The semi-annual Idaho Republican Party Central Committee will convene in Pocatello the weekend of June 20-21. Following a recent “trend,” the topic will not be “How to grow the Party.” Instead, it appears to be “How to whittle the Party down to only the purest compliers with Republican orthodoxy.”
The obvious question is “Who defines orthodoxy?” Just asking that question will make you very unpopular. The answer is also obvious, but no one dares say it out loud. The callers for purity imply “as defined by me.”
As a conservative within the GOP, “purity” is usually at odds with “freedom.” Valuing freedom over conformity means “purity” is only virtuous if achieved through conversation, reasoning, persuasion and free will. Removing all who disagree from the room just makes shared values harder to find.
Predictably, the fight over purity now divides the very base of current GOP Chair Dorothy Moon. This upcoming meeting of the State Central Committee will consider a number of rules forming inquisition panels to excommunicate (i.e. forcibly un-affiliate so they can’t vote in Republican primaries) those deemed “violators” of Republican “principles and policies.”
For instance, those seeking an Article V Constitutional amendment imposing a balanced budget, term limits and greater delineation between federal and state regulatory authority, are branded “enemies of the Constitution” by John Birchers. A “Bircher-controlled” panel may excommunicate them, not for any policy preference, but for their method to achieve it.
Most interesting is a proposed Republican rule coming out of Ada County that would excommunicate anyone “displaying support via social media, yard signs, or actively campaigning for a non-Republican candidate in a partisan General Election race that includes a Republican candidate in the race.”
This is a direct swipe at the sizable portion of Chairwoman Moon’s base who backed Gubernatorial candidate Ammon Bundy against the Republican-nominated Brad Little. The current Chair of the Ada Republican Party was a Bundy endorser, and his vice-chair took an obnoxiously loud (albeit ineffective) position backing a non-Republican in the Ada County Sheriff’s race.
Some of Moon’s own supporters now ask, “Why did we co-opt a Party only to oppose that Party’s candidates?”
While sympathetic to the concern, their remedy gags me. Should a Party monitor my social media to ensure that I don’t say something nice about a non-Republican? If I do, should I give up my ability to vote in the Republican primary.
In my home county the Republican primary is where decisions are made. Disenfranchisement from that vote is a penalty we would otherwise only impose on a convicted felon.
Would a decision to support Ron Paul over George Bush Sr. or Michael Dukakis be a felony abandonment of Republican principles? I could easily argue the opposite.
A low point in Idaho Republican politics occurred at the last Central Committee Meeting held in Boise. A hard-working locally-elected Precinct leader from Madison county was castigated and “censured” for disagreeing with Bryan Smith and Dorothy Moon on the “Open Primaries Initiative.”
I actually joined Smith and Moon advocating a “no” vote on that initiative (although not for the reasons they usually gave). But I was fully prepared to argue against the censure. Freedom of conscience is far more precious than “favorable election platform.”
In the end, however, I was unable to join the debate. My car’s rear tires were “kick-jack” punctured, both unrepairable, and I had only one spare. Instead of persuading my fellow Republicans to stand for freedom of conscience, I was forced to spend the morning fixing my vehicle to make the return to Soda Springs.
I find Ammon Bundy a charlatan and fraud, and held that view even before he blocked a hospital emergency room, was found by a jury of peers to be liable for damage and jeopardizing lives, and then skipped the state to avoid paying the judgement against him.
But if my only alternative is to have a political party monitor my social media for strict subservience to only party-endorsed politicians... I’ll sit in a room with Bundy supporters every time.
Trent Clark of Soda Springs has served in the leadership of Idaho business, politics, workforce, and humanities education.
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