Life In Scott Herndon’s Idaho
What will living in Idaho look like if Sen. Scott Herndon and his far-right friends take over the Gem State?
States like California have strict child abuse laws that are enforced by Child Protection Services, a state agency that millions depend on to save children from being harmed, trafficked, and given proper medical care. Many who call themselves conservatives have blended their political beliefs with their interpretation of Christianity and fled states like California and took advantage of Idaho’s low property prices, prosperity and acceptance of anyone who claimed to be a “conservative.”
These so-called political refugees have settled across Idaho with a particular preference to northern Idaho rural communities where they could utilize confrontational tactics to seize power through intimidation, manipulation, and misinformation. Backed by Las Vegas based McShane political consultants and fueled by out of state donors, candidates like Scott Herndon ran dishonest ads in a shock and awe deceptive campaign aimed at destroying the reputation of Navy veteran and long time conservative state Senator, Jim Woodward.
Over the past legislative sessions, Herndon has shown his cards and focused his work on fighting culture wars and pushing his agenda of destroying public schools.
Folks like Scott Herndon talk big about being freedom loving patriots - so much that they’d make Thomas Jefferson blush. But talk is cheap, and when we dig into many of their policies we find not liberty, but anarchy.
We can assume that if Herndon’s crew successfully seized power that they would resubmit their many failed bills, those which were aggressively shot down by a more principled conservative majority.
Let’s visualize what Herndon’s brave new Idaho might look like.
The year is 2028: Herndon and his friends at the Idaho Freedom Foundation have had the majority in the house and senate for nearly four years — plenty of time to push through their Christian Nationalist agenda and make good on their promises to abolish anything they view as an affront to domininist ideologies.
Herndon’s close ally Heather Scott reintroduces her 2020 bill to dismantle Child Protective Services (CPS), depriving Idaho kids of any protection or ability to escape abuse and trafficking. Herndon supported this in the past - ever since his own run-ins with the agency in 2019.
Idahoans are too afraid to report suspected abuse to police since they’d face criminal charges and fines if the police can’t prove it - thanks to Herndon’s H-20 bill.
And the police wouldn’t be able to prove it - Herndon has made sure of it through S-1232. Thanks to Herndon, authorities have to give child abusers 72-hour notice. Upon arrival they can be refused access to the child, family members, and property.
Herndon also passed his constitutional amendment preventing any standards of testing or accountability for private and homeschool students. With no accountability many kids are falling behind, many more are illiterate.
Meanwhile, their parents collect fat tax rebates every year - rebates which he has already passed and seeks to expand with little oversight. There’s nothing that can be done about it of course, thanks to the dismantling of CPS.
Perhaps this is just on the fringes of society, you can’t eliminate 100% of fraud, waste, and abuse, right?
But Herndon and friends now have the power to abolish Idaho public schools. They do so and over 300,000 children and their families lose their education and financial stability overnight.
Many families simply can’t afford for one adult to drop out of the workforce, the economy simply isn’t structured that way anymore - and hasn’t been for 70 years - but that’s lost on Herndon and the far-right.
With the repeal of the Blaine Amendment and passing of vouchers, private schools not able to be profitable in rural areas, the few public schools in Herndon’s district have re-hired Herndon’s hand-picked friends like Branden Durst to oversee Christian education. With no money for High School Football programs, sports have been replaced by competitive Bible study programs.
In Herndon’s Idaho, public libraries have shut down as librarians have gone bankrupt from personal lawsuits and no qualified candidate will take the risk to serve the community with free educational resources.
Constitutional sheriffs supported by a friendly Attorney General, refuse to prosecute anyone who calls themself a patriot, leaving citizens to fend for themselves against mobs reminiscent of the late 1800s.
City governments are rife with corruption as local party bosses pick who gets to be mayor and only registered Republicans who’ve pledged their loyalty to the local party can register to vote and run for office.
With curriculum from Hillsdale College and anit-LGBT training programs developed by Chaya Raichick mandated by the state; children who feel they are different are violently bullied and their only available resource is easy access to a firearm.
The lack of education, opportunities, and CPS means teen pregnancy and child trafficking may skyrocket.
Herndon and his Abolish Abortion arsonist allies would pass his 100% no exceptions - even life of the mother - abortion ban. Doctor saves the life of the mother over the baby? That’s first-degree murder in Herndon’s Idaho.
Devoted followers of Herndon would lock their daughters up to prevent them from getting an abortion. With CPS dismantled we can only suspect that on occasion women would be locked up to prevent them from seeking an abortion - including by potentially incestuous abusers.
Cartel-run pedophile rings might make Boise and Coeur d’Alene the top trafficking hubs in North America. Perverts from across the nation flock to abuse trafficked Idaho kids under guard by cartel paramilitaries who gun down cops and claim an iron-clad self-defense immunity thanks to Herndon’s poorly written S1004.
This isn’t meant to be sensationalist, but these things happen in the real world. They happen a lot more when we remove the safeguards which we ourselves enacted to fight against them. That’s precisely why we the people established CPS. We the people established public schools out of Christian love for our neighbors.
With CPS gone and child abuse laws weakened, popular child abuse influencers like Ruby Franke may find a welcome home in Idaho when they get released from prison.
Measles and other long forgotten viral outbreaks go untreated as distribution of vaccines are made unlawful and doctors have long fled the state for fear of prosecution for practicing many forms of medicine.
These institutions need to be improved; we all see that. But Herndon and the Far Right want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
We all want an end to the tragedy of abortion, but that comes through a change in culture and laws which reflect that changing culture, not through a combination of fear porn and forcing some bizarre pseudo-christian version of Sharia Law down people's throats.
With Idaho’s domestic terrorism laws gutted, militia groups work with the local sheriff to enforce the laws of the new Christian state, riding through the streets in armored trucks and weapons paid for by local tax dollars. Citizens are terrified to cross party bosses who direct the militias and those who dare speak up might never be seen nor heard from again.
Herndon and these guys aren’t conservatives, they’re post-modernists. Period. They seek to deconstruct everything they touch, and whether they claim to be doing it in the name of freedom or of something else, the end result is nihilism.
Enough is enough. It’s time to elect principled conservatives who understand the delicate balance between individual liberty and the stability of the community and Herndon is not a real principled conservative.
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