Circling back to last afternoon’s announcement that State Rep. Phil Jensen will be challenging Watertown Mayor Reid Holien for representing South Dakota at the national level as the SDGOP National Committeeman, as Republicans, it should give us all pause as to what image we want to represent.
Because Phil Jensen might be the worst role model to represent South Dakota Republicans.
Let me count the ways…
During Vietnam, Phil was a draft-dodger:
“I was drafted,” Jensen said. “And I filed for conscientious objector and I was going through a process of looking for alternative service. And then Nixon cancelled the drafting power before I got established.”
He’s been a Member of the far-right Oath Keepers Militia
“In 2014 I was sitting at my desk in the Senate chambers and I had read some information about the Oath Keepers. I took an oath to uphold the Constitution and the South Dakota Constitution, and it seemed like a good group of guys to belong to.”
He brought a bill that would’ve made it justifiable homicide to actually kill a doctor who performed abortions.
Phil says that he believes to be OK for businesses to deny service on the basis of race or religion:
While the bill was killed, Jensen defended it to the Journal as legislation that would ensure businesses have the freedom to choose their clientele. He also said that businesses should also have the right to choose based on race and religion – whether that’s right or wrong, he said, can be fairly addressed by the free market, not the government.
Let’s not forget his skills in phrenology.
Speaking over the phone on the way to Pierre on Tuesday, Jensen recalled when one of his constituents told him he witnessed “dozens of South Americans” fleeing a white bus parked near downtown Rapid City.
“He knew they were South Americans,” Jensen said, “because they had different skull structures and skin tones from Mexicans.”
Did I miss any of the high points?
If the South Dakota Republican Party wants to portray to the rest of the nation that we are a bunch of backwater redneck crazy uncles who might be racists, then he might be a good selection.
I for one tend to disagree, and think we can do better. Ried Holien has done a nice job, and will not bring the SDGOP National embarrassment.
He is his own circus. He was a ring leader shouting and causing raucous during the rules committee meeting at convention. Appalling that a sitting legislator would not have a higher level of conduct during a committee meeting—certainly “unbecoming behavior”. What is even more confusing is how he keeps getting elected. There will be more to come for convention, just wait until his buddy Taffy shows up.
when he and his group peeled away from the rapid city cracker barrel forums to hold their own “free speech” cracker barrels across the hall, they firmly cemented their tantrum-fueled reputations into place. enough.
Illustration #18 million or so on why these guys are LARPers: Phil Jensen is too much of a coward to fight for his country but is just brave enough to dress and pretend like he’d fight for his country. Gravy SEALs unite.
Two Phil Jensen incidents that I recall: one was during a late night (as in 3AM) session when everybody involved just wanted to finish up and go home, and he insisted the meeting needed to be suspended so they could discuss the alcohol impairment of two members, which he could not possibly witness as he was phoning it in. He was at home in his pajamas, so how would he know if anybody had been drinking, wanting to hold everything up for another hour or two, and Larry Rhoden responded with disbelief. He got his way, though, and the meeting had to waste more time.
Another time, in 2020, preparatory to the virtual convention, he wanted a resolution that all 3 members of our Congressional delegation should be REQUIRED to appear annually before the state legislature to explain themselves and the state of the union. The obvious question was “if you want them to come speak to you, why don’t you just invite them?” (That resolution didn’t get a second so it never got out of the resolution committee which is why there are so few witnesses. )
Phil’s only reason for living is to waste other people’s time satisfying his own ego.
Seems like no one was watching the results come rolling in Tuesday. Phil has a VERY good chance of being selected. Butte County elected an unashamed racist of questionable literacy who spent the last 3 years trying to repeal medical marijuana and still couldn’t get enough signatures to get it on the ballot. His only accomplishment was causing the courthouse to install metal detectors because the commissioners and law enforcement had become so concerned about his veiled threats. Similar candidates elected across the state. I’d say Phil is a shoo-in.
