Today, the South Dakota Republican Primary is on facebook advocating that Republicans should not fully vote in primaries. Rather, they are encouraging people to “vote ONLY for your top conservative choice to maximize their support. It’s legal and effective under SDCL!”
Really.
The last I knew, the Republican Party is supposed to treat all Republican candidates equally and equitably. From the House Majority Leader running for office down to the convicted and now pardoned felon running in District 23. No favorites should be expressed.
Yet, that’s not what the party is advocating. They’re asking voters to treat Republican candidates unequally..
But what was the guidance of the former 32-year democrat who passes at the party chair a while back?
If they’re going to get involved in primaries, to do so out of the umbrella of the party. Yet, isn’t the party doing just that in trying to steer people towards the “top conservative choice,” whatever that is in the mind of the beholder.
The party’s job is to get Republicans elected. Period, and with no adjectives or qualifiers.
They should especially not be burning time and resources by trying to get in the middle of primary elections. Especially when the encouragement and insinuation is to NOT vote for some Republicans.
But only Republicans who are conservative enough.
All else are RINOs.
BY ALL MEANS. Vote for the extreme radicals, send them to Pierre to vote no on everything including the budget, and have them travel home. Then put out scorecards saying how conservative they are. No matter that no one was helped and nothing accomplished. Great job.
Veteran Republican political strategist and senior advisor to The Lincoln Project, Stuart Stevens, has repeatedly described the modern Republican Party as an extremist movement rather than a traditional governing party.
Stevens has argued that the party has undergone a “complete moral collapse,” abandoning its historic roots in fiscal conservatism, free trade, and traditional democratic norms in favor of grievance politics.
He frequently notes that election denialism and the embrace of conspiracy theories have become the mainstream of the party, pointing out that a vast majority of elected Republicans refused to state that Joe Biden won the 2020 election fairly.
I like to call them “yee-haw-dist’s” – because they are not far from the Muslim extremists, jihadists.
There’s no putting the SDGOP back together. It’s a mess and it’s best days are behind it. All things change over time and the truth is the party infrastructure is not needed like it was 20 or 30 years ago. Social media has allowed like minded individuals to connect instantly with each other. We no longer need ‘committee men and women’ to organize individuals on a precinct or county level. Candidates can connect with voters directly and already do on their social media and even direct to their phone — for better or worse (mostly). Like minded groups can now form their own committees to support their preferred candidates and certainly do.
The question is where this goes next? The SDGOP as we know it is fractured. It seems that legislators could feasibly break off into multiple caucuses rather than continue with the facade of operating under one party structure.
The big question in front of us now is what happens in the primary? This election will shed some light on how fractured the party really is. My sense is that it goes to a runoff, but I’m not entirely sure who’s in that runoff.
Whoever wins Governor needs to demand his resignation.
Would someone game this out? This is obviously a strategic ploy. Who is the GOP trying to cut out?
Ronald Reagan is spinning in his grave. Abraham Lincoln doesn’t even recognize the lunacy that has overtaken the party he helped bring to power. I am ashamed to call myself a Republican with everything that this collection of liars, thieves, and miscreants is doing and saying. If the Democrats weren’t so quick to embrace the same idiocy on the far left of their party, I would consider changing party affiliation.
The sad reality—what has happened to the Republican party is my fault and the fault of every other traditional, common-sense, and/or moderate Republican. We sat back quietly and watched this collection of intellectually and morally depraved bastards seize control of the party, first at the local/county level, then at the state level, and then at the national level.
Something has to change. We true Republicans need to get off our collective asses and take our party back—or we need to call it what it is (Libertarians on Steroids) and start over with a new Republican Party that Lincoln, Reagan, and so many other party forefathers would not only recognize but would stand proudly alongside.
It needs to happen now. Start by voting down every one of these pieces of you-know-what.
Gotta start at the top. No, not the governor.
I definitely sympathize with you. However, please don’t confuse actual libertarians (a/k/a “classical liberals”, if we’re to be precise with our labels) with what these folks are. Our ideology’s label is being misappropriated to people whose libertarian credentials end at not liking to pay taxes. It’s not “Libertarians on Steroids” who have corrupted the GOP, it’s the nationalist movement through and through.
tl;DR – if someone seeks to use government to enforce their worldview, they’re not a libertarian.
Mr. Oakes, you know grudznick liberalizes with you in many accounts. I do not think people should usurp your party name of Libertarians in any way, but am interested what names you might give the insaner-than-most nutjob group and also the traditional Republicans who typically operate with civility and perhaps a more moderate bent.
The “Nut Jobs” and the “Modists?”
As for bullet voting, grudznick is considering a bullet vote for Ladner to be a vote against the overgodder Saint and the waffling wanderer Goodwin.
Political scientists seem to favor “right-wing populism” and “American nationalism”. That said, Dear Leader keeps marching so gallantly into the arenas of nativism/white nationalism, and expanding as much federal authority as the courts and spineless Congress will allow, that I would wager future history books will assign the dreaded “f-word” label to this regime. I guess if the foo schists, er uh, if the shoe fits…
My votes
Dusty
Bialota
McNeal