I have decided to run for County Commissioner next year in my hometown. It's a small rural County in Nevada. I've worked for and advised elected officials from state legislators to County Commissioners, Members of Congress and Mayors for years. But I am not sure I will run as a Democrat because of some of the things I've seen coming from some, who I will affectionately call the Purity Patrol. I am not running because I want to make a point, I am running to win. I want to win to make a difference for my community.
And for people like me to make a a difference in elective office, the Purity Patrol needs to understand that rural life is different from urban life. For instance, if you're 30 miles from the nearest cop, you need a gun for your own safety. Feral (er "wild") horses harm range land and the livelihoods of ranchers. And too often the personal agendas of federal bureaucrats carry the day, while the concerns of people who actually live in rural areas are ignored when it comes to the management of public lands.
There are also some opportunities that Donald Trump presents to Democrats in rural America. President Trump's diplomacy by tirade has already made the lives of farmers more difficult. Rural areas in states that have expanded Medicaid have benefited from the Affordable Care Act. And rural college graduates are living with the burden of crippling student loans, which frequently forces them to move to the city where they can find higher paying jobs.
I am (for the moment at least) a registered Democrat because I believe that government can be a positive force that levels the playing between the rich and the poor. If elected, among other things, I would want to use my experience working on rural hospital issues for a Member of Congress to ensure that the local public hospital has the technology it needs to survive and thrive. I would also want to work with law enforcement and medical professionals to address the opiod crisis which is tearing at the fabric of rural society. And I would want to fight the Bureau of Land Management and ensure that people can continue to live (and most importantly work) in rural areas.
Yet for understanding the challenges that face my community, and rural Americans in general face, I have been taunted by the Purity Patrol. To the New York City residents who watched a PBS documentary on wild horses and romanticized about an old west that no longer exists, I'm a horse murderer because I think the Bureau of Land Management should enforce the population limits on feral horses and burros contained in the Wild Horse & Burro Act of 1971. That I think it is a huge problem that these agencies aren't enforcing the law apparently means I should register as a Republican in the minds of some members of the Purity Patrol.
It gets worse. Because I have identified problems that affect white rural residents, and because I'm committed to listening to those people and addressing their problems, some members of the Purity Patrol think I'm a racist. The following Tweet is reflective of the viewpoint of the left fringe of the Democratic Party.
Why, cuz those poor poor ignored white folk who chose to not include themselves feel left out so they need to F*CK us all! F*CK THAT!
I am not going to change my views just to please extremists like the person who tweeted what's quoted above. I believe that guns are a necessity in rural America and I strongly support the 2nd Amendment. I believe that public lands are mismanaged by big city based bureaucrats and that local input into federal land use decisions needs to be given more weight. And I think that feral horses are a burden on all Western rangeland. But on economic issues, especially as they relate to health care and infrastructure funding, I am lined up with the Democratic Party.
But I am not sure if I feel welcome in the Democratic Party anymore. Over the past few years, this demographics is destiny bull has allowed a certain group of very loud extremists (like the author of the tweet above) to crowd out more moderate voices in our party. Ten years ago we had a majority in both houses of Congress built on rural moderates like Health Schulet, John Barrow, Collin Peterson, and Ben Chandler.
A decade later, we have become intolerant of diversity in ideas. By defining diversity solely as skin color, sexual orientation and gender identity, we have crowded out moderate voters in order to please loud, extremist voices. And in so doing, we are crowding rural voters, who don't like Donald Trump but voted for him because he at least pretended to listen to them, out of the party.
This creates a situation where a national DNC spokeswoman admits that the brand of our party is toxic.
“You do not get to the single digits in a district like this if you’re a nationalized Democrat,” said Meredith Kelly, the communications director for the committee. “End of story. That’s just the way it is. There are just certain races where it is not helpful to be attached to the national D.C. Democrats. It is the calculation you make in even the most competitive swing district.”
And a situation where a person like me, who can win as a Democrat or an Independent, is on the verge of running as an independent because I think I cannot count on our "leaders" Chuck Schumer and Tom Perez to stand up to the unhelpful, extremist voices in our party. If I spend time running for office, I want to focus on how I can help my potential constituents, not be forced to waste time defending our party because of stupid statements by big city extremists who have never spent a day in rural America. To me, it is almost as if we have forgotten that winning requires building a broad coalition of disparate interests united by a common goal. And that's why, if I had to file to run today, I would file as an Independent and not a Democrat, despite 16 years of working for Democratic politicians. I hope Chairman Perez and Senator Schumer among others grasp this problem and work on building a broad coalition that would-be local office holders like me can be proud to be a small part of.
