CROSSROADS
We have a BIG decision to make on June 2
A little over a year ago, I wrote a piece (click here All Aboard the Patriot Train ) calling all SD conservatives to get on board the Hansen/Lems governor campaign. At that time, I knew that Toby Doeden was doing some groundwork, using some [questionable] political operatives to drum up support for his own impending campaign, real stealth-like. I used my platform to attempt to dissuade the Toby campaign, yes even using ridicule & A.I. memes along the way.
At the time, I was very concerned that having two conservative dissidents in the race would merely split us all up into 2 distinct groups, paving the way for DIRTY DC Dusty, which it is widely believed would be a generational disaster for many aspects of our freedom-loving, small-government, low-tax state.
Once again, I am disappointed in being so right in my Chicken Little doom predicting. And while I wasn’t the only one with this fearful premonition, no one seemed to have a solution to prevent the scenario that we have been dumped into right now. Still, in fact, no one does. Over the past year, I’ve had many conversations with supporters in both camps, people I consider political friends & whom I respect. A few weeks ago, I experienced a compulsion to attempt to unite the 2 strong-willed candidates in a Lord of the Rings style epic battle against the dark intentions of Mordor. Quickly I realized that my idea was harebrained (not the first!), because neither of the two were willing to step aside, after so much time & treasure have been extended, which is understandable I guess.
But what about sacrificing for the greater good of our state? Isn’t anyone absolutely mortified by the notion of a Governor Dusty sitting on his booster seat, feet swinging, signing away our grandkids’ future to the Globalist Cabal? Of course the grassroots is mortified. If you think Eminent Domain abuse, government bloat, G.E.D. scams & straight up selling us all down the river to Blackrock/Bill Gates/Vanguard are bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
One thing we know for certain, is that when we send a fellow South Dakotan to “represent us” in DC, they come back a different person. They get the MRNA Swamp shot, & their past self is discarded like a Halloween costume. They have that gleaming in their eye, like a finely-tuned A.I. bot in a fleshsuit.
Sorry for serving up the Doom Juice this fine spring morning, but you all know it’s true. I know you know because many of you tell me so. Sometimes I feel like the Dr. Ruth of WHATTHEHELLISGOINGONINSOUTHDAKOTA!? Which is actually pretty cool. I’ve met so many like-mindeds in the past 3 years, oftentimes by a DM, and I consider every one to be a blessing. Every single one.
Even Mike Zitterich, who is my special friend. And by special I mean ‘s p e c i a l’.
Speaking of looney Mike’s, can someone do a well-check on Mike Austad please.
For the uninitiated, Mike Zitterich is the Mike Austad of Shad Olsons.
Speaking of the BullMikes, one of my major trepidations about the Toby campaign, to this day, is the caliber of some of his supporters. I and many others have been viscously attacked by the 3 men mentioned above, attacked harder than any Democrat or RINO has ever come at me. We’ve been called “witches”, “Neocons” & “booger eaters”, among other slurs. All for the crime of publicly supporting those extreme Leftists Jon & Karla. That’s weird, right? It really makes one wonder what is motivating these people to such vitriol. Money, competitiveness, or something darker? I can’t figure it out. I mean, fine, you prefer Toby over Jon, let’s not get all emotional about it.
I have struggled to wrap my head around the stark differences of opinions expressed by people in both camps who would otherwise agree on 90% of modern political issues. And I don't mean just a few fringe characters, although those individuals can set the narrative of the day on social media. Person A posts something spicy about Toby in a political Facebook group which draws out his supporters to do battle, which goes on for a day or two with no one's mind changed whatsoever. Facebook can be a gathering place for idea-sharing, conversing with friends, meeting new like-mindeds, event planning, influencing, arguing and propaganda spreading. I've found that it's not a healthy environment for deep, thoughtful and civil debates. Snarky mind-reading and motive-assuming is the preferred method of interaction, particularly between complete strangers. Our collective post-covid PTSD has left us with an endless appetite for conspiracies, and eviserated our capacity to take things at face value. We've evolved from distrusting Leftists to RINOs to now everybody. How many times a day do you wonder about someone on social media, even people you know personally in this poltical world, “What are they hiding?”. People that you've worked with in the past on specific issues or campaigns, people you used to like and respect, people that you used to consider “allies". Suspicion is like adrenaline- it's only meant for Fight-or-Flight situations. Microdosing on skepticism will rewire our brains, and probably already has, for those of us post-Normies. David Hume wrote on excessive skepticism back in the 1700's:
“Excessive/Pyrrhonian skepticism: This is radical doubt that questions everything — including the reliability of our senses, reason, and even everyday beliefs. Hume argued this is psychologically unsustainable and practically unlivable. It leads to paralysis because you can't function if you doubt basic causation, the external world, or the self in daily life” (Grok)
This phenomenon, I believe, is what undergirds the deep divide in the Hansen-Doeden camps. I may have participated in some of these unhelpful endeavors, surely I have, in the impossible quest for “the Truth" behind all of these Current Things that the algorithms serve up into our hands and eyeballs. A friend of mine went from questioning Charlie Kirk's murder to thinking that fast-food restaurants are using human meat instead of beef. I mean think about it, how could there be enough cows to make 137 million hamburgers EVERY SINGLE DAY in America?
