by T-Paine (not the one with autotune)
Let’s get this out of the way: Ohio didn’t always wear jackboots. But you wouldn’t know that from what it’s become.
This state was once a battleground of labor unions, civil rights struggles, and community resistance. Akron was the rubber capital of the world. Youngstown’s steel mills ran 24/7. Black and Appalachian families built towns with their bare hands. And then Reagan happened.
The 1980s: Reaganomics gutted our industries, bled the unions, and pumped evangelical fundamentalism into every political vein it could reach. Rust Belt towns were left to rot while rich folks blamed the workers they laid off. By the 90s, the national GOP had taken full control of Ohio's narrative. They sold us “family values” while selling our families to corporations.
2004: Ohio hands George W. Bush his second term. Ken Blackwell (Secretary of State AND co-chair of Bush’s campaign… conflict of interest much?) presides over widespread voter suppression. That same year, the anti-gay marriage amendment passes, torching civil rights in favor of “moral panic.”
Fast-forward to 2010. The Tea Party floods Ohio. Gerrymandering locks in permanent minority rule. By 2016, Trump wins Ohio by 8 points. That’s not a red wave — that’s years of infrastructure built by theocrats, billionaires, and white grievance politics.
Now it’s 2025. Ohio’s Republican supermajority is pushing bills to outlaw drag shows, erase trans kids, ban books, dismantle public education, and use “parental rights” as a trojan horse for Christo-fascist control. Statehouse prayer groups meet weekly to bless legislation that would make Margaret Atwood shudder.
Sheriffs act like warlords. Churches act like cults. Billionaires fund “grassroots” hate movements with out-of-state PACs. And most people are too overworked, over-policed, or just plain exhausted to fight back. That’s by design.
But here’s the secret: their power is fragile. It’s built on fear, not faith. On lies, not love. And all it takes is a spark to burn that illusion down.
This is still our state. And it’s not too late to remember how to fight.