Republicans invoke ‘policy secession’ to ‘nullify’ Biden’s victory in GOP states: analysis

Republican-controlled state legislatures are going hard to the far right, explained Ron Brownstein on Thursday.

Brownstein, a senior editor at The Atlantic and CNN political analyst, was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air."

Gross said, "you describe this pattern of red state, very conservative legislation as remaking the country? So can you expand on that? How do you think it's remaking the country or trying to?"

"Well, I think it is essentially - I mean, you know, I look at it almost as a form of intellectual or policy secession," Brownstein replied.

"You know, essentially, you have roughly half the country saying that we are going to do everything we can not only to nullify or negate the direction that Democrats are setting at the national level, but we are going to affirmatively move in the opposite direction. You know, most of these policies that we're talking about are the inverse of what the Democratic-controlled Congress and Biden administration are trying to do on LGBTQ rights or guns," he explained.

"I mean, I didn't even mention all the states that have passed versions of prohibiting local law enforcement from enforcing federal gun laws. And I just look at this as kind of a manifestation of the extent to which we are now dealing with two very different Americas, you know? And it's not even as simple as red states and blue states because even within the red states, the metro areas, by and large, are becoming more Democratic, whether we're talking about Atlanta or Phoenix or Dallas or Houston. But you have a Republican Party in all of these states that controls the statewide power through its dominance of predominantly white, predominantly Christian, small-town, rural areas - in some cases, exurban and still suburban areas - and is using that power to impose the agenda of kind of that America on the diverse, secular, info age metros," Brownstein said.

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