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A nod to the Birchers

rainey

One of the professional pleasures I’ve enjoyed in broadcasting and writing opinion journalism has been the freedom to occasionally chew on the nut cases of the far right. That enjoyment has been especially heightened when one or more ”targets” gets all outraged and feels personally persecuted.

That was especially true in the late 1960's when the targets were often the Birchers and Liberty Lobby as they railed against “Communists-behind-every-tree” and “big government taking away our freedoms.” They made an awful noise.

While I still enjoy targeting those “paranoid patriots,” I’ve lately begun to feel some of their pain. My pain, however, has a more solid basis in fact than those conspiracy believers.

We’re seeing more and more evidence that government, at all levels, has taken on the role of master rather than constitutional servant. It’s happening along the Potomac and it’s happening - in spades - in Idaho.

Case in point: the legally protected right of the people to make laws by referendum and to do so freely.

The traditional Idaho Republican-controlled legislature tried to make future public petition efforts nearly impossible. In plain language, to stop the public from exercising a constitutional guarantee so legislators can do their work without “interference.”

The basis for Republican efforts to castrate the public referendum process was in response to the overwhelming 2018 success of a petition drive to expand Medicaid coverage. But, with petitions still warm on the desk, Republicans quickly moved to kill the idea. And, to clamp down on future petition drives to make sure John and Jane Q. Public would face more hurdles trying again. On anything.

Gov. Little vetoed one bill but for the wrong reason. He agreed with content but feared expensive court challenges - and high defense costs sure to come - challenges that would likely be successful as they have been in other states. Little tried to mollify both Republican legislative friends and the public. Most Idahoans wanted the referendum bills killed. So, the GOPers in the Statehouse went back to work, rewriting for another try.

Little signed a Medicaid expansion bill which tries to add work requirements. Even if the feds approve, there’ll be a court fight on that one, too. More tax dollars down the rat hole. Little didn’t seem to care how high the legal bills will be on that one. Wonder why.

Utah and several other states have been involved in similar efforts to mute public input and kill attempts to expand Medicaid in their locales, even after similar overwhelming public support.

One can sense the deformed hand of the American Legislative Exchange Council in all this. ALEC. Funded by billionaires and large corporations, ALEC works with state legislatures and Congress - and some local governments - creating and passing out copies of “master” bills to do this-and-that. Nearly always something for the “fat cats” at the expense of the public.

ALEC has positioned itself as a sort of another level of government. I’d guess most of the public would be strongly opposed to ALEC if it knew ALEC existed and why. But, most folks don’t.

There are many cases in which our national government actively works against the interests of most of us. Though reliable public polling may show large majorities supporting a national issue like needing immediate action on climate change, Congress - especially the Senate - ignores it. If we overwhelmingly oppose something like the Kavanaugh SCOTUS nomination - they’ll do it anyway.

Members of Congress - especially many Republicans - have sealed themselves off from voters. Try to get Idaho Senators Risch or Crapo on the phone. Even harder, to meet with them face-to-face. When’s the last time they took questions at a constituent meeting? Or, even had a legitimate constituent meeting? Same in Utah with Lee and Romney.

Many elected officials - especially federal - have separated themselves from citizens. You see more and more instances of the “servant” becoming the “master.” Rather than responding to issues and concerns of the populace, we see governments - especially the elected portions thereof - going their own way while ignoring our input.

Added to this, we have a racist, narcissistic, chronic liar in the Oval Office hellbent on destroying any parts of government he doesn’t like. Which is most of it. And, he’s telling various authorities of that government to lie and ignore federal laws - even subpoenas - to get done whatever he wants done.

In the ‘50's and ‘60's, the Birchers and others were wrong. At the top of their voices. We’ve not been devoured by Communism, we haven’t needed the gold standard and their hero, Joe McCarthy, was a sick, loud-mouthed drunk who enjoyed destroying people.

But, they may have been onto something with their fear of government turning on the people and challenging some of our freedoms.

I’ll give ‘em that. But, that’s all.

The unknowing

Never thought this day would come.  But, we seem to be watching the dissolution of the national Republican Party in real time.

The GOP is in danger of splintering to pieces.  All on its own.  By it's own hand.  No help needed, thank you very much.

In Congress, the danger of becoming irrelevant is coming from within the Party.  At least that portion called the "Freedom Caucus."  The 40-50 or so GOPers who've chosen to separate themselves from the main branch of the Republican Party, in most things, by moving further right.  Way at the end of the teeter-totter.

It would seem, gone are the days when a political group could hold a party-line vote on any subject.  Now, at least for Republicans, even setting a date for a celebration of Lincoln's birthday ends in an argument.  The in-fighting is serious.  And, for real!

We read and hear a lot about the "nutcase" folks which really are a minority within the whole of modern day Republicanism.  The nuts get publicity because (1) they're easy for what we call "reporters" to "report" and (2) their outrageousness.  "Good copy" as they say in the newspaper business.

In reality, today's bunch is just the old John Birchers on steroids.  Their subject matter has been updated from the '50's.  But, it's still pretty much the same.

And, it doesn't look like the radical nature of their conduct has reached its zenith.  Every month or so, they come up with something new.

Now, on the national scene once again, it's the size of the federal budget that's become divisive.  While a majority of Republicans seem O.K. with the numbers thus far, recent mainline GOP approval has come under fire from the rightward fringe.

The malingerers want "downsizing."  "Downsizing" on all fronts!  They don't seem to care who or what gets hurt.  Just "DOWNSIZE."

The reason the fringe doesn't care is because they don't know.  If you listen to their bitching - and you do so at your own risk - they haven't studied the subject matter enough to "know" what they want cut.  Or, what or who would be harmed by just "cutting here, there and anywhere."  Becoming familiar with the intricacies of constructing a budget is, to them, not necessary.  Just "CUT."

At the moment, those voices are a vocal minority.  Mainliners are still in control.  And, it would seem, there's little danger of the "fringe" becoming the political center of Republicanism.

In Idaho, the local chapter of the "Freedom Caucus" is not having a good day with the more moderate section, either.

