Welcome to the show, everybody.

MAGA governors are secretly scared of their own voters.

Now, you would think that red state governors, especially the ones in the MAGA mold, would really be riding high right now. This would be their

heyday because Trump's back in the White House, the Republican Party controls the House and

the Senate. The right wing media machine is humming right along probably as powerfully as it ever

has. But behind the scenes, you've got a lot of these red state governors sweating not because of Democrats most of them barely have a functioning state party to deal with

But because they're terrified of their own voters

There is a sort of growing disconnect between Republican governors and the most hardcore reactionary base.

And what we're seeing March, April 2025 is a very nervous and quiet retreat, but it's there

if you look forward.

I want to talk about that today because there are these governors who have spent years stoking

the culture wars and doing all of the stuff that Trump's been doing that are now vetoing certain bills, ducking maga primaries, hedging bets.

And all of it is to avoid triggering into anger the very monster that they helped create.

They helped build the monster and now they've lost control of it.

Let me give you some examples of what I mean.

We start in North Dakota.

North Dakota's governor, Kelly Armstrong, just vetoed two right wing favorites, a bill that

would have expanded restrictions on sexual content in libraries, translation,

banning LGBT books, and a school voucher bill aimed at funneling money out of public education.

Now, did Armstrong suddenly have a change of heart or grow a spine or develop a new respect for public schooling

and the first amendment?

No, of course not.

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