That crash you heard was Republican Gov. Jeff Landry throwing a brick through the plate glass window of business-as-usual leftist populism infecting Louisiana public policy. And not a moment too soon.
Landry gave the state a head start in knowing some of his policy priorities of when projected inclement weather bumped up his inauguration a day early (although he would not officially take the reins for another 19 hours). In his subsequent speech, he made clear he would come after certain orthodoxies underpinning policy of his predecessor Democrat Gov. John Bel Edwards and allies.
His overall theme – Louisiana as home, but welcoming back those who had departed it for presumably greener pastures – pulled back the curtain on what was to come: leaving implied things were wrong with the state that could be fixed. He gave in the first part a paean to Louisianans, interspersed with hints of what was to come with assertions that government was not to “disenfranchise” people nor to be driven by divisive elite interests, and spoke of a need to “repair and reform” government.
Around this time, the camera gave a glance at Edwards, who looked like he had swallowed a sour mouse. Then Landry stopped pulling punches.
He spoke of a people’s agenda where “children be afforded an education that reflects those wholesome principles, and not an indoctrination behind their mother’s back” that would “honor our teachers by letting them teach and safeguard our schools from the toxicity of unsuitable subject matter.” He empathized with “the victims of crime whose compelling voices have gone un-heard for far too long, squelched by the misguided noise of those who had rather coddle criminals than live in peace.”
He pledged to heed “all of the science, not just the selective slices spoon-fed to us by those seeking to profit, in many cases, from the taxpayer funded subsidies that disregard the health, the safety, and the employment security of our citizens; hiding the truth about the real environmental footprints created by the lust for wealth by a chosen few and their reckless proposals.” And, he vowed, while praising those directly serving in the industry, to correct the health and welfare of our families from being “politicized to the point of endangerment and disregard for the dignity of our elderly and our suffering.”
Translation: measures on the way to excise neo-racism posing as anti-racism in instruction as foundational principles and the steering of children towards faddish ideas about their identities, even without parental knowledge, whether in the classroom or elsewhere, in the state’s educational institutions from kindergarten through the university.
Translation: significant reversal of Edwards’ criminal justice changes and installing other reforms to ensure accountability is brought not just for criminal behavior but also to the justice system to have it protect first and foremost the law-abiding citizenry.
Translation: sweeping away Edwards’ policies and government infrastructure built around those based on the junk science of climate alarmism to take an informed and balanced approach towards upkeeping and burnishing the environment.
Translation: stop leaders from measuring success in health care delivery by how many people they can put on government insurance rather than seeking efficiency and giving priority to the most needy and vulnerable, and instead start concentrating on making sure those in genuine need have meaningful access to health care with the most vulnerable receiving priority, by spending more wisely while sidelining special interests trying to distort the system, whether those be ideologically and/or economically motivated.
At the ceremony’s conclusion, fireworks erupted, auguring what will come over the next four years on the policy front as Landry and like-minded legislators try to reverse finally a century of misguided agendas that veered even more off course over the past eight years. Only that, as the speech suggested, will bring home Louisianans separated from both state soil physically by or in morale attitudinally over the wages of that history. Not a moment too soon, it’s morning in Louisiana again.
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