There, several "F-C"members have thrown a lot of verbal garbage on the more moderate bunch in the Idaho Senate.  The President Pro-tem of which, apparently fed up with the bilge he was hearing from the Idaho chapter of the Caucus, was moved to publically rebuke the "crazies," calling their latest outbursts "degrading" and "disrespectful."

One of the certainties of the far-right has always been the guaranteed failure of members to stick together.  Sooner or later, there'll be a breakup.  Distrust nearly always runs rampant within the right-wing.

The "Freedom Caucus" - whether local or national - will likely meet the same end.  It's just the latest iteration of discontent within the Party.  One of these days, a new version will come along.

And, then, another.  And, another.  And, another.

 

Three amigos

In the early 1970’s voters across the Pacific Northwest – Idaho, Oregon and Washington – could boast, and often did, that the region was home to three of the most accomplished, most interesting and most engaging governors in the country.

Cecil Andrus in Idaho, Tom McCall in Oregon and Dan Evans in Washington – the self-described three amigos – formed a political and personal partnership that hasn’t come close to being replicated in the intervening 50 years.

Ironically, the most conservative Northwest state, Idaho, elected Andrus, a Democrat, in 1970 – the first of his four terms – while the more liberal coastal states elected two progressive Republicans. Washington voters put Evans in the Statehouse in 1964 for the first of three terms, while Oregonians gave McCall the first of his two terms in 1966.

Andrus and Evans defeated incumbents to win the governorship, while McCall defeated a popular Oregon secretary of state. Each man became a vote gathering machine, often defying their own national parties and in the process developed legacies unmatched in the region.

All three were pioneering state-level conservationists. McCall’s landmark efforts to preserve public access to Oregon’s magnificent beaches continues to mean to this day that the public interest in the state’s shoreline is paramount. McCall, like Andrus and Evans, believed not every tree had to be cut or mountainside despoiled in the name of economic progress.

The gruff McCall famously told a television interviewer that Oregon was a special place, too special to be ruined by too much development and too many people. “Come visit us again and again,” McCall said. “This is a state of excitement. But for heaven’s sake, don’t come here to live.”

Andrus’s four terms were the bookends for his history making tenure as Secretary of the Interior, a time that saw Jimmy Carter, with encouragement and strategy by Andrus, champion protections of millions of acres of wilderness, wildlife refuges and national parks in the nation’s last frontier, Alaska.

All three governors championed public and higher education and wise economic development. McCall and Andrus were early champions of land use planning. And each man understood the wisdom of joining forces on issues of regional importance, putting aside partisan considerations to give the region greater clout and more ability to attract national attention and money.

Their mutual regard extended so far that Republican McCall came to Boise in 1974 to headline a fundraiser for Idaho’s Democratic governor. When Evans was appointed and then elected to the U.S. Senate after the death of legendary Washington senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Andrus endorsed Evans as the only man big enough to fill Jackson’s shoes. When Andrus made his gubernatorial comeback in 1986, Evans endorsed his Democratic friend with such conviction that the Andrus campaign turned the endorsement into an incredibly effective political ad.

McCall, a terrific writer whose early journalism career included a job at what is now the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, was the first of the amigos to go, dying of cancer in 1983. McCall was a one-of-a-kind character, brash, outspoken, clever with a quip and determined to make change.

As McCall’s biographer Brett Walth has written, “McCall dominated everything around him … because of all he represented in his state.”

Andrus was a similar personality. Quick with a quip and just as quick, as he often said, to “throw an instant fit” when he encountered unfairness or ineptitude. Andrus dominated the politics of his conservative state through three decades because he was the genuine article – tough, empathic, a strategic thinker determined to make a difference while keeping the trust of voters who just plain liked “Cece.”

Andrus’s death in 2017 left only the last amigo, Dan Evans. And now that towering figure has died at 98.

Evans, who demanded in the 1960’s that the hard right wing of his own party, including the John Birch Society, just leave the Republican Party is the last of a breed: the determined individualist, willing to buck party and ideology in the cause of genuine progress.

Long-time Washington journalist Joel Connelly wrote of Evans: “He was a lifelong Republican, part of a now critically endangered species of conservation-minded members of the Grand Old Party. Nowadays, the annual Conservative Political Action Conference has panels debunking Theodore Roosevelt.”

The legacy of the three amigos will not diminish. You’ll continue to see it in the Andrus White Clouds wilderness in central Idaho, the Alpine Lakes in Washington and a dozen other places championed for protection by Evans and the waterfront park in Portland that carries Tom McCall’s name.

It requires courage and vision and action to make our fractured politics work. The get-along, go-along types can win elections by catering to the worst instincts in their party and appealing to the lowest common denominator in the electorate, but in the end these types merely occupy a place on the ballot or hold down a desk. They do little or nothing for democracy and the next generation.

It’s tempting to say that we’ll not soon – or perhaps ever – see the like of Evans, McCall and Andrus again. And ask yourself why?

The answer won’t be found in partisan politics or fealty to a corrupt leader or even the obvious desire for popularity that too often requires trimming and hedging. Leadership of the type Andrus, Evans and McCall demonstrated was all about character – the moral and ethical qualities of any individual.

Scandal never touched any of these men. They kept their word to their voters. They stood for real and important things like clean air and water and the thrill of wide open spaces where humans are but temporary visitors. They built schools, spoke candidly about challenges, demanded excellence of themselves. They behaved honorably.

The Pacific Northwest once had three amigos and we are better, much better for having had them.

 

Once a vice, now a norm

When then-Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater took the stage at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1964 to accept the Republican nomination for president, he uttered one of the most famous — or infamous — lines in American political history.

“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.” Goldwater told a raucous GOP convention crowd. “And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

Hearing those words, one shocked observer blurted out that the candidate really was going to “run as Barry Goldwater.”

Yet Goldwater’s entire career — he served in the Senate for 30 years before and after his presidential campaign — was, at least by the standards of the modern Republican Party, more conventionally conservative than not. His enduring line about extremism was as much a rhetorical device to rally the conservative base — sound familiar? — as an ideological proclamation.

