Kentucky last week became the first state, with the Trump administration’s blessing, to take Medicaid benefits away from people who are working-age and not-disabled but don’t have jobs. This was an initiative of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, who FiveThirtyEight wrote a long feature about in October. As the article below shows, this move both fits with Bevin’s conservatism and, perhaps, his national ambitions. [...]
And Bevin seemed out of central casting for the role. His personal background was ideal for a Republican candidate: Army veteran; father of nine children, four of whom he and his wife adopted from Ethiopia; a member of one of Kentucky’s (and the nation’s) largest Christian churches. He had millions in personal wealth from his businesses and was willing to put some of that money into his campaign. And Bevin, with his booming speaking voice, relative youth and easy, glad-handing manner with voters, seemed the perfect contrast to McConnell, who had been in the Senate for nearly three decades, is 25 years older than Bevin, and lacks charisma. [...]
Bevin and the legislature enacted seven new laws in the first week that the Kentucky legislature met this year, including a requirement that, before a woman can have an abortion, she must be presented with an ultrasound of the unborn fetus and listen to a doctor describe the image; a ban on all abortions after the first 20 weeks of a pregnancy; “right to work” legislation; and a requirement that employees formally “opt in” to the union before their pay is withheld for dues. [...]
But even if Bevin does not go national, his strategies and style could. There were worries early in Trump’s term that he would create something akin to an autocracy in the United States. At this moment, those seem overstated. Trump is struggling to enact his agenda and remains deeply unpopular. But Bevin, who is up for reelection in 2019, could eventually have a state legislature dominated by his own party; courts, boards and universities packed with his allies; a business community beholden to him; and an even more diminished press corps, both shrunken by the bad economics of the local news industry and discredited by Bevin spending years attacking it.
No comments:
Post a Comment