Right now, West Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and a number of other states are all playing a game of “more revanchist conservative than thou” in pursuing the same bits of model legislation designed to privatize public education, drive teachers, LGBTQ and BIPOC citizens with means out of the states, and subjugate those who stay in a legal second class status.

In speaking about these states and their efforts, so-called progressives pepper their commentary, with all manner of name-calling: rednecks, hicks, hillbillies, country-fried (interesting to use as a pejorative when it’s so good as a good description) bubbas and yokels abound, talking about the citizenry, legislators and governors with equal disrespect.

Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis in Florida is not going to model legislation route. He is blazing a unique trail of unbridled fascism, including disenfranchisement of voters, takeover of state universities by hand-picked right wing cronies, including Christopher Rufo (the liar who started the critical race theory panic), banning of Black history, and the complete censorship of all non-curriculum reading material from every K-12 classroom in the state.