This is a guest opinion column

Governor Ivey isn’t there yet, but every day brings her closer to out-Trumping Trump and out-DeSantising DeSantis. Her latest move, firing Dr. Barbara Cooper, Secretary of the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education, is a perfect example.

Why was Dr. Cooper fired? According to the governor, for being “woke.” This is a perfect example of an argumentum ad hominem (personal attack) being used as the basis for wrong-headed executive decision-making.

Rhe Governor’s anti-woke stance makes her look like someone who is either comatose or brain dead. Does she really need to pander to a minority of Republicans who are among the most right-wing, reactionary constituents in Alabama? She has demonstrated time and again that she cares nothing about the most deserving: Alabama residents who need expanded Medicaid benefits; students who need unbiased (or as she would put it, “woke”) educational materials; consumers who need the sales tax to be removed from groceries. Alabamians need a governor who cares about the least of these as well as of the most privileged.

Unfortunately, Governor Ivey is going to leave a shameful legacy. She will be remembered as the governor who would rather build prisons than expand Medicaid. The governor who shamelessly advocates permit-free, open-carry gun laws. The governor who sacks education officials because all they want to do is to inform students truthfully about Alabama’s cultural history. Alabamians deserve a governor who will give them leadership, not political grandstanding.

Ward Welty is a retired professor of advertising and English – 10 years as an advertising professor in Australia, California, Kansas, and Ohio and 15 years as an English professor at Alabama A & M University. Before his teaching career he worked as a writer and editor with the TVA Division of Power Marketing in Chattanooga.