Goldwater needed the radicals in his party in that long-ago campaign. Despite being a devoted anti-communist, opposing the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and preaching low taxes and small government, Goldwater was stepping up to lead a party going even farther right. At the same time, Goldwater was decidedly not a cultural warrior, issuing warnings late in his career against the emerging “New Right,” and particularly the role of conservative preachers.

“I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that, if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C or D,” Goldwater said in 1981. “I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate.”

Goldwater also warned against packaging cultural issues, including abortion, as core conservative values. Goldwater and his wife supported Planned Parenthood, for example. Goldwater, seeing how far his party had gone in service to radical right, said in the twilight of his career that he would oppose pro-life organizations like the Moral Majority and “fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of ‘conservatism.’ ”

One suspects Goldwater, the old Cold War conservative, would be appalled by the accelerating rightward trajectory of his party in 2024. It’s inconceivable Goldwater would identify with the GOP factions in the House and Senate who willingly aid and abet Vladimir Putin’s aggression against a democratic Ukraine. The cozy winks Donald Trump has repeatedly given Putin and his murderous regime would be something Goldwater would frankly be “sick and tired of.”

Goldwater’s 1964 campaign against Lyndon Johnson was dogged by the reality that the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan openly embraced arguably the most conservative Republican candidate since Calvin Coolidge. Goldwater tried to distance himself from that level of extremism with mixed results, while other Republican leaders bluntly rejected the Birchers.

“Let me emphasize this with as much vigor as I can — that the John Birch Society is NOT a part of the Republican Party,” Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois said in 1965. “It never was and I don’t suppose it even pretends to be.”

Dirksen was, of course, wrong.

Today, the radicals who helped diminish Goldwater’s national appeal largely run things at the GOP grassroots. The husband of the authoritarian chairperson of the Idaho Republican Party, Dorothy Moon, sits on the Birch Society’s national board. And Moon’s own politics are farther out on the political spectrum than Robert Welch, the founder of the Bircher movement, ever hoped to be.

Welch, the candymaker turned far-right radical, as his biographer Edward H. Miller has written, “was not consumed by issues of sex and religion.” But the modern party certainly is consumed by both. In legislature after legislature where Republicans are dominant, mean and punitive legislation aimed at reproductive rights, birth control and the LGBTQ population abound.

This new Republican mainstream, heavily in debt to historical Bircher extremism, doesn’t care to keep Putin, a former intelligence operative for a Communist regime, from overtaking Ukraine. But they are just fine with wacky state legislators proscribing what you read, who you can love and how and whether you can have a family. Gun restrictions are unthinkable but invading your bedroom and your doctor’s office is party policy.

For example, your individual circumstances might dictate that you need in vitro fertilization (IVF) to hope to have a baby. Good luck. The party of extremism is pretty sure you shouldn’t have that option. A new way to measure radicalism is to assess whether your state’s legislators are passing laws that are forcing physicians to leave because they fear prosecution for merely practicing their profession. Idaho has lost 22% of its OB/GYN docs since the state put draconian abortion restrictions in place. More departures seem certain.

As historian Matthew Dallek — he wrote a new history of the Birch Society — said last year: “For decades, conservative leaders tried to consign the Birchers and their intellectual heirs to the fringes of their coalition, but today’s Republicans are awash in Birch ideas. These include rampant conspiracy theories (notably about vaccines and election denialism), a penchant for isolationism, and a belief that federal law enforcement agencies are ‘the enemy of liberty,’ in the words of Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.”

As Elaina Plott Calabro noted recently in The Atlantic, a dozen years ago the Conservative Political Action Conference refused to allocate space for a Birch Society booth at its annual cattle call. The Bircher brand was just too toxic then. This year, CPAC rolled out the red carpet to the Birchers, happily embracing the latest conspiracy theories and anti-globalist message.

Where Welch campaigned against fluoride in drinking water as a Commie plot, today the cranks oppose measles vaccines and claim a new era of American isolation.

CPAC, where Ronald Reagan once preached the gospel of balanced budgets and a strong national defense, this year welcomed not only new generation Birchers but, as NBC reported, individuals openly espousing racist, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic views, while claiming that the next Jan. 6 will succeed.

“In one of the most viral moments from this year’s conference, conservative personality Jack Posobiec called for the end of democracy and a more explicitly Christian-focused government,” NBC’s Ben Goggin reported. “While Posobiec later said his statements were partly satire, many CPAC attendees embraced his and others’ invocations of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.”

An earlier generation of Republican leaders saw the Birchers and others on the far-, far-right fringe as a genuine danger to the larger conservative movement. They had the courage — and the democratic instincts — to speak out and fight back. Today the fringe is the party.

And if you don’t believe them when they say they are coming for your democracy, you aren't listening carefully.

(image/Wikimedia Commons)

 

The sadness of a squish

House Republicans this week elected a speaker. Turns out political exhaustion is a big advantage in today’s GOP. A guy who before this week virtually none of us had ever heard of turned out to be the (far, far) right guy at the right time.

After going three weeks with no speaker, while a government shutdown looms (again), the Middle East boils and Ukraine strains to beat back Putin’s totalitarian onslaught on western democracy all the GOP’s many factions united behind Mike Johnson. The new gavel pounder is a Louisiana backbencher whose only real qualification is that he is not Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan or Tom Emmer. For those keeping score at home – those guys all were destined to be speaker until they weren’t.

Yet, the issue of the week is not that House Republicans elected a genuine political radical from the far, far right as Speaker of the House, but how, as there can no longer be doubt, the entire party has been transformed once and finally into an ideological cesspool of resentments, hatreds, conspiracy, white Christian nationalism and hyper partisan nonsense, or worse.

Exhibit A in the no longer in doubt department is one of the nation’s prime examples of the certain death of real, constructive, character-driven conservatives. Idaho remains as good a case study as any of the vast rot that has polluted conservative politics and turned people who once displayed real character and occasional bipartisanship into craven, quivering opportunists clutching for a grip on power regardless of the cost in their own shame and their country’s democracy.