Skepticism has become our Operating System.
So here we are, 3 weeks out from DDay, and things are getting pretty spicy in the attack ads. I personally stepped back from fighting over this race last summer, as I didn’t want to add to the division that was already becoming a serious problem. I have even had some positive dialog with Toby the past few months, which I appreciated. Because my objectives are to save SD, not fight personal battles with fellow dissidents. If your enemy is the Establishment, then we are brothers, or sisters or whatever.
We are Allies.
Reminder, in politics, there are 3 categories to help organize all the different people you will interact with:
Allies
Co-belligerents (people you sometimes join with to battle a foe-in-common)
Enemies
So I’ve always thought of Toby as a co-belligerent, could I be convinced to think of him as an ally? Could I allow the massive disappointment of the Sept 12 MegaPrison vote, where we witnessed several of Jon Hansen’s legislator bro’s inexplicably go against Jon’s (and mine) apparent desire for a No vote in what looked like outright mutiny, to change my allegiance? After all, Toby’s Endorsers all (except for Tamera, don’t think I’ve forgotten Tammy I will never forget, at least until I get dementia) voted No, sensibly. So he, at least, seemed to have exerted some much-needed discipline on his peeps, whereas Team Hansen was in every-man-for-himself mode, which sucked to watch. I mean, we had ALL THE LEVERAGE over the Establishment, and some rogue conservatives just…gave it away in exchange for Big Beautiful Prison boondoggle.
I never wanna hear “kick the can down the road” ever again.
Objectively, this was the lowest point of the governor race. I’m still flummoxed about it, as are many others. I still look side-eye at our so-called homies who fell for Rhoden’s dog & pony show. Incredibly, it’s been 8 months & it feels like yesterday. Maybe that’s due to absolutely none of the Yes voters showing any remorse. I guess being a politician means never having to say you’re sorry. In a lotta ways, politicians are like teenagers. Everything can be going just fine, no drama, you think they’re on the same page as you, and then for no particular reason they decide to drive the car you bought them into a ditch on a random Tuesday night in September. If you’ve ever parented a rebellious teenager, you will be familiar with the desire to trade in your current model for an actual functioning unit.
I’ve gotta be honest here, after the way that whole episode went down I was ready to hang it up, stop Noticing what’s going on in SD politics & go back to being dumb and happy again.
But I wasn’t allowed to, because since September, the Corporatist RINOs all over this state have been going hogwild with hyperscale data centers, TIFs, backroom deals coming to light and straight up cash handouts form the Future Fund & GOED. So as much as I’d love to remove myself from the ickiness of politics, I can’t just sit back and watch our state get pushed further into a Corporatocracy. Yes, some of our conservative homies have placed terrible votes, yes there is much bickering in the roots, but listen do you really want to see the David Kull (self-described “sensible Republican”) fail his way into the Senate? Me neither.
But to you Yes voters who ignored us last September I say this: There may be much worse RINO candidates that are running against you, and we obviously can’t support our own destruction. And so on June 2 we will likely pencil in the oval next to your names. But know that you could have had our support, both financial and otherwise. I personally chose very carefully where I sent campaign contributions. If you voted Yes on the megaprison, you got no checks from me. Voting to spend the largest amount in state history, putting the prison in my town when there were several viable and better options at hand, fulfilling the wishes of all of the Establishment wankers,,, well this type of thing has lasting consequences. The next time something of this magnitude comes in front of you, allow the voices of the grassroots activists who are also very invested in our communities to pierce your bubble of influence. Just because we don’t hold a position in government doesn’t mean we’re to be ignored. You may as well become a TransRepublican if you’re going to tune us out.
To play devil’s advocate, I will now list some of the criticisms I’ve seen leveled at the Hansen/Lems campaign by some of our fellow conservatives:
“ JON’S GOT NO MONEYYY!”
This has been the rallying cry of many of Toby’s supporters, and justly so. You can’t win a modern governor’s race without massive piles of advertising dollars, but you CAN lose it with it, as we shall soon behold. Toby has publicly stated that he is willing to spend up to $7 million to win the race, and well I don’t think Jon has made the same claim. I mean, can you imagine his grocery bills!?
But apparently, through God’s providence and 10,000 hours spent on the campaign bus, crisscrossing this sparsely populated 76,000 square mile prairie, Jon and Karla have made a convincing enough case to the People that they are worthy of investment.
Now, I have no inside information, but I would guess that the bulk of the donations given to the Hansen/Lems campaign are of the small individual kind, thousands & thousands of their fellow citizens chipping in what they afford at the moment. Completely different source of money than the putrid stinking mountain of swamp bucks that Dirty DC Dusty has managed to vacuum up while serving the Donor Class on the East Coast the past 7 years.
“JON’S A CAREER POLITICIAN!”
