Even After Trump’s Gone, There’s No Shortage of Obnoxious, Bigoted Culture Warriors Willing to Take His Place

7 min readThis Week in the Laboratories of Democracy(Permanent Musical Accompaniment to This Post) Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done and where old Saxophone Joe's got the hogshead up on his toe.We begin in where-the-fck-else Florida, where the state's attorney general is trying very hard to make a name for himself in the highest wingnut circles. The name is Uthmeier ... James Uthmeier. From Politico:Florida’s GOP Attorney General James Uthmeier is leveraging the state retirement fund’s investment in The New York Times to scrutinize the company’s editorial practices. Uthmeier demanded scores of records Monday in an attempt to show how stories are reviewed at The New York Times and its board’s involvement in news decisions. His 28-page letter contends the publication’s “editorial malpractice” could expose the media giant to costly litigation and ultimately hurt shareholders—including scores of his state’s retirees. Florida’s GOP Attorney General James Uthmeier is leveraging the state retirement fund’s investment in The New York Times to scrutinize the company’s editorial practices.Uthmeier demanded scores of records Monday in an attempt to show how stories are reviewed at The New York Times and its board’s involvement in news decisions. His 28-page letter contends the publication’s “editorial malpractice” could expose the media giant to costly litigation and ultimately hurt shareholders—including scores of his state’s retirees. The investigation, the Republican maintains, is “grounded in concrete corporate risk, not generalized dissatisfaction with editorial judgment,” as he pointed to cases such as Fox News paying nearly $800 million to settle defamation claims against Dominion Voting Systems as evidence that editorial decisions can come at a price to investors. He gave the Times two weeks to respond. “Editorial malpractice does not always kill a media enterprise,” Uthmeier wrote. “But it always sends a bill.”Oh, shut up. Just shut up.Uthmeier's eye is truly on the sparrow. One thing about Next Gen MAGA, their eyes are unerringly on the prize. From Florida Today:Uthmeier, 38, who has never been elected, quickly positioned himself as Florida’s ultimate culture warrior after Gov. Ron DeSantis elevated him from chief of staff in January 2025 after he picked then-Attorney General Ashley Moody to be U.S. senator, replacing Marco Rubio. Credited as the architect of the now-closed $1 billion Alligator Alcatraz immigrant detention center and embroiled in the Hope Florida political scandal, Uthmeier has declared war on multiple fronts.He announced that he would be investigating Major League Baseball because MLB disciplined a few ballplayers who'd protested the league's Pride Night by writing Bible verses on their ballcaps. (Religious discrimination!) He threatened the Catholic Church if it didn't allow vaccine exemptions for its students. He intervened in a surrogacy case regarding a married same-sex couple, declaring surrogacy to be akin to slavery and, therefore, unconstitutional. This fecking omadhaun sought to ban trans participants in an Irish dance competition in Orlando.Oh, this guy is going to be a star at the 2028 RNC.He will have some competition from Micah Beckwith, the lieutenant governor of Indiana, who this week waded into the ludicrous kerfuffle involving the Indiana Fever WNBA team. This week, Beckwith, an actual pastor from Noblesville, argued that the Fever should fire Coach Stephanie White for failing to go all culture-warrior over the play in which Indiana's DiJonai Carrington McHale-Rambis'ed Fox pundit-in-waiting Sophie Cunningham. Here is what White said:“One of the things about (Carrington) is that she's gonna play her butt off, man. She's going to compete and nobody's gonna go walking in for a layup,” White said. “I don't oppose the hard foul, but I also don't think that she intentionally went for the neck.” As any sportswriter will tell you, this is almost classical coachspeak. But to Parson Beckwith, White was giving aid and comfort to the enemy in the culture war that Cunningham and the wingnut media apparatus are using to attack women's sports generally. From the Indianapolis Star:"Ok… The @IndianaFever need to let Stephanie White go. No solid coach would ever take the side of the opposing team’s player who committed a flagrant foul on one of your own players. Terrible coaching! The Fever need to defend their players."This isn't what White did. She basically just reminded us that hard fouls have always had a place in basketball played by both genders. (I remember watching one WNBA playoff game last year in which I felt I was back in the glory days of the Pistons and the Celtics back in the late 1980s. The lane was not for the faint-hearted.)But the real bug up Pastor Beckwith's ass is Islam. From the Indianapolis Recorder:The controversial remarks were made during a recent appearance on “FlashPoint,” a conservative Christian web talk show. During the broadcast, Beckwith, a Noblesville pastor who took office in early 2025 alongside Gov. Mike Braun, directly targeted religion.