A week ago, Idaho Republican Mike Simpson, a guy who once stood over Barack Obama’s shoulder in the Oval Office to celebrate a bipartisan Idaho wilderness bill, was pilloried by his party’s state chairwoman for having the audacity – even independence – to vote NO to deny the loathsome Jim Jordan the speaker’s gavel.

Simpson’s “inclination to engage in inside-the-Beltway political games rather than focusing on the pressing business that truly matters to our constituents is disappointing,” fumed Idaho’s top GOP mouthpiece and John Bircher, Dorothy Moon. “Representative Simpson has served in congress for decades. Perhaps all this time away from Idaho has caused him to lose sight of the real work that Americans need on the important issues that impact them and their families.”

In a widely circulated op-ed defending his vote against Jordan, the bomb throwing Ohio election denier, Simpson fell back on the argument that he was merely defending the priorities his Idaho constituents, including workers at the Idaho National Laboratory and the state’s agricultural interests.

“It is abundantly clear the next Speaker of the House could seriously impact Idahoans’ way of life. Fortunately, I know my constituents want me to continue fighting for issues that are important to them. I cannot vote for a Speaker who does not support our state. And I will not take Chairwoman Moon’s ill-advised input when I have been fighting for Idaho longer than she has lived in the state.”

Simpson specifically cited Jordan’s votes against the Department of Energy budget and Simpson’s own Farm Workforce Modernization Act, legislation to give these critical workers a path to citizenship. Trouble is Johnson voted NO on those issues as well.

Simpson withheld support from the former wrestling coach because Jordan has never voted for a farm bill, and while Johnson reluctantly voted for the last major farm bill, he severely criticized the nutrition provisions of the bill, which must be reauthorized before the end of the year.

As Politico reported, Johnson favors deep cuts to the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the country’s largest program that helps to provide food aid for low-income Americans” and which is a hot button issue that will surely emerge as the dysfunctional Republican majority attempts to pass a new farm bill.

“I cannot – and will not – support a Speaker who has repeatedly taken positions against Idaho’s best interests,” Simpson declared as he tried to hold off criticism of his vote against Jordan. His principled stand had the shelf life of an overripe avocado.

On Wednesday Simpson enthusiastically voted for Johnson, described by one partisan wag as “Jim Jordan in a sports coat,” a guy with a scant experience but with a voting record almost identical to Jordan’s. In the space of five days Simpson went from standing up for his own voting record and policy priorities to voting for a speaker who has never supported the Idaho priorities Simpson found so important before he didn’t.

Moreover, Johnson is every bit as much an election denier and conspiracy theorist as Jordan. He lead the effort to round up congressional support – including that of Idaho’s other House seat warmer, Russ Fulcher – for the whack-a-doodle Texas lawsuit that would have thrown out millions of votes in several states.

Sidney Powell, the Donald Trump lawyer who recently pled guilty to election interference charges in Georgia, was a full throated proponent of the nonsense that a Hugo Chavez inspired Venezuelan plot to rig voting machines cost Trump the election. Fox News spent $787 million to settle a lawsuit over that lie. The man now second in line for the presidency was an “intellectual” architect of this lie.

Johnson has taken fringe positions on LGBTQ rights, opposed same sex marriage and been a champion of a national ban on abortion. Yet, Mike Simpson, the momentarily pragmatic Republican who took flak for his anti-Jordan vote, mentioned none of this in a statement saying he was “proud” to vote for the new speaker.

There is a word for such behavior – gutless.

As the Never Trump conservative Charlie Sykes wrote this week – he might have had Simpson in mind – “For a few halcyon moments, it looked like the center would hold as a modest rump of ‘moderates’ blocked the ludicrous Jim Jordan. But in the end, the squishes did what squishes do; and their defeat was as comprehensive as it was condign.”

It’s Mike Simpson’s screwball critic Dorothy Moon, the election denying crackpot atop the state’s Republican Party, who won this skirmish. The nuts are in full control. No evidence can disabuse them of their fantasies. No farm bill or health concern of a pregnant Idahoan is near important enough for them to back off their fear and loathing for real policy, or heaven forbid actual governing. The gentleman from Idaho had a brief moment, then he again embraced the real power in his party.

Simpson did get one part right – it is abundantly clear that the new speaker will seriously impact the way of life of his constituents.

(image/Wikimedia Commons)

Query

There's a question that needs to be asked about our country's future.

"Is America governable?"

At the moment, and for the last couple of years, the answer to that question might require a qualified "yes."

Not exactly the ringing endorsement one would expect. Certainly not the answer you might desire. Just a qualified "yes."

Some 50 years ago or so, there was a collection of malcontents that founded the John Birch Society. From the start, the various "cells" of the Society found fault with the then-direction of the country, its politics and society (small "s") in general. The search for suspected Communists kept members busy looking behind every tree and bush. No one in any position of government was to be trusted. Especially Democrats.

Over the years, the Society and others of such ilk morphed into all sorts of "aginers." Trusting nothing. Trusting no one. Offering not a speck of anything to right the "wrongs" they opposed.

Along came "talk radio." Suddenly, the malingerers had a "voice." Their activities could be brought out into "the light." They had a focal point for all to see.

The sad truth is this "voice" of the right morphed again. It found a home in the national Republican Party and, through that, down to the local committees. The "Grand Old Party" would never be the same.

Over many national and state elections, representatives of rightward thought were elected to thousands of public offices. The face of government changed at all levels. The "my-way-or-the-highway" crowd was in charge.

Think about it. Our current struggle to simply elect a Speaker in the U.S. House of Representatives has become such a volatile mess because of what? The far-right. About 20 or so members got their backs up and told Jim Jordan his search for power would end in failure. And, that's been true.

While advocating nothing and opposing everything, these "cells" of rightward "thought" have infected Congress. The legal demand of a general national budget looms just a couple of weeks off. But, thanks to these miscreants, no one is doing much about getting down to the number crunching.

For the last few years, we've not had a national budget. We've been existing on what's called a "continuing resolution." That means, no one has constructed a budget from scratch for a decade or so. Instead, Congress has simply adopted a budget from a few years back and added an annual percentage "guestimate" to keep things running.

