Backlash governance leads to states of denial, displacement, or amnesia, even in moments that demand accountability and self-reflection. In the aftermath of horrific mass shootings, including ones in his own state, Kentucky governor Matt Bevin took to claiming that laws and governments were no match for “evil”—overlooking the ways that this particular form of evil amassed arsenals under the protection of gun laws that conservatives like Bevin created or supported. On leaving the Kansas governor’s office for an esteemed position in the Trump administration, Sam Brownback lambasted a decaying
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