“I am going to call on others to hate [Islam], because I hate Islam. It is a death cult,” Beckwith said on the web show. “Now I love Muslims, because they make great Christians when Jesus gets a hold of them, but I hate Islam. And we need to be okay with hating again.”... Following the initial wave of backlash, Beckwith doubled down on his stance via social media. He argued that Sharia Law promotes the destruction of the Constitution and stated he will “never apologize for saying the United States of America is now and always should be one nation under God.”He's still at it, of course. He has called for a statewide ban on the Muslim call to prayer because, according to Indiana public radio, Beckwith claims Islam is not covered by the First Amendment. And Indiana State Treasurer Daniel Elliott can put that in his hookah and smoke it.That event also brought several Republicans to the statehouse in opposition to Beckwith, including State Treasurer Daniel Elliott, who worried that the Lt. Gov.’s comments were a slippery slope to targeting people practicing different kinds of Christianity. Elliot identifies as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the Mormon Church. Beckwith repeatedly called out Elliott on Horowitz’s podcast, saying he disagreed with the idea that religious liberty needed to be respected. “When this religion is a religion that is hell-bent on destroying American values, he [Daniel Elliott] is derelict in his duty, and he's not doing his job defending what God has called him to defend, which is the American way of life,” Beckwith said.The American way of life depends for its survival on the state treasurer of Indiana? Did I miss a meeting?Look, this is why many of us beat on our little tin drums that having El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago leave the stage isn't going to be anywhere near enough to purge the crazy from American conservatism—or from its primary political vehicle, the GOP. Barring some very noisy skeletons in their closets, Uthmeier and Beckwith are going to be stars in the Republican party going forward—so will Sophie Cunningham—and there are more where they came from.We trek on north to Alaska, where Governor Mike Dunleavy is going to need a new veto stamp because the current one must be down to the nub by now. From the Alaska Beacon:Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy allowed two bills to become law without his signature and vetoed two more on Monday, extending the record for the most vetoes in a two-year session of the Alaska Legislature. The governor vetoed a bill that would have required the University of Alaska to provide fee notices to students, and his second veto canceled a bill that would have set Permanent Fund dividend-like requirements for resident hunting and fishing licenses..In the 34th Legislature, Dunleavy has vetoed 31 of the 115 bills passed by lawmakers. Of those 115, only two have not yet been considered by the governor.Dunleavy’s actions this week extend the record for the most vetoes by an Alaska governor during a single Legislature. The previous record, 25 vetoes, was set by Gov. Tony Knowles in the 19th Alaska State Legislature, which ran from 1995 to 1996.However, Dunleavy did sign a bill designating the giant cabbage as Alaska's state vegetable. This is the first ray of light for green vegetables in quite a while.And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, whence Blog Official House of Braganza hardliner Friedman of the Algarve brings us a tale of crime and punishment that will never be ripped from the headlines by Law & Order.On July 9, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the conviction of a transient man charged with stealing four Bud Lights from the late Toby Keith’s Norman farm in June 2024. Borges, however, was discharged from Department of Corrections custody five weeks prior, and his overall record reflects systemic issues at the crossroads of multiple criminal justice systems and mental health issues. A Cleveland County jury found Anthony Borges guilty of second-degree burglary in April 2025 and recommended a prison sentence of two years. Borges, 35, appealed his conviction, asking the appellate court to reverse or reduce his sentence. Borges argued that prosecutors failed to prove he entered a cabana on the Keith family’s Dream Walkin’ Farms with the intent to steal beer.Were I a juror, I would have no problem agreeing with the argument that nobody would break in with the intent to steal Bud Light. But this guy couldn't convince the trial court or the court of appeals with this sad story.“Once he reached the cabana, the defendant approached its sliding glass door. Finding it unlocked, he slid it open and went inside, shutting the door behind him. The defendant proceeded to rummage throughout the unoccupied cabana — opening drawers and cabinets and examining the array of Toby Keith memorabilia strewn about. He eventually came across a mini fridge stocked with various alcoholic beverages, including dozens of cans of Bud Light beer. The defendant grabbed three Bud Light cans and headed back towards the glass door, appearing to be leaving, but then abruptly turned around and grabbed one more. Apparently satisfied with the four Bud Lights, the defendant exited the cabana through the glass door and made his way to the garage.”As one does.This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.