Recognizing the new South Dakota Republican Party.
Which faction are you: New Internet Populist or Traditional GOP?
I noticed a new effort on Facebook that took off the other day where a group with many familiar names declared that they want legislation that would “obligate the National Guard to shoot down these poison pushing planes.” Literally, they want planes with “chem-trails,” which would include passenger jets shot out of the sky.
The problem is, it is nothing but a fringe conspiracy. What they call chem-trails are actually condensation trails that form behind jet aircraft, resulting from the condensation and freezing of water vapor in the exhaust. Even infamous government whistleblower Edward Snowden noted “In case you were wondering: … Chemtrails are not a thing.” But don’t try to tell that to people on Facebook. This is not a new issue; perennial fringe GOP candidate Lora Hubbel had spoken about it for years, but it was always relegated to the outer rings of internet conspiracy.
Yet, here it is anew again 10 years later. BOOM! Instantly Three NE State Representatives, Dylan Jordan, Logan Manhart & Brandei Schoefbauer signed on, as did Dell Rapids Senator Tom Pischke. Two former Representatives chimed in and said “I always believed in this” and the group quickly grew from few dozen to nearly four hundred.
Welcome to the new South Dakota Republican Party. Or at least what we might call a populist faction of it.
The state Republican Party has always had intra-party divisions, and they have flared up from time to time over the decades. When I first became involved in politics in the state, you could see within the party remnants of more moderate Rockefeller Republicans who would buck up against the conservative Reagan Republicans. The SDGOP largely went along for years dominated by Reagan Republicans where generally most seemed to get along as there was always a place in Reagan’s big tent, whether you were small-government, pro-life, free-trade, for cutting taxes, etcetera. The key to Reagan’s philosophy was always that it could be flexible when needed for the greater good.
Yet a few decades later, the SDGOP finds itself split down the middle and driven by 2 groups that find themselves jockeying for control of the party. We have the “New Internet Populist” faction amalgamated from several groups who are now in charge as the dog who caught the car and trying to find something do to with it.
In this collection, you find a number of people driven as much by what they read on Facebook as they do any base political philosophy. Many are Republicans who for years have called for the GOP to purge itself of those who they viewed as less pure and they termed RINO (Republican in Name Only) for not having a strict adherence to sets of rules or platform planks they would make up. Yet ultimately and not just a little ironically, this group were finally ascendant in the SDGOP by joining and being led by former Democrats.
It’s a fusion of Trump voters based on his personality. You can find libertarian Ron Paul Republicans side by side with ‘medical freedom’ proponents, election truthers and ballot hand-counters, anti-pipeline factions along with land-use activists.
The land use activists and pipeline opponents are a group that has brought this faction to the forefront, and interestingly, you see a number of Democrats popping up in this group, coming in from oil pipeline opposition, and traditional Democrat agrarian groups such as Dakota Rural Action who helped bring money into the last South Dakota election from a Jane Fonda Climate PAC. Throw in the chem-trail conspiracists who flow through many of these same threads and you literally have an entire faction of the party which has aspects of traditional populism mish-mashed and threaded together from toxic misinformation on Facebook.
Last election’s pipeline battle gave this group the foot soldiers they needed to nudge themselves into the leadership of the SDGOP, which is now led by Jim Eschenbaum, a self-admitted Obama voter and 32-year Democrat.
That leaves the other group in the Republican Party, and what might be argued as a great silent majority that has been sitting out elections. As evidenced by the record low 17% turnout of the last Republican Primary, many Republicans are strongly repelled by the toxicity that the internet populist group brings to the table.
Traditional Republicans, or Trad GOP are what we might term the groups that have historically been aligned as Republicans. Business owners, Chamber of Commerce members, community and economic development advocates, value-added ag proponents, and others who have been affiliated as Republican voters in the state on the basis of low taxes, smaller government, free-market capitalism, and deregulation. They’ve been more moderate in the past, but time and Reagan conservatism has shuffled some of those tendencies to the background. This group is closer to the vein in which Reagan actually operated; conservative, but pragmatic knowing the realities of governing.
This group largely voted for and supported Trump less for his personality and more for policy. It’s less what he says, and more what he had done in his first term. They were ok with Trump as Mitch McConnel and John Thune worked int he background to put conservative judges on the bench. (Time and outcome will see what this group has to say about the President’s taking a wrecking ball to the country’s economy this week in what some are calling “ruination day”).
