OPINION:
Last week, a man who calls himself a Republican but who isn’t even certified as such by his state’s own official Republican Party, called conservative Republicans who disagree with him “fascists” and “extreme.”
Commenting in a public forum, Oklahoma Attorney General and current gubernatorial candidate Gentner Drummond said the following while attempting to justify his propensity for supporting left-wing policies and politics: “I aspire to be the governor of all. And that sometimes draws me in sharp contrast with the extreme members of the Republican Party. But I don’t think they are real Republicans. I consider them more fascist.”
Aside from this ranking right up there with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling conservatives “deplorables,” former President Barack Obama calling us “security threats, ”another former president, Joe Biden, calling us “Nazis” and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg saying we “lack grey matter,” one has to wonder what it is about his Oklahoma neighbors that Mr. Drummond considers to be of such great concern.
What, exactly, warrants calling millions of hardworking people across the Sooner State “extremists and fascists”?
Could it be because “real Republicans” disagree with Mr. Drummond? Could it be that we don’t like his liberal track record and he, therefore, doesn’t like us? Could this be why he finds so many of the ranchers, farmers, pastors and parents of heartland America to be too “extreme”?
For example, many conservatives across the state disagreed when, in 2023, Mr. Drummond decided to strike a deal with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to “temporarily” halt enforcement of our state’s ban on the child abuse of gender transition procedures. Does he believe that our defense of our own sons’ and daughters’ hearts, minds, souls and bodies against the butchery of this god-awful agenda makes us “fascists”?
Are we “extremists” for drawing the obvious conclusion that the only reason Mr. Drummond changed course on this issue two years later was for the sake of calculated political pandering and his gubernatorial aspirations?
Or maybe it’s our belief in the rule of law. Are we “fascists” because we rightly raised an eyebrow recently when Mr. Drummond said, “If you’re an illegal immigrant in Oklahoma and obeying the law (as self-refuting statement if there ever was one), I don’t have any concern for you. I wish you to have success as you work through the process of legally immigrating”?
Is the fact that we don’t agree with his call for amnesty for those who entered our state unlawfully putting us in the “extreme” camp of fake Republicans?
Or perhaps Mr. Drummond considers us “extreme” because we completely disagree with him partnering with radical left-wing activists such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation to deprive Oklahomans of their right to select a state-approved charter school simply because its name is St. Isidore’s. Maybe our stand for the First Amendment rights of religious parents to choose a religious school that aligns with their religious values is what makes us “fascists” in Mr. Drummond’s mind.
Maybe it’s because we want our public schools to just teach children the basics of science and civics rather than spending endless time and money indoctrinating them in critical race theory and its ancillary agenda of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Is our stand against this reverse discrimination what makes us “fascists”?
Does Gentner Drummond think we are “extreme” because we want the schools we pay for with our tax dollars to stop with the politics and instead focus on teaching our students how to read, write and do basic math calculations?
Then there is the fact that many of us find it peculiar that a man who claims to be a conservative Republican contributed to Mr. Biden’s 2020 bid to defeat President Trump. Does our objection to Mr. Drummond also donating money to numerous other Democrats in his efforts to defeat noted conservatives such as Sens Tom Coburn and Jim Inhofe, as well as Rep. Jim Bridenstine, make us “fascists”?
Does pointing out that all of this smacks of sheer hypocrisy make us unredeemable rubes and enemies of good government in Mr. Drummond’s mind?
Finally, there is Mr. Drummond’s 2018 support of Chris Brecht for Oklahoma’s judicial district 14 judge. Mr. Brecht is the attorney who obtained Oklahoma’s first gender-nonbinary birth certificate. His legal priorities include attempts to defeat an Oklahoma Senate bill that protects the rights of Christian adoption agencies to place children in homes that share their Christian values.
Is our objection to this man too “extreme”? Are we “fascists” for not wanting such a person to rule over us as judge?
The list is nearly endless, but here’s the take-home: By calling conservatives who simply disagree with him “fascists, extreme and fake,” Gentner Drummond can now boast of being a new card-carrying member of the same club as Messrs. Biden and Obama and Mrs. Clinton. But one suspects he’s really been there all along.
• Everett Piper (dreverettpiper.com, @dreverettpiper), a columnist for The Washington Times, is a former university president and radio host. He is the author of “Not a Day Care: The Devastating Consequences of Abandoning Truth” (Regnery). He can be reached at epiper@dreverettpiper.com.
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