Show me a terrorist stopped by REAL ID. I’ll wait. Meanwhile, Grandma can’t fly to her sister’s funeral because her birth certificate is in cursive and has the wrong county. This isn’t about safety. It’s about obedience.
REAL ID was passed 20 years ago—born in the shadow of 9/11, alongside the Patriot Act and the dawn of TSA security theater. It’s a two-decade-old law that’s only now getting its teeth.
It didn’t come from MAGA fever dreams. It predates the Tea Party. It traces back to the Bush administration—2005. Back then, we weren’t talking about migrant caravans or voter fraud. The national anxiety was different.