The Trad GOP group, while still voting Republican when they do, is most definitely larger. But, they are the quiet majority. They are disengaged and unmotivated which has been contributed to by the toxicity from the New Internet Populists, as candidates argue over their conservative bonafides, without providing specifics on how they will positively affect communities. It is challenging enough to engage a business owner in politics who is busy trying to generate income to pay the bills and survive, when all that rises above the din of politics is that there are those who want to throw their local librarian in jail because they think they are distributing pornographic books.
Hearing that, most community-minded people would rather give their spare time and coin to children’s sports or a vacation or other family activities than spend one moment on politics. Because when all they hear is awful politicians they believe to be crazy who don’t represent them, THEY STAY HOME. And it hasn’t reached critical mass where the other group’s actions affect them enough en masse to come out and vote.
They stay home because they find it ugly. Or worse yet, they’re offended and might switch to Independent. Or at least they talk about it.
The extreme factionalism in the South Dakota Republican Party has not brought people into the tent. It has split them, driven some out, and largely de-funded the party. While there might be a person here and there in the New Internet Populist faction that has the ability to donate, largely this group doesn’t give money to the party. In recent years their activities and the language they use has actually driven away the donor class in the Trad GOP faction.
One recent party official related to me anecdotally that they had a party-minded donor who was going to donate an entire building in Pierre to the SDGOP to use as a headquarters and potentially rent empty space for income. But seeing the other faction in the wings ready to take over, they had no interest in “handing it over to the crazies.”
The story over the last few years has seen donations to the South Dakota Republican Party dry up to nothing. When the Democrat Party is able to pick up low-hanging fruit donors amounting to thousands, the SDGOP will go a month raising less than $50. A far cry from a party once able to command a budget which raised tens of thousands or more monthly in its heyday.
Time will only tell whether the two factions can mend their differences and possibly find a common goal to reach harmony on and work towards, or if the populist group will wither away and be absorbed into the larger but quieter group as has happened in the past.
Until then, intra-party fights between the New Internet Populists and the Traditional GOP in South Dakota will continue to be raucous. And potentially ruinous for the South Dakota Republican Party at large.
Good description of the problems plaguing the SDGOP. No solution in sight.
Trump is the party.
Good analysis. The populist leadership is empowered by the Alinsky style tactics the Talk hosts used to deride the Democrat radicals for. In Trump’s name they overwhelmed the vulnerable party stress points to gain power at the cost of the party’s resources and infrastructure, much like a hostile takeover in the business world. Good GOP donors rightly chose not to reward that, and ousted party workers who’d promised to protect the donated cash moved it to keep to the donors wishes in a few famous cases. Fortunately things can still happen at the PAC level to mitigate this usurpation of unfocused rage. I hope to re-register as a Republican someday, but the Trumps and populists have to be gone before I do.
Well said – it could accurately be called the “State of the Party” speech.
New Internet Populists I would say is highly inaccurate and does not reflect just how dangerous they are. This extreme group is the opposite of the party of Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln must be rolling in his grave when they have a Lincoln Day Dinner. This group is dangerous to public health, public education, public libraries and librarians, museums, civil liberties, anti-business and anti-opportunity. They are highly vulnerable to falling for misinformation, disinformation, conspiracies and grifters.
These are the Ultra-Right Fascists.
The term Internet Populist is apt. The internet is filled with propaganda and mind-twisting crap, and part of the population easily soaks it in without examining it for accuracy. And they’re not necessarily all fascist, but the fascists are the beneficiaries of their carefree alignment.
One problem is that a number of them do not even know what a Fascist is or are in denial and their actions match that description perfectly.
Please define “fascist” for us. Do you even know what it means?
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Most simply put, it’s an authoritarian regime headed by a dictator.
No, that is not the definition. Fascism is a political and economic system defined as “everything within the State, nothing outside of the State.” It was created and defined by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. However, the left has co-opted the definition to mean something quite different. I blame it on our sub-standard schools.
“Fascism is therefore opposed to all individualistic abstractions….(and being..) Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of Life stresses the importance of the State, and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State.”
–Mussolini, “The Doctrine of Fascism,” 1932
“L’etat, c’est moi.”
-Louis XIV, addressing the Parliament of Paris, 1655
I submitted the most simple definition of NEOFASCISM and you are correct to point out that I totally neglected to mention Mussolini. That was intentional.
I think the “Radke Radicals” have way more Alinsky properties than facist or populist.
He is not in my district, but I sure miss Schoenbeck.
I agree!
Everyone needs to go watch the movie Idiocracy. It’s pretty much a documentary of our current SDGOP.
