A profile in cowardice

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

By the third paragraph of Idaho Gov. Brad Little’s annual State of the State address on Jan. 6, it became clear that we can expect heightened Trumpification of state politics and policy over the next four years.

Standing before a joint session of the Idaho House and Senate at the Capitol in Boise, Little wasted no time kowtowing to the once and future president. Following his welcoming remarks, Little launched into a narrative of the 2024 election as a moment when, “America teetered between two very different futures for the next four years and beyond.” 

“One future guaranteed the status quo — out-of-control federal spending, a lawless open border, sky-high inflation, onerous regulations and a depressed economy that traps families’ potential,” he said. “Americans rejected that failed path and instead re-elected a man with a very different vision for America — Donald Trump.”

Gov. Brad Little. Courtesy photo.

Was this the Idaho State of the State, or a minor-league cosplay of Trump’s inaugural address? One could be permitted a moment of confusion. And yes, Trump indeed has a “very different vision for America” — one that was on full display during the lethal insurrection and failed coup perpetrated by his supporters and countenanced by his rhetoric and inaction to disperse the mob in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020. That was four years to the day before Little said how “excited” he is about Trump’s return to the White House.

Even more blood-curdling, Little said, “President Trump’s vision for America actually looks a lot like Idaho.”

That was also rich, considering that right-wing celebrity troublemaker Ammon Bundy conducted a test run of the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the Idaho Capitol, when he was arrested twice at the Statehouse during a special session of the Legislature in the summer of 2020. Back then, he was leading demonstrations against pandemic policies instituted by Little (called “Little Hitler” by then-Dist. 1 Rep. Heather Scott) that resulted in property damage in the Capitol and Bundy being wheeled out of the building by Idaho State Police troopers in an office chair — an incident dubbed “swivel disobedience” by some brilliant southern Idaho wordsmith. 

(Bundy is today reportedly on the lam somewhere in southern Utah, ducking $53 million in fines owed in a defamation suit won against him by St. Luke’s Health System in 2022.)

That Little could stand in the Idaho House and mouth words of praise for the insurrectionist-in-chief Trump when that same chamber had been desecrated by Bundy and his MAGA-addled minions just five years prior beggared belief in political consistency. But Little’s lickspittle act wasn’t done — not by a long shot.

“With their votes, Americans affirmed they want for our country what Idaho has — safe communities, bustling economic activity, increasing incomes, tax relief, fewer regulations, fiscal responsibility and common-sense values,” he said. 

Little was only right on one of those descriptors: “fewer regulations.” Idaho is in fact the “least regulated state” in the U.S., but that hasn’t delivered any of the other supposed benefits of the proto-Trumpian utopia that he conjured in his speech. 

We don’t have “safe communities,” if you take into account the fact that armed militia thugs felt free to occupy the streets of Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint to “protect” us from a farcical fantasy of “Antifa” insurgency; that an actual vanload of right-wing outside agitators attempted to commit an act of terrorism against a Pride gathering in Coeur d’Alene; that Bundy and his militants harassed and threatened libraries, hospitals and the homes of public officials throughout the COVID-19 pandemic in some half-witted cause they termed “People’s Rights.”

We have “bustling economic activity,” if you count the smash-and-grab real estate frenzy that has jacked up property values to such an extreme that Idaho has joined Hawaii, Oregon and Montana in the dubious distinction of outstripping California as among the most unaffordable states for homebuyers. 

That statistic, from the National Association of Realtors in 2024, also gives lie to the claim that we have “increasing incomes” in the state. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Idaho is near the bottom of the wage scale in the country, with a minimum wage of $7.25 an hour — untouched since 2009. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that per capita income in 2023 dollars is $37,169 in Idaho, with a median household income of $74,636. Meanwhile, the national per capita income is $43,289 and median household income is $78,538.

As for “tax relief,” the Tax Foundation reports that Idaho has a 5.8% corporate income tax rate (higher than Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Utah) and the Idaho State Tax Commission reported in March 2024 that Idaho ranks 35th in the nation for state and local tax burden — hardly a panacea for the tax averse.

(To be fair, the commission also reported that the state ranks 43rd when comparing taxes paid per person and has the second lowest tax burden among the 13 states in the West when measured by percentage of income that goes toward taxes).

But Idaho also has a 6% grocery tax, which no less than the “free-market research organization” Mountain States Policy Center describes as “higher than most,” and a 5.8% income tax, which is “one of the higher income tax rates in the nation.”

As for “fiscal responsibility,” The Idaho Statesman editorial board wrote on Jan. 7 that “Idaho’s budget could get DOGE’d” under Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s “government efficiency” regime foisted on the states by Trump, noting the irony of Little’s praise for the Department of Government Efficiency in his State of the State address, when he said “Idaho was DOGE before DOGE existed.”

The reality is that Idaho suckles harder at the federal teat than most states. With a budget of $14 billion in fiscal year 2025, $5.2 billion of that comes from the hated “feds” — that’s about 37% of the total budget, according to the Statesman.

Overall, Idaho ranks 25th in the nation among states that are most reliant on federal dollars (according to WalletHub), just ahead of Vermont. 

On top of all that, while Little spoke out of one side of his mouth about “fiscal responsibility” and damning the “out-of-control spending” of the big, bad government, he crowed out the other side about all the money Idaho has spent on infrastructure, water projects, firefighting and education. Again, the Statesman reminded the governor that huge proportions of those dollars came from the federal government, in part via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that Trump promised but didn’t deliver, though was passed under President Joe Biden.

Finally, we have the canard of “common-sense values,” which is the loudest dog whistle available to signify the basket of authoritarian anti-trans, anti-women’s reproductive health, pro-state funding for private religious schools and anti-library/moral panic policies that Idaho’s bleeding-edge right-wingers have either pushed into law or will almost surely propose in the current legislative session.

Little even prompted a standing ovation during his Jan. 6 speech to congratulate Boise State University and its volleyball team for “standing up for what’s right” and forfeiting a fall 2024 match against San José State University because it has a transgender player on its roster. He singled out Idaho Falls Republican Rep. Barbara Ehardt for special notice, nodding to her role as the architect of Idaho’s pioneering ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports, which has become a template for similar laws around the country.

Little bowed and scraped to Trump with such effusion, that of the first five paragraphs of his speech, four were devoted to Trump and used his name three times. Little went on in his mere 22-minute address to refer to Trump a further seven times.

If other states heard that Trump’s vision for the nation is exemplified by Idaho, I’d suggest to them that it’s a warning, rather than a promise. And if Idahoans thought they had an independent-minded governor, they were disabused of that notion by Little’s simpering obeisance to Trump in what must go down as Idaho’s most craven State of the State to date.