Stitt Redux

Kevin Stitt, Governor of Oklahoma, has been a ramrod Republican from the very start. Hardcore progressives (like me!) have been frustrated by his program of kneejerk fealty to MAGA orthodoxy. Imagine the love child of Cruz and DeSantis throwing back his head to sing about the wind on the plains. He has several peeves that endear him to conservatives, including taxes, public schools, and native Americans. The fact that the state is at the bottom of nearly every list that measures health, education, and fundamental welfare, doesn’t seem to faze either Stitt or his allies.

Term limits mean that he cannot run again. In 2026 we’ll elect a spanking new governor, and with a little bit of luck, it will be a moderate Republican. OK, it might take more than a little bit of luck. More like a volcanic eruption of undeserved good fortune that shakes the very foundations of the universe.

But before that happens, the final reckoning will show that Kevin Stitt was a little better than we thought. Just this week, he took issue with the notion that Oklahoma should exclude immigrant children from our schools. It would be wrong, he preached, to turn children into pawns. The Constitution of the state requires universal education, including students demonized by Miller and Homan. We should not, he said, examine the status of their parents, and criminalize families that may be lacking documents. This from a man who supported exactly that the last time such a proposal came before the state legislature.

I’m not sure I know what to say about this shift. There’s a good chance that it’s rooted in the governor’s beef with Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s candidate for the Worst Person in the World. As the State Superintendent, Walters has called for mass deportation, beginning with families who registered their children for school. Now that we’ve got their names, let’s kick them to the curb! Since Walters has been intensely critical of the governor, Kevin Stitt has decided to up the ante by dismembering the state school board and depriving Walters of his power base. And whatever Walters says, at least at this point in the year, the governor is likely to repudiate it publicly.

But I would like to think more generously about Kevin Stitt. Is it possible that near the end of his term, he is beginning to atone for his harshest policies and pronouncements? It is possible he is experiencing pangs of conscience that he cast his lot with MAGA extremists and encouraged unmerciful behavior by some of his ungenerous fellow citizens?

Let’s say yes, and leave it at that. Even if it’s not exactly true, all of us need a little February hope. Without it, the wind will certainly freeze us on the plains.