Time to A(woke) Up: Maximalist Demands Can Yield Minimalist Results
Small States with outsized influence are the canary in the coal mine
Part I: Prayer in Public School
This op-ed focuses on school prayer as our starting topic. It's just one issue among many, but it's an easier one to explain and makes for a good first example of how maximalist demands can backfire politically.
Section 1: Why the Electoral College Exists
The Electoral College isn't a loophole—it's the bargain that allowed the United States to exist. Smaller colonies wouldn't have agreed to a union where raw population dictated everything. The system prevents the tyranny of the majority by giving smaller states influence and forcing negotiation.
That logic still applies.
Democrats rage against the Electoral College because they win the popular vote but lose the presidency. Rather than ask why they aren't winning Wyoming or West Virginia, they would like to change the rules and have even floated concrete proposals. Hope springs eternal. It's not going to happen. The small population states like it just the way it is. The system exists to prevent exactly that kind of domination.
The Democrats don't think about why they are losing these ruby red states, so the whole thing turns on a few swing states. Neither party is concerned about winning a supermajority, which would mean that most—not just 50.1%—is happy.
Those small population states become the canary in the coal mine. When you consistently lose these states, then the majority is trampling on the minority. Look at it that way instead of railing on the Electoral College.
When you ignore the canary, when you insist on maximalist positions that make no common sense to local communities, people tune you out entirely. You become unhearable on everything—healthcare, wages, education—because you've branded yourself as hostile to their basic way of life.
Section 2: They Came to Worship Freely—Not to Stay Silent
Many Americans came here to escape religious persecution. The streets weren't always paved with gold. In Europe, you could be tortured or executed for practicing the "wrong" religion—even different versions of Christianity.
Protestants were burned at the stake under Catholic rulers. Catholics were hunted under Protestant ones. Anabaptists were drowned for refusing infant baptism. The Spanish Inquisition used torture as religious purification. Thousands of Huguenots were massacred in a single night in France.
The Pilgrims, Puritans, Quakers, and German Mennonites fled this violence to worship freely.
When the Founders wrote "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," they were preventing state-dictated religious intolerance—from federal, state, or local government—not erasing religion from government zones.
They wanted to stop government from forcing religious practice or punishing dissent, not create religion-free public spaces.
You can argue complete erasure is better policy. But demanding it everywhere, regardless of context, becomes oppressive and devoid of common sense.
Section 3: In Wyoming, It's Normal—And Won't Change
Wyoming wasn't always a ruby red state. It elected Democratic governors, sent Democrats to Congress for decades, and has also elected Democratic presidents.
Wyoming's culture is 100% Christian—unless you want to talk about small fractions of a percent. Christian values, language, holidays, and habits form the backbone of daily life.
When students want to pray before class or football games, it's not political or coercive. It's just normal life.
When courts say, "You can't do that," they're importing an outsider value system into a place that doesn't want it. Even the few atheists there—whose families have lived in Wyoming for generations—are culturally comfortable with these traditions. They're not complaining.
You can argue Wyoming's culture is wrong. But that state will most likely be the same in 100 years. What are you achieving by fighting it? You look like you have all the education but none of the common sense—unable to distinguish between actual oppression and local custom that nobody locally experiences as harmful.
Democrats would happily subjugate everyone this way, but the Constitution and local culture can coexist with compromise and common sense.
This prayer issue is just one example for this op-ed. We will discuss other issues in future op-eds.
Section 4: Practical Solutions Beat Maximalist Demands
Say ten students in Cheyenne, Wyoming might not want to hear morning prayer (most likely an accurate number).
Should they be respected? Yes. Forced to pray? No.
But dozens of practical solutions work: Kids can leave the room, arrive later, or use the time for homework. Schools can announce prayers in advance. Teachers can make it genuinely voluntary.
Besides, there are lots of things in life that are uncomfortable to listen to. It's not just religion. Sometimes other people's opinions are very irritating to hear all the time, and you can be in a different minority on that subject. We don't shut down all expression because someone might be uncomfortable.
In school they want to announce all the details about last week's football game and all the players—maybe you're not interested in sports. Or endless announcements about prom or yearbook pictures you think are stupid. But we don't ban these because some students find them boring.
You feel that by not showing up for the football rally that you are not behaving right. There is pressure there. That is life. The question is whether you are not allowing people to practice their religion or pressuring them to be your religion.
Instead we get maximalist legal demands: no prayer, anywhere, ever. Result? Zero. Communities become resistant. Courts tie themselves in knots. Nobody wins.
You lose the whole state. Maybe forever. You teach voters your side doesn't care about their values.
Once you're branded as culturally hostile, people stop listening entirely. You could have the perfect healthcare plan to save their rural hospital, but they've already tuned you out. You're the "enemy" who attacked their traditions.
The problem is that you can easily use up all your "compromise" capital on things that really don't matter. Every community has a limited tolerance for outside pressure. Spend it fighting voluntary prayer, and you'll have none left when you need to push for actual important changes.
Section 5: Where's the Constitutional Violation?
The legal landscape has improved somewhat since Kennedy v. Bremerton in 2022, but implementation still lacks common sense. As recently as 2017, a high school in Glendo, Wyoming banned students from praying quietly in the cafeteria. It took a legal threat to force the school to allow basic voluntary prayer.
In a state where virtually no one would complain about voluntary student prayer, schools still operate under unnecessarily restrictive interpretations.
Where exactly is the constitutional violation when students voluntarily pray?
The Establishment Clause prohibits establishing national religion. The Free Exercise Clause protects religious expression. Student-led, voluntary prayer with accommodations violates neither.
Courts have twisted the First Amendment into a weapon against religious expression. But suppression of religion and religious symbols is yet another form of state-sponsored religious persecution—the mirror image of what Founders prevented.
Local school boards can regulate these issues without violating the Constitution and craft policies for their communities.
You can have optional Bible classes. If you erase this, people reject public schools—which is happening. They'll homeschool or want their own schools.
Every group going to separate schools achieves the opposite of people learning to get along. That doesn't unite communities.
Can't show common sense here? Imagine Democrats demanding trans athletes or tampons in men's rooms in Wyoming. Write off ever having respect or winning votes.
Conclusion: Practical Compromise Beats Legal Maximalism
No one wants mandatory school-led prayer or to exclude non-Christians.
What's being asked: Let communities find workable solutions respecting both majority culture and minority rights.
Let Wyoming students say Christian prayers with reasonable accommodations. Let local boards craft policies for their communities instead of uniform national rules. You can even have optional Bible classes—it depends on the locale.
This isn't about winning every legal battle. It's about winning hearts, minds, and elections.
Maximalist legal demands ignoring local culture produce zero lasting change—just resentment, resistance, and backlash.
Practical compromises respecting everyone's dignity actually work. Persuasion is a better tool than dominance.
If progressives prefer symbolic court victories to sustainable political power—if they'd rather be right than effective—they'll keep losing entire states over fights basic common sense could handle.
The intelligentsia looks brilliant in court but stupid in life—able to cite fifty cases but unable to see that nobody in that town feels oppressed.
If you can't compromise on ten kids in Cheyenne, you'll never win back the state—or the country.
Choose: Perfect legal purity, or political progress?
You can't have both.