There's a wonderful contradiction in all this. The right-wingers have loudly - and repeatedly - advocated for "cutting the fat" out of our government spending. But, it's the same bunch that's continually - and successfully - kept budget hawks from creating a leaner operating document.

The embarrassing fight keeping Jordan out of the Speaker's chair is the doing of the far-right contingent within the national GOP. Whatever blood there be is on their hands. The personal threats against families of members of Congress, the anonymous callers in the middle of the night, the threatening texts and emails - those are theirs, too. All of it. The whole nasty, dangerous, mindlessness mess is theirs.

Recent governance, as we know it, has been simply responding to one crisis or another, drifting along without direction, without goals, without truly responding to national concerns. Gun violence. Solid evidence of the effects of climate change. Action on our national drug crisis and it's many manifestations on society. Reining in our bloated defense spending. All are serious national problems. But, Congress is doing nothing!

So, we are left with the question. "Is America governable?" And, the answer continues to be a qualified "yes." And such governance as there be is facing threats of violence and insurrection we've not seen for 250 years.

The answer - the action to get us back on the correct path - will not come from the top down. Solutions - corrections - must come from the bottom up.

We have a national election in some 13 months. A third of the seats in the U.S. Senate will be contested. And, every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives will be "up for grabs." Every one.

That election is so damned important. More than ever, we need an informed electorate. A very well-informed electorate. Vacancies in public offices must be filled. Candidates - whether now in office or new faces - must be re-examined for fitness. For judgment. For integrity. Nothing less is acceptable.

"Is America governable?" Can we make that answer an unqualified "YES?" The answer is up to us.

 

Idaho per the Almanac

What you're seeing here isn't a column. It's an excerpt from the Almanac of American Politics, a large chunk of the section included in that book about Idaho.

The Almanac has been around since 1972, tracking politics in great detail (mainly at the congressional and statewide level)for all 60 states. In July, the Almanac will be publishing its 2024 edition, with some 2,200 pages offering fully updated chapters on all 435 House members and their districts, all 100 senators, all 50 states and governors, and much more. I still have many of the editions published since then, and over the last couple of decades I've been in the group of people to whom sections related to specific states have been asked to review and suggest changes. (I've not had many to suggest.) Lou Jacobson, who has worked on these chapters for some years, has worked for PolitiFact, Sabato's Crystal Ball and U.S. News and World Report and is a veteran national political handicapper.

Readers can receive a 15 percent discount if they purchase the 2024 edition through the Almanac’s website -- https://www.thealmanacofamericanpolitics.com/ -- and apply the code RSIdaho15 at checkout. The offer is good through August.

Here's some what the Almanac has to say about Idaho (an Oregon excerpt will appear tomorrow):

Tucked near the northwest edge of the continental United States, far from any major metro area, Idaho has seen its population nearly double since 1990. But the migration of newcomers to both livable Boise and resort areas like Sun Valley hasn't added many Democrats: Idaho has remained solidly Republican for more than a half-century, although the GOP is increasingly divided between an establishment wing and the far right.

Idaho was the last North American area on which European fur traders set eyes. Then in the 1840s, New England Yankees led by ministers made their way west on the Oregon Trail through southern Idaho. The state's northern panhandle, an extension of Washington's Columbia River Valley, was first settled by miners seeking gold and silver, then by loggers seeking timber. Mormons moving north from Utah settled in the eastern part of the state, while Basque immigrants and their descendants made a significant impact on Idaho and its politics. Federal water reclamation projects first authorized in 1894 attracted the most settlers; inexpensive hydroelectric power has historically supplied between 60 percent and 80 percent of the state's electricity needs. Idaho Power has said it will use fully clean sources of energy by 2045, thanks in part to its 17 Snake River hydroelectric plants. Wind power currently accounts for about 16 percent of the state's electricity generation.

This infrastructure transformed the barren Snake River Valley into some of the nation's best volcanic, soil-enriched farmland, which along with warm days and cool nights proved ideal for the Burbank russet potato and, more recently, for a fledgling wine industry. The number of wineries in the state has increased from 40 to 70 in just over a decade, and the website Vine Pair reported that Idahoans consume twice as much wine per capita as Californians do. Today, Idaho ranks fifth in the nation for the percentage of state gross domestic product coming from agriculture, and even adjusting for inflation, total receipts from Idaho farms have grown by 57 percent since 1997, compared with 35 percent for the nation as a whole. Idaho ranks first nationally in potatoes and barley and second in sugar beets and hops, the latter contributing to a thriving microbrewery industry. Today, sales by the state's dairy industry are more than three times as large as that for potatoes; Chobani has a large yogurt plant in Twin Falls that has been a major driver of economic growth in south-central Idaho.

The state is big: The town of Montpelier in the southeast is closer to Farmington, New Mexico, than to Bonners Ferry in the northern panhandle. And the wilderness is never far away. Towering over the state capitol in Boise is the vast peak of Shafer Butte. Not far away are the sharp peaks and broad valleys of the Sawtooth range; the impassable mountains of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the largest U.S. wilderness area outside Alaska; and the 425 miles of the Salmon River. Having so much wilderness comes with a downside; according to the EPA, nearly 1 percent of the land in Idaho on average has burned annually since 1984, a pattern that is projected to worsen in the coming years. Wildfires have contributed to poor air quality. In 2022, three Idaho areas—Boise, plus the regions in Idaho adjoining Logan Utah, and Spokane Washington—ranked in the American Lung Association's list of top 25 nationally for short-term particle pollution. Meanwhile, a drought in 2021 led to a national shortage of potatoes the following year. In 1953, an eighth-grade dropout named J.R. Simplot perfected the process of freezing French fries; with a handshake, he sealed a contract with a little restaurant chain called McDonald's and was on his way to becoming the biggest potato processor in the world, and a billionaire. In the 1970s, Simplot was the primary financier of a startup called Micron Technology, which, along with Hewlett-Packard, spawned a booming high-tech sector in the state. In recent years, Idaho has been at or near the top of state rankings for patents per capita. It's a tradition that reaches back into the early years of the 20th century, when a Mormon farm boy from Rigby named Philo T. Farnsworth came up with many of the concepts that laid the basis for the invention of television. The value of Idaho's electronic-component exports now exceeds the value of its potato exports, trading one type of chip for another. The Idaho National Laboratory in the eastern part of the state is one of the nation's major hubs for nuclear, cyber security and critical infrastructure research.