As for the “career politician” slur, sure I too prefer that our electeds cycle through their roles in government back “down” into the real world of private sector honest living. But what about God’s Sovereignty & Providence? As Christians, we are compelled to pursue only that which glorifies God. Not for our own ambition or glory. So, what if some people only get in, and stay awhile, to the political game because that is exactly where the Lord wants them to be? We must consider such possibilities, less we be guilty of cultivating an excess of cynicism in our souls.
Mark 3:35 — “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
&
Matthew 7:21 — “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
Most of the red-blooded grassroots Patriot candidates that I personally know vocally and unabashedly place themselves and their personal candidacy wholly into the Hand of the Father. They don’t run as a stepping stone to higher office.
I happen to know that both Jon and Karla have similarly proclaimed God’s Will as their driving force in politics. Toby I have heard not whether he runs for God’s glory, or Toby’s. Under God’s will, or Toby’s. I am no mind reader, and it’s impossible to know what’s in someone’s heart. All we can really know about people is what they say, and what they do.
The fruit.
Luke 6:43-45 (NIV): “No good tree bears bad fruit... People do not pick figs from thornbushes... For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”
“JON HAS MADE SOME POOR VOTING DECISIONS!”
Yes, yes, this is most certainly true. When we're talking about 400-600 bills per session, there will be some stinkers in there.
But let's not make Perfect the enemy of Good.
In the interest of fairness, I would like to list some traits about the Doeden campaign that I consider to be genuinely positive. As I mentioned earlier, I have friends in both camps, and I have no interest in demonizing anyone for their sincerely held beliefs, who isn’t a lunatic.
1. HE’S MAD
Mad is good. I’m mad, you’re mad, a lot of patriots are mad and tired of getting the shaft from our elected officials. Whenever I meet a candidate I don’t already know, I ask them “What do you hate/What do you want to change?”. It’s the candidates who merely think they can do a better job manipulating the System that I don’t trust. In some big areas, we need a system overhaul, and MAD is the kind of energy I’m looking for.
2. BIG IDEAS
Toby has put forth some fairly large plans that would, if actually implemented, would be beneficial to SD. DOGE, for example. When I tried to start DOGESD a year ago, I really had no idea how deep the corruption went around here. We need a serious effort to audit “the Books”, & begin the monumental task of building a Wall of Separation between our government & Business interests.
3. BUSINESS ACUMEN
- Running a successful small business is daunting, and after one does it for a few decades you learn a tremendous amount of useful real-world skills about how things actually work. People like Dusty who spend their whole career in politics are insulated from their poor decisions, because their modus operandi is to keep moving on to the next manufactured crisis to “solve”. Everything they do is theoretical.
Before writing this, I reached out to Jon for a quote on what I consider to be THE issue of our day: GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
This is what he sent.
“The original purpose of state economic development efforts was to create an environment where businesses and families could receive limited incentives designed to help create jobs, opportunity, and long-term economic growth–while still succeeding on their own merits.
What we have today in the name of ‘economic development’ is a far cry from that vision. The Governor’s Office of Economic Development, specifically, has become the steward of a taxpayer-backed slush fund where politically connected interests are rewarded without any consideration as to whether or not those benefits are actually helping anyone.
Far too often, state government has forced itself into the marketplace to pick winners and losers, with no transparency or accountability to the people footing the bill. In some past administrations, the winners were political donors.
A Hansen Administration will fundamentally redefine economic development in South Dakota. We will restore transparency, accountability, and public trust to the process. That includes, first and foremost, eliminating the ‘Future Fund’ slush fund until taxpayers can get a full accounting of how their money has been spent, who benefited from it, and whether South Dakotans received anything of value in return.
True economic development in a capitalist system means creating the conditions for freedom and prosperity—low taxes, limited government, reliable infrastructure, strong communities, and policies that allow hardworking people to thrive—not cronyism directed by bureaucrats and big donors.”
Man, that right there makes me happier than a tornado in a trailer park!
And to follow that up, Jon issued a press release yesterday in a savvy political move that claws back some of our confiscated tax money from the completely corrupted Future Fund, which is also a significant signal of his posture in the war against the Corporatocracy.
So, I am hereby making my official endorsement for the Hansen/Lems campaign here to you all, once again. My two requirements for this are such:
1. They understand and are willing to attack the underlying causes leading to our current state of Corporatocracy. This, of course, is in addition to being loyal to the SD Republican platform.
2. They will be open to receiving input from various representatives of the diversified Grassroots Patriots that are substantially engaged in the functions of state’s many apparatus’.
It is my assertion that truly healthy society can only exist in a high trust, transparent symbiosis with the citizenry, showing no preference for moneyed and powerful corporate interests. The granular People who work, live and contribute to this wonderful community we call South Dakota should never be treated as less than the T.Diddy’s, Dykehouses & Broins that control so much industry.
We need leaders who aren’t trying the Play the Game better, but who will Play a different Game.
As a final appeal to unity in our against The Establishment, represented in this fight by Dirt DC Dusty Johnson, I leave you with this timeless lesson from Paul.
So well said there’s nothing left to say but yup.
Well said as usual Chris!