Kari Lake and the defiling of conservatism

 So in its recent primary for the governorship, the Arizona Republican Party (one of the most ate-up state organizations in the country) went with former Phoenix area television news anchor Kari Lake over attorney and development consultant Karrin Taylor Robson. Say what you will about Robson (during her campaign, she kept it zipped on the question of whether she would have certified the results of the 2020 presidential campaign, typical of Republican spinelessness seen nationwide these days), at least she's a lifelong Republican. Lake, on the other hand, was all about Barack Obama during that era.

But Lake is now the general-election candidate, so attention must be paid. She set about, even during the primary, burnishing her Trumpist bona fides.

And that is the crux of today's LITD observation regarding why post-America can't have nice things. 

She is not wrong that a massive re-orientation of public school curricula is the only way to retrieve it from the sewer into which it's fallen. She is also on solid ground using Hillsdale College's guidance on how to go about that. (Although I have come to have reservation about even that distinguished institution. President Larry Arnn was a signatory the National Conservatism Statement of Principles, a document the problematic nature of which I wrote about recently at Precipice. )

Here's the more immediate problem with the closeness between Trumpism and Hillsdale: Trump glommed on to the effort to resist identity politics militancy in education, not because he understood the first damn thing about Hillsdale-style classical education, but because he was told it would make him look like a winner. Hillsdale, in turn, was obviously thrilled to have the imprimatur of a sitting US president for its approach. And then the left-leaning media was able to have a field day with Lake's endorsement of it. (Hillsdale's Christian, doncha know):

The Donald Trump-endorsed nominee for Arizona governor wants the state's schoolchildren to learn from a curriculum inspired in part by Trump. 

"We want a curriculum that makes sense. We want a curriculum that sets our kids up for success," Republican Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor, said at an event last May at the state Capitol. "I believe in the Hillsdale College curriculum."

Lake favors a history and civics curriculum developed by Hillsdale College, a private Christian school in Michigan that's influential in right-wing circles.

Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn was the chairman of former President Trump's short-lived 1776 Commission, created to support what Trump called "patriotic education." 

A Hillsdale dean was the commission's executive director.

But, true to form for a Trumpist, Lake has put the lie to any seriousness with which she personally engages a subject like education reform with this recent doozy:

Referring to DeSantis, Lake said, “He is gutsy. The guy has bigger — wait, let me think about how I’m going to word this,” she told the crowd. “My staff always says, 'Whatever you do, do not say balls.' So I’m not going to say it,” she added to laughs.

First, she tried, “That guy has a backbone made of steel.”

Then, she took it to the street. “I’ll tell you what he’s got. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but he’s got ‘BDE.’ Anybody know what that means?” she asked, referring to the phrase “big d*** energy” before advising, “Ask your kids about it later.”

She reworded it a bit to cheers and more laughter. “I call it ‘Big DeSantis Energy,’” she said before adding, “He’s got the same kind of BDE that President Trump has, and frankly, he has the kind of BDE that we want all of our elected leaders to have.”

One thing that will be interesting to see is how Hillsdale attempts to do cleanup or distance itself from Lake's clown act.

And thus do the prospects for truly reviving a deep respect for the West's foundations, as well as for prioritizing decorum and dignified bearing, dwindle yet further.