The combination of technology jobs and natural beauty has driven the state's population growth. Idaho led the country in the percentage of population growth for each of the five years ending in 2021, falling to No. 2 behind Florida in 2022. If such growth continues, Idaho could gain a third House seat after the 2030 Census, an increase it hasn't seen in over a century. Today, 42 percent of Idahoans live in the Treasure Valley around Boise; Ada County, which includes Boise, grew by 30 percent between 2010 and 2021, fueled by such amenities as the 200-mile-long Ridge to Rivers trail system. Between 2020 and 2021, three suburbs of Boise -- Meridian, Caldwell, and Nampa -- ranked among the country's top 15 fastest-growing cities or towns. Other areas have grown too, especially those attracting a wealthy clientele: Blaine County, which includes the resort of Sun Valley, has grown by 16 percent since 2010, and Teton County, a bedroom community for pricey Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has grown by 21 percent over the same period. In fast-growing areas, traffic and high housing prices have followed the brewpubs and farm-to-table restaurants. But most of Idaho's counties have seen little population change in the past half-century. "All that massive growth you've heard about in Idaho has happened in the space of only a few hundred square miles, a tiny sliver of the state," longtime political observer Randy Stapilus has noted. The number of Hispanic residents in Idaho grew by 47 percent between 2010 and 2022, about double the rate of growth for the state overall. Idaho has welcomed not only Americans from other states but those from abroad, including refugees. The state has absorbed more than 20,000 refugees since the 1970s, mostly in Boise and Twin Falls—first Vietnamese and Cambodians, then Bosnians, and more recently refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Congo, Eritrea, Nepal and Iran. In Twin Falls, just 17 miles from a World War II internment camp for Japanese Americans, this has periodically spawned controversy. But an anti-refugee ballot measure proposal in 2016 failed to secure enough signatures, despite fake Russiancontrolled Facebook accounts trying to stir up an anti-refugee rally. The Mormon population may be a reason for the state's tolerant streak, due to its international missionary outreach: Idaho has the second highest percentage of Mormons of any state.

In its early years as a silver-producing state, Idaho backed populism and opposed the gold standard; from statehood up to 1990, the state cycled between periods of Republican dominance and partisan competitiveness. It elected prominent national Democrats such as Sen. Frank Church, an intelligence watchdog and 1976 presidential candidate, and Gov. Cecil Andrus, Jimmy Carter's Interior secretary. But since 1990, Idaho has become staunchly Republican: Since 1964, no Democratic presidential nominee has won more than 37 percent of the vote. Idahoans like to see themselves as pioneering entrepreneurs who, rather than seek federal help, want to get a bloated, bossy federal government off their backs. The U.S. government owns 63 percent of Idaho's land, and many Idahoans strongly oppose federal policies that limit road building and grazing on public lands, and they don't like the idea of breaching Snake River dams to protect salmon (in the process, depriving potato farmers of water). Idaho has elected only Republicans to the governorship since 1994 and to the Senate since 1978. With one exception in 2008, the GOP has won every election for Idaho's two House seats since 1994.

The city of Boise has become solidly blue. Its state legislators are all Democratic and they tend to win in landslides, but step a mile outside city limits and the political tenor changes. Influxes of upscale professionals and minorities have been balanced by the migration
of retirees, as well as more conservative engineers and entrepreneurs who have come from California and other states for a fresh environment and a fresh start—and fewer cumbersome or expensive regulations. Meanwhile, rural Idaho, amid population stagnation, has become redder than ever. The coronavirus pandemic exacerbated fault lines in the state, as a vocal
segment of rural conservatives rebelled against public-health restrictions imposed by the more pragmatic Republican governor, Brad Little. Chuck Malloy, a Republican strategist-turned-columnist, told Politico that "Idaho is a two-party state: The Republican Party and the More Republican Party." The latter has an ideological enforcer, the Idaho Freedom Foundation, and has sometimes made common cause with the John Birch Society, which won a unanimous endorsement from the Republican central committee of Kootenai County, which includes Coeur d'Alene in the far northern part of the state. Then-Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, who
unsuccessfully challenged Little from the right in the 2022 gubernatorial primary, posed with members of the Three Percenters militia and made a video address to the America First Political Action Conference, organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Some activists mounted armed protests at the offices and homes of local officials.The GOP's internal divisions played out in primaries in 2022. Mostly, establishment Republicans prevailed. In the gubernatorial primary, Little defeated McGeachin, 53%-32%, while Rep. Mike Simpson defeated Idaho Freedom Foundation board member Bryan Smith, 55%-37%. In the race to succeed McGeachin as lieutenant governor, longtime state House speaker Scott Bedke defeated state Rep. Priscilla Giddings, who was censured after disclosing the identity of an intern who accused a lawmaker of rape. In the race for secretary of state, Ada County Clerk Phil McGrane, the establishment candidate, held off Trump-aligned state Rep. Dorothy Moon. The main victory for the insurgent wing came in the attorney general race, where former Rep. Raul Labrador ousted longtime incumbent Lawrence Wasden in a three-way GOP primary. The right wing of the party has also amassed power in state and local party organizations, and in the state legislature. But regardless of which wing of the party their nominees came from, the Republicans swept every general election in 2022: The highest percentage any Democrat won was Labrador's opponent, former Gem County prosecutor Tom Arkoosh, with a mere 37 percent.
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Despite facing continued attacks from the right wing of his party against his pragmatic approach as governor, Brad Little won a hotly contested Republican primary in 2022, followed by an overwhelming victory in November, securing a second term.

Little is a third-generation Idahoan whose grandfather emigrated from Scotland in 1894 and established a sheep operation that spanned much of southwest Idaho; he became "Idaho's Sheep King," and it wasn't an exaggeration. His son carried on the business, and his grandson worked on the ranch while growing up and after graduating from the University of Idaho in 1977. Little served as president of the Idaho Wool Growers Association, chaired two committees of the American Sheep Industry Association, and chaired the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry. But the family eventually sold the sheep operation and moved into the cattle business. They also opened some of their land as an off-road vehicle park.

