It is a common axiom in life—especially politics—that, as philosopher George Santayana famously observed: “Those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”
The latest personification of this aphorism is the governor of the state of Maine, Janet Mills. Cloning so many of her fellow Democrats who are tone deaf about what led to the 2024 electoral landslide which swept Donald J. Trump back into the White House, Mills is digging in on the losing issue of supporting trans men competing in women’s sporting events.
Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Department of Education to inform public schools nationwide that allowing transgender athletes to compete on girls and women’s sports teams will henceforth violate Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools. Trump added that his new Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, will enforce his executive order and reinforce that under it, schools discriminating based on sex are not eligible for federal funds.
Of course, in the past, Democrats couldn’t praise such an exercise of federal power highly enough. When Georgia segregationist Lester Maddox refused to accept the Civil Rights law of 1964 and continued to bar black customers from his Atlanta area Pickwick Restaurant, Washington took him to court, and he was eventually forced to close his doors. When Alabama Governor George C. Wallace—who had vowed “Segregation Forever” in his Inaugural address—literally stood in the schoolhouse door to block integration of the University of Alabama, then President John F. Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard and forced Wallace to step aside.
There are countless other examples of federal authority overruling local or state governments in our country….dating back to the Civil War. In his authoritative history, Statesmen Of The Lost Cause, author Buton J. Henrick chronicles the “valiant but ultimately doomed” efforts of Confederate States of America president Jefferson Davis and his cabinet to secede from and try to defeat the United States. His key point was that in the Civil War, the North was fighting on the offensive while the South was reduced to trying to repel the invasion of its stronger foes. As Donald Trump has observed, playing Offense over Defense is always better.
Not that the Confederacy didn’t try until its last gasp to overcome the inevitable. There were grandiose negotiations with foreign leaders—including Juarez, Napoleon III, and Lord John Russell—seeking to bolster Southern troops. At one point, Confederate leaders even desperately tried to bribe France to join their side by offering thousands of bales of cotton. But even that failed to turn the tide of what came to be known as The Lost Cause.
Flash forward to February 2025, and here comes a modern-day version of the defiant Confederacy…Janet Mills. She piped up at a White House gathering of her fellow governors Friday and personally told President Trump she plans to defy his executive order and defend trans men competing against women in Maine sports. (Just this week in her state, a biological male “won” a women’s pole vault competition.)
TRUMP: “Are you not going to comply with my executive order?”
MILLS: “I’m going to comply with state and federal laws.”
TRUMP (stating the obvious): “Well, we are the federal law. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
MILLS: “We’re going to follow the law, sir. We’ll see you in court.”
TRUMP: “Good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that. That should be a real easy one,” Trump said. “And enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
There’s something deliciously ironic about the Democratic governor of Maine morphing into the modern incarnation of 1960 segregationists Lester Maddox or George C. Wallace and defying the most powerful man in the Free World on behalf of the idiotic idea that men should compete against—and shower with—female athletes. Like her antecedents, this lady is swimming in the wrong direction of the tide of history.
But at least Janet “See You In Court” Mills isn’t going down without a fight.
Observe the hysterical gyrations of the Democratic Party’s other “leaders” in an attempt to hold back the tide of change in Washington. Donald J. Trump and his exciting new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are flooding the zone with so many investigations and executive orders that the Dems are left flailing like turtles that have been flipped over on the backs of their shells.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren(D-MA) appears to have eaten too many sugared cereals, and she hops up and down, frenetically screaming at various public events and denouncing Elon Musk. Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has been reduced to singing—badly off-key—1930’s labor union anthems such as “Which Side Are You On?” as confused onlookers stare blankly at him, wondering if he’s off his meds.
Even U.S. House Democratic “leader” Hakeem Jeffries is still trying to rally his troops but tempering their demands for action with this lame excuse: “The Republicans have the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. What am I supposed to do? It’s their government.” (Which is odd: even when your political party is out of power…most real leaders see the United States as belonging to We The People as outlined in the Constitution. But if Hakeem Chuck and Pocahontas want to surrender, fine by me.
Tom Tradup is VP/News & Talk Programming for Dallas-based Salem Radio Network (SRN) and serves as Executive Producer of “This Week On Capitol Hill with Tony Perkins” broadcast each weekend on SRN and on the Salem News Channel.
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