and New York. If you want to teach here, you’d better know the Constitution, respect what makes America great and understand basic biology.

“We’re raising a generation of patriots, not activists, and I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep leftist propaganda out of our classrooms.”

What he’s really doing, of course, is fighting a war on Oklahoma students thinking for themselves.

So you’ve got McBride, who is a Republican, speaking up, and you’ve got Osborn, who is also a Republican, speaking up, and until he decided the best way to become our next governor was appoint himself president of the Donald Trump fan club, you had Gentner Drummond speaking up with righteous seriousness, each determined to keep their party from going entirely off the deep end.

But don’t they know they have no chance of changing anything, not really, doing what they’re doing? That all they’re doing is spitting into the wind?

Their sentiments are terrific, their speaking up in any forum is welcome and appreciated, but are they prepared to do anything to actually move the needle?

Like changing parties.

Like endorsing Democrat Cyndy Munson to be our next governor even if they remain in their party.

Like pulling Oklahoma City mayor David Holt into their group, himself a Republican as long as he served in the legislature (2010-2018), and speaking with a singular voice that pays no attention to party, working to change the minds of Oklahomans on issues far and wide, or, really, just to demonstrate to them who’s actually on their side on the issues they care about.

If a smattering of goobers can get together to create the Oklahoma Freedom Caucus, certainly a few correct-thinking Republicans can inspire, or attempt to inspire, a legislative block working to rid ourselves and kill the influence of state actors like Walters, the governor who gave Walters a platform in the first place and so many embarrassing legislators who don’t know $%&@ from Shinola.

Because we are so better than this.

If you love the state, risk some prominence to actually change it.

It may not seem like it, but we’re not a far-right nutty Republican monolith.

Kevin Stitt only got 55.5 percent of the vote. Walters only got 56.8 percent of the vote. Drummond, before selling his soul, got 73.8 percent of the vote. Osborn received 65.7 percent of the vote. And in his last race, McBride did not draw an opponent in the general election.

There must be some political capital there.

There must be the desire to put state over party and create change.

You wouldn’t be alone.

Though it might require new friends who’ve been waiting to work with you.

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