The Oklahoma State Capital

The recent state investigation into the campaign finances of Oklahoma House Representative Ajay Pittman offers a cautionary tale—one that, to be told properly, requires the storyteller to turn back the clock five years. It was the height of the super-woke, social-justice era. The uniparty in the Oklahoma House placed Pittman front and center, championing what became one of the Democrat highlights of that session: putting the Legislature on record in support of requiring Oklahoma health-care professionals—specifically prenatal practitioners—to undergo mandatory “implicit bias” "training."

It was the worst of woke big government—using the overbearing regulatory power of a much-too-large government, seeking to mandate the forced teaching of the new state-sanctioned religion of woke ideology onto those whose focus should be on saving lives, not ingesting woke dogma.

Pittman’s House Bill 3088 defined implicit bias as “a bias in judgment or behavior that results from subtle cognitive processes, including implicit prejudice and implicit stereotypes, that often operate at a level below conscious awareness and without intentional control.”

It required prenatal professionals to undergo this “training” not just once, but every two years, and directed the Oklahoma Department of Health to enforce the mandate.

Today, as the insanity of the super-woke era ebbs, it’s hard to believe this was actually discussed by serious people.

And it’s mind-blowing to realize this wasn’t some off-the-wall stunt from a grandstanding politician operating at the fringes of reality—it was endorsed by a majority of “Republicans” in the House. The measure was green-lighted by Speaker Charles McCall and his Majority Floor Leader, Jon Echols—two men who, at the time, wielded near-total control over the life or death of legislation in the House.

And, importantly, the two didn’t just green-light the bill—they kept the title on the bill, which meant that as it exited the House, it was a live, viable round set to go into law.

The “Republican” House and its leaders essentially signed on to government regulation at its worst—regulating the market by mandating “education” training for health-care professionals in one of the key tenets of the new religion of woke: implicit, or unconscious, bias.

It was a shocking turn of events that absolutely fueled the race bullies in the House of Representatives. These are the bestowers of who is and who is not racist—and on this day, their leaders Pittman and now-Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols were in their element, with Nichols openly declaring, “I don’t think your red vote means that you’re racist, but…”

Having been abandoned by their leaders and by most of their caucus, it fell to a small band of true conservatives to do what they could to stop the proposal—even though the warning was clear: opposing it meant risking public ridicule and cancellation. The debate in opposition was led by what this publication has described as “the most influential legislator in the House of Representatives,” Tom Gann, who denounced the measure as “Orwellian pablum” and “thought control.”

Gann earned the distinction of being the most influential member of the House due to his ability—time and again, though often in a vast minority—to successfully apply long-standing lessons learned through hundreds of years of Western tradition and culture to navigate the upside-down world of the Capitol and, thus, time and again, be on the right side of history.

The great irony of that?

Nichols excoriated those who debated against the mandate by declaring that they—the conservatives who opposed the concept of implied racism—were, in fact, the ones on the wrong side of history:

“I have to say that your debates yesterday were the most offensive debates I’ve listened to in my four years in the Legislature. I’m not sure that you care, but I doubt history will look kindly on either of your debates,” he wrote.

Perhaps never has a prognostication been so quickly discredited, by history.

Unfortunately, Nichols today occupies a prime position as the elected mayor of the state’s second-largest city. The voters of Tulsa rewarded his brand of race-baiting politics with their city’s chief office.

The question is, will Republican primary voters do the same for McCall and Echols? These two saw to it that they consolidated and maintained absolute power within the chamber—even as it meant destroying much of what remained of the institution’s culture and its deliberative spirit. They green-lighted the implicit bias mandate to the floor and, with their votes, predictably abandoned the principles of conservatism—going so far as to place the Oklahoma House on record declaring that the state’s medical professionals must undergo Orwellian “implicit bias” training. All the while, the true conservatives were left stranded—isolated on an island of principle, facing the onslaught of the woke mob alone.

And of course, wielding absolute power for an unprecedented eight long years, gave the two, of their own volition the unique ability to kill any number of conservative, constitutionalist proposals on the floor. The general order docket of abandoned conservative bills—bills that were approved in committee but never received a vote of the full House—resembles the carnage of a wind turbine graveyard.

Will Oklahoma Republicans also reward these two by electing them during next year’s election to the offices of governor and attorney general which they now seek?

And for that matter, will voters elect John Pfeiffer to labor commissioner—a candidate who also voted for HB 3008—especially noting that Pfeiffer’s primary election opponent, Kevin West, voted against it?

Allow me to suggest that to award these three with election to statewide office creates a powerful moral hazard. Think of all those current legislators—blind lemmings enabling the Kyle Hilbert/Chris Kannady tyranny in the House with their repeated green votes. For them, watching the grassroots support and election of the McCall/Echols/Pfeiffer triumvirate will send the message that there are no consequences to their repeated abuse of grassroots issues and lawmakers and the abuse of the principle of open, transparent government.

Perhaps an even more important question to ask, is the era of “woke” truly over? Or is this just a temporary ebb—and if so, just how dangerous will Woke 2.0 actually be? Can we risk continuing to elect those who have already proven they will betray common sense itself in sacrifice to the accolades of those who adhere to the woke religion and seek to use the power of government to impose it on everyone else?

For more on the cautionary tale provided by the example of Ajay Pittman, and how Pittman provided Oklahoma's "republican" leaders the prime method to virtue signal, stay tuned for next week’s commentary.