As might be expected, Guvner Landry is pandering to our fears and prejudices by again singling out non-citizens as convenient scapegoats to be used to whip up frenzied opposition to a problem that isn’t nearly as bad as he would have us believe.
This time he has signed an EXECUTIVE ORDER that targets “noncitizens” in Louisiana as a voter fraud risk while conveniently ignoring the COLD, HARD FACT that no state – no, not one – allows noncitizens to vote in state or local elections.
This is the same guy who dispatched Louisiana National Guardsmen to the Texas border with Mexico to help keep out all those rapists and murderers from flooding into the country. And he has said he’s open to SENDING MORE should the need arise.
Funny thing is, his own party helped to formulate a bipartisan border control plan until the orange-tinted former guy called our very own Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, to squelch the deal because it would help the Democrats in the November election.
So much for putting the country’s interests over politics.
Now, the Master of Mar-a-Largo is saying that if he is returned to the White House that he described as a “dump,” he will institute mass deportations of all non-citizens.
Apparently, he never gave a thought to who would then pick the fruit and vegetables (including those delicious Louisiana strawberries), who would perform the roofing on all those hurricane-damaged buildings in New Orleans and Florida, who would work in all the meat-packing plants, or who would do all that landscaping around those nice corporate buildings and our streets and highways. Did he say anything about punishing all those aforementioned corporate CEOs who hire illegals “off the books” so as to not to have to pay social security taxes or provide benefits while ever-so-politely taking away American jobs?
So, bottom line, Landry is creating a lot of wasted motion and blowing a lot of hot air over issues that do nothing to address the state’s very real problems of obesity, education, poverty, health and jobs. Instead, he focuses on hot-button issues like:
- A ridiculously redundant executive order;
- Spending untold amounts to send National Guard units to a neighboring state to defend against a non-existent threat to our own state;
- Being “tough on crime” by making it nigh-onto-impossible for the wrongfully convicted to have their cases heard;
- Insisting that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all classrooms while turning a blind eye to the real needs of public education and
- Ensuring that corporations get all the breaks by eliminating job requirements as a condition for granting tax incentives.
But political rhetoric without a trace of substance appears to be the norm these days, so why should I complain? After all, he was swept into office with a mandate from 18 percent of Louisiana’s registered voters.
Louisiana Voice 
“Republicans” have long been more concerned about things that aren’t happening than things that are. How far back an example is needed? Remember the Moral Majority? That was more than forty years ago. Weapons of mass destruction as a justification for the Iraq war was twenty years ago. Death panels was more than a decade ago. So was the “aborted baby body parts” fraud. More recent culture war non-issues such as Critical Race Theory, DEI, libraries in particular and education in general, all the way up to non-citizens voting in elections are just the latest in a long line of manufactured hysteria over things that aren’t happening. “Republicans” do this because they have no ideas that work. The only “ideological” position they still cling to is supply side economics but that only further concentrates the nation’s wealth into fewer and fewer hands and, so, never addresses the concerns of voters. Hence the manufactured hysteria of the culture wars. And now that the MAGA party has dropped all pretense of traditional conservatism the culture war is what fuels their self-righteousness. It used to be “Big Government.” Now it’s everything from border invasions to stolen elections, from librarian “groomers” to pedophile elites running the Deep State. Manufactured hysteria over things that aren’t happening. And, too, it just feels so damn good to have a righteous cause.
Well said and written, Mr. Spillman. It is staggering hypocrisy and we must stay vigilant and figure out how to educate the ignorant, otherwise we become “them”. There is hope in our youth, and placing the 10 Commandments in classrooms could be the answer. (meaning what not to do). I just went blank on the 1st Amendment??something about there shall be no establishment of religion or the hindrance of worship……ron thompson