Our fight for Open Local Government just got harder
l3wis It was no surprise to me that DJT won the presidential election. If you looked at the math, Harris had no clear path since she announced, the numbers got progressively worse as it got closer to the election. On top of that, let’s pretend for a moment she did win the popular vote and it was a tied electoral college, DJT had a majority of the US state houses on his side, he had Congress and the Supreme Court. Even if a tie came to fruition, DJT would have won. All the liberal tears aside, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
When the DNC gave a parting gift to Howard Dean as chair of the Democratic Party, Dean proposed this age old idea;
Howard Dean pursued an explicit “fifty-state strategy” as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, putting resources into building a Democratic Party presence even where Democrats had been thought unlikely to win federal positions, in hopes that getting Democrats elected to local and state positions, and increasing awareness of Democrats in previously conceded areas, would result in growing successes in future elections. Democrats who supported the strategy have said that abandoning “red states” as lost causes only allowed the Republican Party to grow even stronger in areas where it was unchallenged, resulting in lopsided losses for Democrats in even more races.
Ironically, the Republicans have had this strategy for decades and it finally paid off on Tuesday night. I have been warning the state Dems that if you keep hanging your hat on where people can go to the bathroom and who can wear a dress instead of better commodity prices for farmers and worker rights you will be abandoned by the working class. Guess what happened?
Don’t get me wrong, queer rights and diversity should ALWAYS be a ladder wrung on the progressive agenda, but not at top. Sorry, childcare, affordable food and housing, living wages, a good education, healthcare, and the list goes on, WHY DID WE STOP TALKING ABOUT THESE THINGS!!!!!!!
The GOP has been busy across the nation filling school boards, county commissions, judgeships, city councils and dog catcher positions. I have even contributed to this by helping 4 Republicans get elected to the city council (My Bad) and then they were too ‘social’ for the local Repugs so they got booted. This has created a system of one party rule which never benefits the public. I suppose I could write a very scathing post about how ignorant and selfish the American electorate is, but we all knew this coming into the election. Nothing changed on Wednesday it just was an answer to what we already knew; poor white people are mad and they need to blame someone, so they blame colored folks. Things are expensive and people vote with their pocket books.
I really don’t want to make this about Republicans and Trump, this is about something even more troubling. If you watch the playbook played by the GOP over the past 20 years they want a total shutdown of government transparency. Not that we have had much in South Dakota anyway, and Sioux Falls city hall is darker then an opium den, but, a drunk, drugged up reporter can’t even get the state to turn over hair and nail salon receipts. As if knowing what the gov paid for an asshole bleaching is of importance 🙁 While transparency in government is something that doesn’t exist on a state or local level anyway, the fight to get this information out there has just gotten 10 times harder.
I expect the National GOP will have a directive going all the way down to Dogcatcher candidates that open government is a thing of the past and give up NO information.
Now with extremists, they know they only have a small window to wreck sh!t and be on their way, this is why it is more important then ever to shine a light on these TRAITORS . . . NOW! Anybody who would wipe their ass with the Constitution in order to gain power has NO interest in telling you the truth.
Real Patriots use loud speakers, cowards use lies and violence. Now more then ever we need to ask our government to be open, because if they are not, they are just screwing us.
Ben Franks, the greatest founding Father, said it best;
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
He also warned his future countrymen;
“A republic, if you can keep it”
If Ben was alive today, I think he would be extremely nervous, and probably headed for France.