The family's second business was politics. Little's father served in the state legislature and was a Republican National Committee member; as a youngster, Little helped his father campaign for Barry Goldwater in 1964. Four years later, he sat next to Ronald Reagan at the Republican National Convention. In 1972, Little became a delegate himself. In 2001, GOP Gov. Dirk Kempthorne appointed Little to a vacant state Senate seat, and he proceeded to win election four times. Then, in 2009, Little was appointed to the vacant lieutenant governorship and won the seat on his own in 2010 and 2014. When three-term Republican Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter announced he would not be running again, Little jumped in and received Otter's endorsement.

Little was the establishment favorite, focusing on traditional Republican priorities such as low taxes and limited spending, but he faced two other major candidates in the freespending, attack-ad-saturated 2018 primary: Rep. Raul Labrador, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, and Tommy Ahlquist, a developer running as an outsider. Little got 38 percent, followed by Labrador with 33 percent and Ahlquist with 27 percent. Meanwhile, Idaho Democrats had a competitive primary between Paulette Jordan, a former state House member and former Coeur d'Alene Tribal Council official, and A.J. Balukoff, a businessman, Boise school board member and former gubernatorial candidate. Most Democratic officials backed Balukoff, a moderate, but Jordan ran an insurgent campaign—and a progressive one —that attracted attention and small-dollar donations from across the country. When the dust settled, Jordan defeated Balukoff, 58%-40%. Little ran a largely orthodox Republican campaign, though he supported teacher pay raises and Idaho's version of the Common Core curriculum, while opposing efforts to implement school choice. While Little had been critical of the Affordable Care Act, he said during
the campaign that he would respect the results of a ballot measure to implement Medicaid expansion under that law; the ballot measure passed with greater than 60 percent of the vote. Despite the energy behind Jordan's gubernatorial bid in some quarters, some moderate Democratic voters abandoned her for Little. The Republican won, 60%-38%.

In his first year in office, Little expressed discomfort with some of the provisions of legislation to implement the Medicaid expansion, including a work requirement, but he ultimately signed them into law. Little signed a bill expanding concealed carry to 18- to 20-year-olds in cities. Liberals were pleased by Little's renewal of the state's commitment to accept refugees, acknowledgement that climate change needed to be addressed, and recognition of Indigenous People's Day on what had been Columbus Day. And in 2020, Little signed legislation to raise starting pay for teachers. But Little spurned opposition from major Idaho employers—including Chobani, Clif Bar, HP and Micron—when he signed one bill that would ban transgender girls and women from female sports teams in the state, and another that would effectively prevent residents from changing their gender on birth certificates. Within months, a federal court voided the birth certificate bill.

After the coronavirus hit, Little imposed a variety of restrictions on public gatherings. In April 2021, the legislature failed to override Little's veto of a bill that would have curbed the emergency powers he had used during the pandemic. His actions put him on a collision course
with the most conservative Idahoans, including Ammon Bundy, who had once taken over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon for 41 days, and Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, who was elected separately. In May 2021, McGeachin claimed her own authority to reshape policy when Little left the state, issuing in his absence an executive order that banned mask mandates. Little rescinded the order on his return, but McGeachin tried again in October with orders barring mandatory vaccination and coronavirus testing. He rescinded these as well. Such efforts fed McGeachin's primary challenge, which received former President Donald Trump's imprimatur
in November 2021, when he called her "a true supporter of MAGA since the very beginning."

As Little looked ahead to his reelection, his agenda was plenty conservative. He signed the state's largest-ever tax cut, as well as both an abortion ban "trigger" law, in the event that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and a separate bill modeled on one enacted in Texas by which ordinary citizens could sue to enforce a ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. The trigger law took effect when the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision in the summer of 2022, though it faced continuing legal challenges. Chobani, a major employer in the state, responded by saying it would reimburse employees who travel out of state for an abortion (or for a wide range of treatments, such as cancer or organ transplants). Little also signed a bill that allocated hundreds of millions of dollars for roads, bridges, and other infrastructure, and he vetoed a measure that would have banned businesses from requiring coronavirus vaccines, citing "government overreach into the private sector." The legislature failed to override his veto.

The primary drew national attention. In addition to receiving the Trump endorsement, McGeachin established a task force to "examine indoctrination in Idaho education" and mingled with members of the Three Percenter militia. But Little easily outraised her, and not
even the Idaho GOP primary electorate was prepared to select her vision over Little's more pragmatic conservatism: He won almost 53 percent of the vote, well ahead of McGeachin's 32 percent and smaller totals from a few other candidates. Little notched an even more impressive victory in the three-way general election, taking almost 61 percent to 20 percent for Democrat Stephen Heidt and 17 percent for Bundy, who was running as an independent. After losing four counties in his 2018 run, Little lost only one in 2022 -- Blaine County (Sun Valley), which accounted for less than 2 percent of the statewide vote. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of Democratic votes for governor plunged from 231,081 to 120,160. In all, the outcome ratified both Idaho's continued status as a Republican state and Little's more mainstream approach.

In April 2023, Little signed a bill that banned gender-affirming care to transgender minors and another bill that banned minors from traveling out of state for abortions without parental consent and that also criminalized adults helping procure an abortion-inducing drug without parental consent.

The campaign against Little

Gov. Brad Little, who by his admission is not known for his great oratory skills, must be feeling good about the quality of his State of the State address that he delivered to kick off this legislative session. In fact, better than normal.

Mind you, there was nothing spectacular about the speech. There were lots of platitudes, and not many specifics on his overall agenda. His speech will be long forgotten as legislators dive into the details and begin looking at other side issues.

The Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Wayne Hoffman wasted no time attacking the speech. “My advice to lawmakers is to ignore everything Gov. Little said. Every last word,” Hoffman said. “This was arguably the worst speech I’ve ever heard an Idaho governor give.”