Aside from the likely pain inflicted by President Trump’s tariffs, maybe some good will come from them. Either we get some better deals ultimately from our trading partners or, more likely, the economy tanks and we end up in a recession which may open some MAGA eyes when their wallets take a hit. As Bill Clinton said, “It’s the economy stupid.” Who knows, if enough people get upset, maybe even Congress will decide it is a third branch of government.
I think Carville and Begala kept telling Clinton “it’s the economy stupid” to keep him on track, but yes.
oh calm down about the tariffs. So what if the junk at the Dollar Stores costs more?
Both WD40 and Duct tape are made in the USA, so we’re going to be fine.
LOL you dorks couldn’t handle the exquisite pain of a 79 cent egg last year!!! LMAO
it hasn’t been the price of eggs that distressed me, it was the disappearance of Eggland’s Best Omega Eggs that has me giving up eggs. They have been out of stock for months.
But I can get the same amount of protein, 8 grams, from a packet of unflavored gelatin which costs 50 cents. If eggs cost more than 50 cents each, I am better off with the gelatin, so I haven’t been worrying about the cost of eggs
When there are factions demanding we shoot American planes out of the sky, why wouldn’t a person just put their energies towards electing good candidates, and just forget the party.
Thx, Pat. Cogent and true.
Indeed. Accurate. It doesn’t help when we hear that the caucus is arguing long into the night behind closed doors—conversations that fly in the face of claims to transparent government. And shooing away reporters with a stick? 😂 What are they talking about in there? Shouldn’t we know? A closed caucus serves only one function: to hide the fact that they’re hopelessly divided.
The divide birthed two years ago when faux legislators like Odenbach. Uncle John Mills. Jon Hansen. Karla Lems. Julie Auch. Liz May. Phil Jensen. Tina Mulally. Brandi Schoefbauer. Ben Krohmer. Fred Deutsch. And others decided that S.D. is closed for business.
Only two years ago? I think the internet populist movement started around 2015 with a certain personality that took over the entire party.
Calling Mirzayants a reporter is like feeding someone manure and telling them it’s caviar.
He’s a troll
New Internet Populists aka The Ultra-Right Fascists can be like watching Indiana Jones movies with the hapless NAZIs from Doeden’s Rally with featured speaker Mark Robinson in Sioux Falls to the latest using our South Dakota National Guard to shoot down planes with their air crews, passengers and cargo some being USAF B-52’s and B1 bombers due to their crazed ideas of Chemtrails.
Please define “fascist.” Do you know what it means?
yes. It means total subjugation of individual interests and liberty to the state.
https://sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/The-Doctrine-of-Fascism.pdf
It fits MAGA to a “T” as in Trump.
no, actually it doesn’t. Trump is for removing regulations
And everything of value.
You misspelled “leftists” by using the letters m, a, and g.
“Wrong.” – Donald J Trump during the 2016 debates.
Prior to the internet, these crazies would have been run out of their local coffee shops/cafes and shunned in their towns with their idiotic talk. Through the Internet, the crazies are able to find other crazies in all corners of the U.S. who validate them and stroke them. It’s wild.
grudznick says that your “Trad GOP” fellows are probably more in line with the Conservatives with Common Sense. There are a fair number of the Rhoden Rhangers, in fact, who are or aspire to be card carrying Conservatives with Common Sense.
There is no chem trail or other Hubbelesque insanerism in the discussion. grudznick is talking about your regular, no-nonsense, Conservatives with Common Sense. Not all of us like the local Chamber, by the way, and nobody likes the Sioux Falls Chamber. They are not members.
Well folks we can keep making jokes and they will win or..what can we do about it and get normal people out to vote? What’s it’s going to be? How can we win? Cause let me tell ya normal people don’t give two S$&ts!
Closely and regularly following day-to-day politics is indeed abnormal.
Wingnuts, Wackadoddles, Rinos, and now New Internet Populists???
Get your popcorn ready because it would appear that this “S-show” is no longer a limited engagement in Pierre during the winter…but might be coming on the road to a central committee meeting near you.
I think the traditional GOP types failed spectacularly in the last election because they were disorganized and making piecemeal efforts to elect more moderate candidates in the primary through candidate pacs. There was no party leader or powerful PAC that the “internet populists” were afraid of. They can vote for whatever crazy anti South Dakota stuff they want and not care because no one will come after them.
These people won’t act rationally until there is a price to be paid for acting irrationally.
Traditional GOP problem: Trump’s pitchfork primary army of voters, who prove able to eke out primary wins that end political careers. They’ve mastered voter suppression and messaging that drives centrists to inaction. That’s the battlefront – defeat the messaging and bring clear motivation.