Speaking out: What is happening to North Dakota politics?
I had a conversation with a fellow Wells County native about the current state of politics in North Dakota. The June 2024 Republican primary television ads were discussed. He asked "What has happened to the North Dakota we knew growing up in Wells County?" I reflected on my perceptions as a teenager in Wells County and tracked my personal learning curve to my current perceptions as a senior citizen in Burleigh County.
I was unaware as a teenager that I saw the world entirely as it related to me. It seems normal to understand the world as its impact on you as a person. I can track the learning curve in my life in four years. In the 1968 election the choice was Richard Nixon or Hubert Humphrey. I supported Nixon because I thought he was more likely to end the war in Vietnam, and I didn't want to go. In the 1972 election between Nixon and McGovern, I worked for McGovern. This four-year transformation took place in Anderson and Muncie, Indiana, through my experiences in college and graduate school. It was also influenced by work experiences, selling Bibles in North Carolina and South Carolina, serving as a youth minister in a church in Alabama, and working as a masseur at a health club in Anderson and Muncie. I went from vice president of young Republicans in college to a graduate student for George McGovern.
In 2024, the theme of the Republican primary in North Dakota was loyalty to Donald Trump. Politics is often theater. However, the ads in this campaign reached absurd levels. Ads exaggerated Trump's themes of the dangers of immigration, the threat to take away guns and seeing the justice system in America as weaponized by Democrats against Trump. Trump portrays himself as the defender/savior of the common people against the evil Democrats who want to deprive people of their rights and money. Ads for the Republican governor endorsement and the Republican candidate for Congress featured guns, bows and concrete blocks. Tammy Miller was shooting a pistol at a human target. Kelly Armstrong was shooting a bow at a bullseye target. Rick Becker was holding an assault rifle promising to turn back the invasion of immigrants. Julie Fedorchak has concrete blocks in her pickup truck (the truck has a Trump bumper sticker) implying she will build the border wall.
The self-interest in those adds includes your right to own a gun, stopping bad people from taking your stuff, building a wall to stop immigrants and supporting Donald Trump. Trump supporters perceive all people who don't support Trump as enemies. Those ads did not mention Wells County or any North Dakota issues, just Trump themes.
My support for Nixon changed when I learned that he lied about the U.S. bombing in Cambodia. He later lied about Watergate. Not only was Nixon not good for me, he wasn't good for America. His own party asked him to resign, and he did.
Trump has been convicted for filing false documents attributing his hush money payments to legal business expenses. The jury found that Trump lied. Loyalty to a liar is not in the best interest of North Dakota. Pistols, assault rifles, bow and arrows, and concrete blocks to build a wall don't represent the interest of North Dakota people. In 1964 I liked Barry Goldwater, but North Dakota voters chose Democrat Lyndon Johnson. North Dakota voters thought Goldwater was "trigger-happy" and extreme. North Dakota voters have felt that extremism or lying are not in their best interest. I hope they still do.
Bill Patrie has been recognized for his work as a cooperative developer by the National Farmers Union, the Association of Cooperative Educators and the National Cooperative Business Association.
