'Chomping at the bit': Trump victory has red states feeling 'emboldened' to push far-right agendas
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) is among the many Donald Trump allies describing the president-elect's victory as a "landslide," but former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan has countered that the size of Trump's victory hardly fits that description. Trump, according to the Cook Political Report, defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by roughly 1.4 or 1.5 percent in the popular vote — which, as Hasan has been saying, is a narrow victory, not an "historic landslide."
Nonetheless, the GOP's performance in the election is a "trifecta" in that Republicans, in 2025, will control the White House and both branches of Congress. Republicans flipped the U.S. Senate, where they will have a 53-47 majority, and kept their small U.S. House of Representatives majority.
Republicans in red states, according to Washington Post reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske, are feeling "emboldened" after the 2024 election and are "not waiting for" Trump "to take office to advance far more conservative agendas at home."
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In an article published on December 13, Hennessy-Fiske reports, "Idaho lawmakers want to allow school staff to carry concealed firearms without prior approval and parents to sue districts in library and curriculum disputes. Lawmakers in Oklahoma plan to further restrict abortion by limiting the emergency exceptions and to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools, while their counterparts in Arkansas are moving to create the felony offense of 'vaccine harm,' which could make pharmaceutical companies or their executive officers potentially criminally liable."
Republicans who control both branches of the Texas State Legislature, according to Hennessy-Fiske, "have proposed a multitude of measures that would push the state further right" — including immigration-related proposals.
Skye Perryman, president of the liberal legal group Democracy Forward, told the Post, "The alignment of a Trump-Vance Administration and the beginning of legislative sessions is a looming perfect storm of conservative policies in red states."
Former Michigan House Speaker Craig DeRoche, a far-right Republican who now heads the Religious Right group the Family Policy Alliance, told the Post, " Red state legislatures and governors are chomping at the bit."
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