To Little, that’s a signal that his speech could go down in history as one of the best. If Hoffman had his way, there would be no government funding for public education – and Little was nowhere close to that mark.

The governor’s speech also was panned by the Idaho Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Heather Scott of Blanchard and Sen. Tammy Nichols of Middleton – two of Hoffman’s best friends in the Legislature. They were “dismayed” with the speech. “What Idaho needs is more Ron DeSantis, less Gavin Newsom.”

Little will treat that criticism, along with their rants on the Legislature’s floors, with the seriousness of a fly on the wall. They will be ignored.

But the governor, perhaps to his delight, received a bonus “rebuke” from another leading Hoffman ally, Idaho Republican Party Chair Dorothy Moon. Her vision appears to be turning the state party from being a cheerleader for Republicans to a policy enforcer.

“While the governor is right to emphasize education as a pathway to economic prosperity, his embrace of teacher’s union policy objectives – including a vast increase in spending without increased accountability metrics – is deeply disappointing,” Moon said. “Our concern is not about being seen to rebuke Idaho’s Republican governor, but rather to stand with the people of Idaho, who have made it clear that they want policies consistent with conservative principle.”

So, this is what we are going to get for the next four years. Little spent most of his first term doing battle, and eventually, ignoring Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin. Now, it appears that Little will spend the next four years at war with the Idaho Republican Party.

We should have seen it coming.

Don’t expect Little to do anything other than brush aside the likes of Moon, Hoffman and McGeachin. To some of the “mainstream” Republicans I talk to, these are the true RINOs – people who claim to be Republicans, but are philosophically closer to the Libertarian Party, or the John Birch Society.

The group has managed to take over the state party and many of the county central committees, but they are a long way of capturing everything. Little easily defeated McGeachin in the last primary election, even though she was endorsed by former President Trump. Debbie Critchfield, Idaho’s new superintendent of public instruction – and a Little ally – defeated the freedom foundation’s golden boy, Branden Durst. Lt. Gov. Scott Bedke, who promised to bring sanity to the office, defeated Rep. Priscilla Giddings, another Libertarian/Republican. Then, there was Phil McGrane taking out Moon in the race for secretary of state.

The state party has a proposed rule change that would allow the state central committee the authority to call Idaho’s U.S. senators, representatives or state officials to a “meeting” about their “conduct.” Penalties could range from a censorship (on the first offense) to barring candidates from using the Republican label for five years.

Good luck with calling Gov. Little on the carpet. He has no reason to care what these RINOs do. If they want to remove him from the party, they might as well boot out Critchfield and Bedke while they’re at it.

Critchfield praised the governor, saying his agenda for education lines up with hers. Bedke has made it clear that he will not turn his office into a right-wing circus when the governor does business out of the state. To Moon’s central committee, those could be grounds for censorship, if not outright expulsion from the GOP.

If you thought that the political campaigns were over, think again. It’s going to be a rocky ride for Little, Critchfield and Bedke over the next four years.

Chuck Malloy is a long-time Idaho journalist and columnist. He may be reached at ctmalloy@outlook.com

The Jekyll/Hyde party

jones

The serious split in the personality of the present-day GOP in Idaho was demonstrated in two articles that recently appeared in the media.

The Kootenai County Republican Central Committee (KCRCC), savoring its evil Mr. Hyde persona, announced on December 8 that U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) would keynote its Lincoln Day Dinner in February. The very next day, Rep. Mike Simpson evoked the good Dr. Jekyll when explaining his vote for the Respect for Marriage Act.

The idea that the KCRCC would so horrendously insult the legacy of the father of the Republican Party by inviting his exact opposite to speak at an event bearing his name is hard to fathom. Where Abe Lincoln stood tall for unity, dignity and American values, Rep. Greene stands for insurrection, white nationalism and QAnon conspiracies. She will bring disgrace to the Gem State by her very presence, but she will be among kindred spirits at the Coeur d’Alene event.

The KCRCC, which is commanded by John Birchers and Idaho Freedom Foundation functionaries, speaks for a significant, but extremely vocal, minority of today’s Republican faithful. It carries great weight in the area, whether working to destroy North Idaho College, hamstring primary and secondary education or create havoc with fake culture war issues. It and its counterparts across the State have managed to capture an outsized share of the Party apparatus and they are intent on total control.

Mike Simpson is representative of the other branch of the Party, someone who rose through the ranks of the GOP as a pragmatist with traditional Republican values but the ability to work across the aisle. I met Mike in 1984, when I was Attorney General and he was running for the Idaho Legislature. Governor John Evans and I were working furiously that year to help elect legislators in our respective parties who would support our joint effort to keep Idaho Power from controlling the Snake River. I supported Mike because he was favorable to that cause. He proved to be an exceptional legislator.

Mike was elected to Congress in 1998 and has been the only member of Idaho’s Congressional delegation to actually be a leader–to stick his head out from time to time when he feels strongly about an issue. He worked hard to establish the Cecil D. Andrus-White Clouds Wilderness, despite strong opposition from many in the GOP. He proposed a bold plan to save Idaho’s anadromous fish runs, despite vociferous, but false, claims that it would harm Idaho’s water interests. He voted to certify President Biden’s election, but it should be mentioned that both Idaho Senators did likewise. And, he was the only one in the delegation to support the Respect for Marriage Act.

On the other hand, he has made some infuriating votes and uttered some indefensible words, particularly during the Trump era. Still, if Idaho can look to anyone in the delegation to help lead the Republican Party back to a position of responsibility in the State–to play the good Dr. Jekyll role– he is the best bet in the delegation. Here at home, Governor Brad Little is the one we must look to in resisting the destructive Mr. Hyde role being played in Idaho politics by the likes of KCRCC and its counterparts across the Gem State. He has good instincts but needs to speak and act more firmly.

There is a civil war currently going on for the soul of the Republican Party in the State of Idaho and it will take strong leadership from both state and federal officeholders for the Dr. Jekyll side to prevail over the Mr. Hyde troublemakers. Idahoans should encourage Little and Simpson to speak out more forcefully for what is right and take the necessary action to accomplish it in order to make Idaho a true Gem of the United States.