Life in a managed democracy.
In America, today, democracy is an illusion.
The dream of our founding fathers of a representative republic, governed by people from all walks of life, for short spurts, representing the interests of the public against the manipulations of the powerful interests, has gone the way of the outhouse.
Instead our politicians are in it for the long game, they’re usually lawyers, and are utterly contemptuous of the idea of term limits. The longer they’re in office, the more desperate their grip on it; the more divorced from the realities of the common folk they become.
Just try to imagine a lifelong politician like Joe Biden doing something so earthy and fundamental as changing a flat tire, or fixing a broken toilet part. It cannot be done! You simply cannot imagine it because these people become like royalty, too posh and pampered to ever get their hands dirty.
In many ways, particularly in the higher stakes, we don’t have elections, we have selections. More on this later.
In this regard, South Dakota is no different than the rest of our country. All three of our federal representatives are lifers, uncharitably known as “swamp rats” by those who follow politics. Unless you are one who craves access to power, that is. Most of the people in Thune, Rounds & Dusty Johnson’s daily orbit are such people. I daresay that when these three worthies find themselves “back home” amongst us rubes in the Heartland, they are completely surrounded at all times by a cast of characters consisting of hero-worshipers, petitioners, glad-handlers, sycophants, servants and strivers.
I’ll leave it to you, dear reader, to decide where SD GOP Chairman John Wiik lands in that list, but land there he does. Mr. Wiik definitely is looking out for the political machine, the status quo, the Regime. Not so much for the interests of us lowly tax payers. We don’t rank too highly in the plans of our overlords.
“Hold on there, son!”, you may be thinking, “Anyone can run for office and make a difference”. This is true of course, technically. Technically, any one of us citizens can enter the political arena, garner support and pursue election. And this is exactly what a regular joe from West River by the name of Justin McNeal thought just a few short months ago. Justin, like many powerless South Dakotans, has become very disillusioned with our lone representative, by the name of Howdy Doody I mean Dusty Johnson. Like our two senators, Dusty has become the archetypal DC Swamp Creature, bringing enough pork back to the right kind of favored people in South Dakota (donors), while satisfying his commitment to the Donor Class at the national level to such an extent that his campaign war chest now sits at over four million dollars. One wonders why he needs so much money, and what is he doing with it all?
Three things Dusty seems to love more than his constituents:
- Money
- Power
- Sending money to Ukraine
Anyway, our hero in this story -Justin- is just a normal guy, not a professional politician; a Navy veteran who spent time on a nuclear submarine, above average intelligence, and has enjoyed some success in the business world. He had the audacity to think “Why not me?”, and then go out and make it happen.
Well, let me tell you the power structure in the GOP was not too excited about this newcomer, no not one bit. I mean, if he were to come out of nowhere, without licking any boots, going through any of the normal rituals it takes to get to the top of the heap, and oust our man Dusty, then what next!? The rubes will start thinking they can get involved at all levels of politics and actually have some input. Egads!
This cannot be allowed to happen!
And so it wasn’t.
Despite McNeal submitting 2,707 signatures, which is 536 above the required minimum, he somehow came short by 38, due to party affiliation adjustments made by the GOP.
I say somehow, because it appears that someone – we’ll never know who obviously- may have pulled some shady maneuver during the two months of the petition gathering that magically erased over 500 hundred of McNeal’s signers. Poof, I guess they weren’t “registered Republicans” after all.
But this setback did not deter McNeal in his quest. Instead, with the backing of a significant percentage of his fellow citizens, he decided to run against Dusty as an Independent.
Enter Senator John Wiik.
In the wildly successful John Wick movie series, the hero is required at pivotal moments to repeat this mantra “I have served. I will be of service”.
Here in SD, our own man-of-action John Wiik appears to be of service to someone – hmmm who could it be? – with his most recent attempts to thwart the budding McNeal campaign. I have confirmed with Tony Mangan, Communications Director with the SD Attorney General’s Office, that Senator Wiik has filed a complaint alleging Class 6 Felony voter fraud against Justin McNeal. I have reached out to Senator Wiik several times, but he chooses to ignore my emails. That’s okay John. Your silence speaks loud and clear.
For his part, Mr. McNeal says that all he knows about these allegations are “hearsay”, as “he has not been afforded a copy of the complaint or the charges”; while he “welcomes the opportunity to face his accuser”. In a letter from Wiik to party officials on April 11, John used his position as Party Chairman to tell members to resign their position if they support Justin, while claiming that has “nothing personal against” McNeal; but his actions makes me wonder if Justin stole his classic muscle car, then killed his puppy.
To some political observers, what Wiik seems to be engaging in is a relatively novel political tactic called “Lawfare”. For those unfamiliar, Wikipedia defines it thusly: “Lawfare is the use of legal systems and institutions to damage or delegitimize an opponent, or to deter an individual’s usage of their legal rights.” We have been and are currently seeing this tactic played out on many fronts on the biggest of political stages against former President Trump. The particular details of these many Lawfare suits against Trump do not matter at this point of the conversation. What is important is to acknowledge that what we are witnessing has never been done before: state and county level bureaucrats are being weaponized to harangue and hinder non-Regime approved candidates for election, so that We the People cannot be allowed to vote for them.
Selection, not election.
The only question I have in this case is who does John Wiik serve, the voters or someone up the political food chain?
And it’s also no secret that the Republican party apparatchiks in South Dakota are not above interfering with and hamstringing candidates that they don’t approve of. Two years ago Steve Haugaard entered the primary race against Governor Noem. Haugaard, a well-respected lawyer, representative and South Dakota constitutional law expert, told me personally that the state GOP did everything in their power to prevent an actual competition between him and Kristi Noem, including freezing him out of party get-togethers and fundraisers.
Kristi was selected for the Republican voters, while Steve was shadowbanned. We voters never really had a choice in the matter.
The Democrat Party pulled the same shenanigans on Bernie in 2016.
Now Justin McNeal is getting the same treatment, but worse. A felony charge! Time will tell what Marty Jackley does with that one.
At the national level, we really don’t have two separate parties battling out their ideals. In reality we have the Uniparty, or what Gore Vidal called the “Money Party”. Just last week the Money party that runs Congress joined together to send another $60 BILLION to Ukraine, all while waving tiny Ukraine flags as some sort of surreal ritual. Our country is over $30 TRILLION in debt, and yet these clowns continue to finance an unwinnable war that is literally destroying the country we are purportedly helping? And I don’t want to hear the propaganda “we’ve got to stop Putin!” when our own government has refused to pursue a peace deal in any meaningful way. We see through the propaganda.
It has become painfully obvious to many Americans, and nearly every South Dakota citizen that I speak to, that our politicians have been lying to us about so many important things that matter, and we’re just not going to ignore it anymore. We’re awake, paying attention and running for office.
Deal with it.