Maybe this is the new GOP, and if you don’t support that, you can just wait until they make it law that you have to support it, or go to jail….
And morons like this stay in power because “South Dakota Nice” doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Time for the state GOP to smack these people down and expose them.
They stay in power because their low information, low IQ base are the ones that turn out to vote. 17% turnout across the state?
We’re about at the tipping point the GOP in MN encountered in the early 90’s. It became so extreme the candidates just quit showing up and registration dropped to barely over 10%. That enabled a Jesse Ventura to win with a common sense agenda for awhile, but, with no organized GOP ground game, it just handed the state to the hard left and become the “California East” we see today.
S.D. won’t go hard left, but, candidates will no doubt run on their own: a jungle primary system even without opening up primaries.
Have you seen the MNGOP endorsed US Senate candidate to run against Klobuchar? There is a primary now but the endorsed candidate is part of their Action4Liberty Libertarians, Constitutional Party crazies that are completely obliterating what was once the MNGOP. Those crazies look at South Dakota as the place to move to once they have absolutely burned that party to the ground insuring the DFL Trifecta.
More are moving here everyday purchasing houses, property and renting.
Visited with our local Sherriff and he is baffled that some are coming from blue states that have no job, no money some with major mental health issues and end up interacting with law enforcement due to laws being violated.
This is valid. People were worried that we were going to become more “blue” with all the out-of-staters moving in. That isn’t the case. The most extreme, alt-right crazies have moved in. They want to make sure SD doesn’t become like their previous home state, so they push for the most radical “conservative” agenda and candidate. All of this without understanding that South Dakota is the way it is because we have tried to elect people that can work together and for the good of the state.
I’d add Rocks and Cows of MN is affiliated with Action4Liberty and the extreme right that have so much in common with the extreme left. They watch each other to see what tactics work the best. It’s my way or the highway with them. They are the types in MN that would be fully funded by the Doeden Dumpsterfire that spread via toxic waste disposal trucks in SD from Aberdeen.
Thanks, Noem
how does he keep winning? It seems so implausible. Often times, he’s unopposed.
Has anybody pointed out Mr. Jensen’s sweet leather jacket? Mr. Jensen used to sport a really sweet leather jacket on the floors of the legislatures.
Phil, are you sporting your leather jacket at Bob’s tonight? Are you staying in Mr. Howie’s suite?
Does he still have the Fu Manchu with said jacket?
Believe so.
Again, the old adage of reap/sow is playing out here. Unfortunately, all of South Dakota gets to suffer. Thanks GOP. Hope voting in Trump in 2016 was worth it….
if you think this started in 2016 with Trump you are very late to the party.
There have always been a few crazies here and there but things were ramping up years earlier, when it was becoming apparent that the candidates for constitutional offices, people like Lance Russell, were recruiting the worst people they could find to seek the positions of precinct committee men and women from counties that had no party organization. These were folks with no interest at all in forming a county party, they just wanted to go to the convention, be as disruptive as possible, and then crawl back into hiding like cockroaches. For years it was noted that this was a problem, but all proposals to fix it were met with cries of “but we’ll get a backlash!”
The unwillingness of the state central committee to do anything about this but hope the problem would go away by itself has led to this.
It was not Trump. A few of us were sounding alarms years ago, The state central committee sat on their hands and refused to fix it when they had the chance.
Trump certainly brought out and encouraged the crazies. Don’t kid yourself.
the march 2009 national taxed-enough-already outcry against the aims of the newly seated dem house and senate gave rise to a simmering country-wide collection of tea-party clusters.
this is where the confluence of talk-radio conservatism and far right outcasts found a common identity in the republican-hating rhetoric of trump’s 2016 primary and became the populist movement that is now a trump cult.
which is to say, anne is correct.
Anne is right. The extreme of the party has the wheel. how does the state’s executive fit in to this ? is she part of this group?