One of the year’s best feel-good news stories materialized late last month when Ridglan Farms in Wisconsin was forced to release more than 1,500 beagles who had been bred by the corporation to be sold into gruesome, sadistic government-funded experiments, only to be unceremoniously killed thereafter. I first reported on these industrialized dog abuses at Ridglan and by other corporations like it back in 2018. The horrific conditions into which the dogs are bred, and the monstrosity of the government-funded experiments to which they were subjected, remain vivid to this day.
That 2018 article was enabled by activists long opposed to the industrialized abuses of dogs and other animals. They worked against Ridglan Farms for over eight years to make last week’s inspiring victories possible, often risking their liberty to do so. And one major factor in their success — arguably the most indispensable one — was that they took an issue long associated with left-wing activism (animal rights) and found a way to form coalitions and partnerships with all sorts of politicians and media figures who reside far from left-wing politics, including many in the conservative movement and on the broader American right.
Much of this transformative progress was due to the deliberate portrayal of this cause as appealing to values found both on the right and the left. The campaign from White Coat Waste Project, for instance, emphasized not only the horrors of industrialized dog abuse and experimentation but also the wasteful government funds that sustain it, including horrifying dog experiments funded by Dr. Anthony Fauci. Activists with the animal rescue group DxE deliberately courted right-wing dog lovers and, in doing so, catapulted their cause from a once-perceived ideological or partisan fringe issue into one that commands mainstream support from a remarkably wide range of individuals.
All of this devotion to assembling a trans-ideological, nonpartisan coalition against hideous dog experimentation paid off. In the weeks leading up to the liberation of those 1,500 Ridglan Farms beagles, the cause had been taken up and promoted by not only numerous left-wing animal rights activists and local liberal politicians, but also prominent MAGA influencers and institutions, such as Lara Trump, Tomi Lahren, Laura Loomer, Megyn Kelly, Fox News, and by all sorts of right-wing members of Congress, including Rep. Nick Langworthy (R-NY).
Hellbound and Down 