Watch What’s Happening in Red States
It’s not just voting rights.
Though this year’s proliferation of bills restricting ballot access in red states has commanded national attention, it represents just one stream in a torrent of conservative legislation poised to remake the country. GOP-controlled states—including Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Iowa, and Montana—have advanced their most conservative agenda in years, and one that reflects Donald Trump’s present stamp on the Republican Party.
Across these states and others, Republican legislators and governors have operated as if they were programming a prime-time lineup at Fox News. They have focused far less on the small-government, limited-spending, and anti-tax policies that once defined the GOP than on an array of hot-button social issues, such as abortion, guns, and limits on public protest, that reflect the cultural and racial priorities of Trump’s base.
In part, this sharp right turn reflects a conscious backlash against unified Democratic control of Congress and the White House. Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action for America, one of the country’s foremost grassroots conservative groups, told me that right-leaning voters have shifted more of their effort toward red states because they realize that they currently have no chance of advancing
