Ryan Walters is so happy Donald Trump called him he can hardly contain himself

Our state's superintendent of public instruction proves just how blind, deluded and void one must be to get behind the indicted one to return to the presidency

State superintendent Ryan Walters, two flags and several bottled water containers, empty and otherwise. (NBC News Photo)

I admit it.

When it’s time to write a non-sports column, among the things I tend to do is find out what Ryan Walters has been up to.

Because he’s sort of the gift that keeps on giving.

Even when somebody else is up to something stupid and no good, like, say, his good buddy Kevin Stitt, chances remain high that Walters, not Stitt, has been up to more stupid and more no good.

I don’t mean to make him such a crutch.

And yet …

Wednesday afternoon, from his vehicle, of course, because the guy won’t be caught dead at his state department of public education office, Walters decided to let everybody know just how excited he was to get a phone call from the man himself and join Donald Trump’s once-delayed reelection team, whatever that entails, and, yes, one has to wonder to what jails Walters might visit to receive his marching orders.

It’s not a surprise.

It’s actually quite predictable.

Nor, one presumes, can Walters do much damage in the role, for among the things he’s unlikely to ever do is change the mind of anybody not with him already.

Were he able to change minds, he would have wound up with more votes in the last election than at least one of lieutenant governor Matt Pinnell, attorney general Gentner Drummond, treasurer Todd Russ, labor commissioner Leslie Osborn, corporation commissioner Kim David, U.S. senator James Lankford or U.S. senator Markwayne Mullin, all Republicans who won statewide election.

Yet, he didn’t, each receiving at least 60,000 more statewide votes than he, including Osborn and Drummond, who netted 96,427 and 142,156 more votes.

So, whatever, he’s on Trump’s team.

Then I had an idea.

I would listen to Walters speak from his vehicle, just to hear how a true believer (or one with devilish ambition and an utter lack of shame) explains their support for Donald Trump.

Consider this an exercise.

Click here, and listen to what Walters said in full.

In this space, we’ll go through it a sentence or two at a time.

“I received a call from President Trump this week, and I'm proud to announce that I'm going to join his team for reelect. I fully and totally endorse President Trump.”

Hard to do a whole lot with that.

Then again, recall, he’s in the driver’s seat of his vehicle, an apparent minivan or SUV, because everybody knows Ben Franklin, John Adams, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson created their video tweets from atop their horses, and if that was good enough for them, then what’s Walters to do but video tweet from his … well, all of that is patently ridiculous, just no more ridiculous than breathlessly emoting your next political move from your front seat because you’re so dang giddy about it you can’t possibly drive yourself to a more suitable spot, you just have to pull over and let ’er rip.

All with a look on his face I might have had on mine had Cheryl Ladd called and told me she wanted to meet me in 1978, when I was 10.

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“President Trump will be able to end radical indoctrination in our schools.”

Really, will he?

Can anybody tell us anything he’s actually for or against?

As president, beyond upsetting the world order, American’s place in it, delivering our nation into would-be non-democracy and creeping fascism by attempted coup, radicalizing maybe 30 percent of the electorate and more than 50 percent of elected Republicans, as a policy guy, he only did two things.

He appointed three Supreme Court judges who’ve since brought down Roe v. Wade and passed a tax cut overwhelmingly benefitting the richest among us, even in populist clothing, selling out his own voters and exploding the deficit that House Republican acolytes, who voted for it all, now say must be reduced even at the expense of aid to Israel and Ukraine, even against the possibility of the U.S. defaulting on its fiscal obligations.

Trump’s already rethinking what he’s done to abortion law.

Yet, you think he gives a damn about the faux indoctrination you scream about every day while simultaneously strategizing your own down-with-democracy, what’s-race-have-to-do-with-anything, anti LGBTQ+ indoctrination?

“This woke ideology will be driven out of our schools. The cancer that is the teachers’ union will be driven out of our schools and parents will be put in charge of their kids education.”

If only there were a woke ideology to be driven out of our schools.

Please, offer an example.

A common bathroom, not proclaimed “male” or “female” allowing a small group of students to feel more like themselves and ever-so-slightly respected by faculty and their school district?

Is that an ideology or looking out for students’ best interests and mental health?

You’d be far more persuasive if you could point to one point of curriculum universally taught in Oklahoma’s public schools that is abhorrent to Oklahoma values. If only you’d done that one time you might have a shred of credibility upon which to stand, yet you never have.

Also, see above.

Donald Trump doesn’t care and, just like you, doesn’t want the teachers’ union to go away, because if it did you’d both be stripped of a talking point, you more than him. Vapid empty-suit know-nothing people like yourself need their punching bags and the last thing you want is to lose one of yours.

“We will move from teaching kids to hate this country. We will teach kids the basics to understand how to be successful and to love this country and what makes America great.”

Now you’re just admitting that you want to indoctrinate.

For my money, the greatest thing about this country is the right to dissent, the right to protest for change, the right to speak out for others’ and your own ideas, against the status quo, for those historically unrepresented.

It ended, eventually, the Vietnam War, it created the Civil Rights Movement, the women’s movement, the sexual revolution and a whole bunch of things that pulled our country out of the 19th century. And those who engaged in those fights did not engage in them because they hated their country, but because they loved it and they loved freedom. Yet, you, a one-time history teacher, have your own thought on what makes this country great and would limit our schools to teaching only that.

You claim to love the marketplace, just not the one of ideas.

Also, you think Trump cares about any of that?

Sorry, but he’s on self-preservation kick.

“I fully stand behind President Trump and I am excited to see him dismantle the Department of Education.”

Of course you are.

Of course you’re for no educational standards but the ones you’ve told Moms for Liberty it should be for and the ones PragerU has told you to be for. If, God forbid, Trump were to become president again, he might choose you, God forbid, to be secretary of education.

You’d probably change your tune for that.

Not to mention, Republican politicians have campaigned on getting rid of the U.S. Department of Education forever and despite holding the presidency for 24 of the last 43 years, not once has a Republican administration gone down that road.

But Trump’s different?

Well, sure he is, for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush never got hit with a quartet of criminal indictments and more than 90 criminal charges. Never robbed the White House and refused to give back top secret documents. Never fomented insurrection, paid off a porn star or attempted to disenfranchise millions of voters in several states, one of which recorded the call.

Say, that phone call you got from him, was it from a pay phone inside the Fulton County courthouse?

I digress.

I am excited to join his team and to continue to fight to make America great again. 

Good for you and aren’t you special.

You’ve never done the job you were elected to do.

You’ve not quit campaigning, not for your own brand of change but for yourself.

But you get a phone call from a criminal and you can’t contain yourself.

Congrats.

You’re everything everybody who can think for themselves thinks you are.

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