The law shows that, in Donald Trump’s Republican Party, fighting too often has become an end in itself and not a means to an end, which is winning.
Eric Erickson is a serious and thoughtful conservative. So I was surprised to hear him voice strong criticism of a new Louisiana law mandating display of the Ten Commandments in every classroom in the state.
However, Erickson’s criticism is not with the sum and substance of the law. He says he supports displaying the Ten Commandments in the classroom, as well as making the Ten Commandments part of the required course of study.
Instead, Erickson’s beef is with what he views as the state’s losing way of going about this, or losing way of fighting this political battle.
Judicial Scrutiny. For starters, he says, the law almost certainly will be struck down by the Supreme Court. A 1980 Supreme Court case (Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39) has “an almost identical fact pattern,” Erickson notes.
If Louisiana Republicans really wanted to win this fight, they would have avoided launching a doomed frontal assault on Stone v. Graham. Instead, they would have passed a law specifically designed to avoid judicial scrutiny, which would have accomplished the same thing, Erickson argues.
In other words, Louisiana Republicans would have fought to win and not fought for fighting’s sake or fought to lose. How might they have achieved this?
Winning Legislation. Erickson says Louisiana legislators could have passed two simple and Constitutionally unassailable laws that would have allowed schools and teachers to display and teach the Ten Commandments.
First, pass a law that says no school district or school board can punish a teacher for posting the Ten Commandments in the classroom.
Second, pass a resolution that says local churches and synagogues are welcome and encouraged to provide copies of the Ten Commandments to any teacher who wants them.
These two simple laws or resolutions would have accomplished the same thing as a mandatory Ten Commandments display, but without running afoul of the First Amendment’s establishment clause, Erickson argues.
The display of gay pride flags in many public schools, he explains, provides a useful example of how conservatives ought to wage their fight to display and teach the Ten Commandments in the classroom.
The state, contrary to the silly claims of some, is not forcing teachers to put up Pride flags in classrooms. [Some teachers] 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 (Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022)) would clearly allow the teachers to do it on their own.
Louisiana Policy Failure. Moreover, Erickson asserts, the weakness of Louisiana’s mandatory Ten Commandments display is underscored by the fact that the Republican Governor, Jeff Landry, vetoed tort reform, and the Republican state legislature provided scant and inadequate funding for Education Savings Accounts.
Yet tort reform and school choice via education savings accounts are two highly prized conservative policy reforms.
Erickson makes an important point that needs to be heard, especially today, in Donald Trump’s Republican Party.
Trump’s Failure. Trump is often praised for being “a fighter,” and for his willingness “to fight.” But what Trump’s acolytes and sycophants don’t seem to understand is that fighting is not an end in itself, but rather a means to an end, which is winning.
Unfortunately, Trump is a poor and inept fighter. He doesn’t fight well or smartly, or with an overarching strategic and tactical purpose.
Sure, Trump throws a lot of punches, but most of his punches don’t score or connect. And many of his punches boomerang and end up hurting himself and the Republican Party.
That’s why Trump lost the 2020 election, and that’s why Republicans seriously under-performed in the 2022 midterm elections.
It’s not that Trump and the Republicans had a bad record and an unpopular agenda in 2020 and 2022. To the contrary: they had a good record and a positive agenda: peace and prosperity, tax cuts, historically low unemployment, low inflation, a booming stock market, et al.
The problem was (and still remains): Trump does not know how to fight. He doesn’t know how to pick his fights and frame issues to his and the Republican Party’s political advantage.
Republican Policy Failure. Unfortunately, Trump’s propensity to lose politically and in the policy arena has spread throughout the Republican Party.
Louisiana’s failure to pass tort reform, fund school choice, and enact a winning Ten Commandments law are all prime examples of this propensity to fight for fighting’s sake without a commitment to win and prevail.
“We keep losing,” writes Erickson, “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.”
Erickson is right. Politically speaking, there are not ten commandments; there is only one commandment, and that is to win. Unless and until conservative Republicans understand this, displaying and teaching the Ten Commandments in the public schools will forever be a distant dream.
Feature photo credit: A screen shot of conservative pundit Eric Erickson via Twitter and the 2024 GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump, courtesy of Fox Business.