MINOT, N.D. — Welcome to the first mailbag of 2022. Which, as you know, is an election year.
We’ve been talking a lot about the health of American democracy, and that’s fitting given the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and the factionalism that has taken over our society. What I love about elections — and it’s something I had to learn early on in my career writing about politics — is that there’s always another one.
The activists and the politicians and the click-baity news media like to give us the impression that the debate of the moment is the most important debate that will settle the issue for all time, but that’s never actually true. Many believe it, though, and that creates an impression that politics is a zero-sum game. That the “other side” must be defeated at all costs because the stakes are so high, something that in turn justifies a lot of ugly tactics from nasty rhetoric to outright violence.
But it’s not true. The debate is never done. There are no permanent victories. Whatever the outcome of the debate, the people on the “other side” are still your fellow Americans. They’re still your neighbors. And there’s always another election looming.
Anyway, to your questions! Remember, if you’d like to correspond with me, send it to rport@forumcomm.com. Messages used in this column may be edited for clarity and brevity.
Ralph asks: “You’ve been writing a lot about in-fighting in the NDGOP. Do you think that means North Dakota Democrats have a shot at taking back some offices this year?”
Short answer? No, I don’t.
Longer answer? Maybe.
I don’t think the divides in the NDGOP will be all that relevant this cycle in the statewide races. If the upstart Trumpists who are trying to take over the state party reach a point where they can start dictating who the Republican candidates will be for statewide races then the divides will be relevant. But they aren’t there yet, which means the NDGOP’s candidates will continue to be appealing to the broad swath of the North Dakota electorate that has kept the party dominant in state politics for so long.
(Jeremy Turley / Forum News Service)
Besides, the divides in the NDGOP are basically a bunch of pie-throwing over who is and isn’t conservative enough. Are people who think status quo Republicans are conservative enough going to abandon the NDGOP and vote for Democrats? That seems unlikely.
Democrats may have some opportunities in the legislative races, though. There are a lot of retirements happening, and it’s a weird year. Normally only the odd-numbered districts would be on the ballot this cycle, but thanks to redistricting, 99 out of the 141 legislative districts will have to hold elections. Plus, politics tend to be cyclical, even in North Dakota, and Democrats are probably due to pick up some seats after basically getting murdered at the ballot box in the Trump era.
Mike writes, in response to
my column
about a problem teacher bouncing around from one North Dakota school district to another: “North Dakota law provides a very clear and concise process for terminating incompetent and/or in this case, ‘idiot’ teachers. Principals and superintendents know what the process is. When they are reluctant to use it, they have become the ‘problem’. The Williston School District should have fired, or ‘non-renewed’ the teacher described in your article.”
I’m not sure what laws Mike is referring to, but as far as the teacher in question is concerned, he was let go by the Williston School district after a half-dozen reprimands about his classroom behavior. The problem is the manner in which he was let go. It was done quietly, with no transparency for the public, and a written agreement to not file a complaint against the teacher’s credentials. This is what allowed that teacher to go to another school district and get another job teaching children despite a track record of unacceptable on-the-job behavior.
It’s not an easy situation, and I’m sympathetic to school leaders who want to avoid the headaches attendant to a very public termination of a problem teacher, but just because public transparency is hard doesn’t mean it should be avoided.
Ryan writes, in response to
my column
noting that both sides of the ideological divide have a problem with violent extremism: “I would say that there is quite a difference between disrupting a constitutionally dictated proceeding to formally count electoral votes and protesting a pipeline. I was home with my young children on 1/6 and watched the whole damn thing.”
Dana Ferguson / Forum News Service
I’m not sure there is all that much of a difference. You can argue, as Ryan does, that the Jan. 6, 2021, riot had higher stakes because it was an attempt to overthrow the results of our national election, and the flames of that conflagration were fanned by Donald Trump himself, the sitting president at the time and the loser of the election.
But whether it’s Trumpists beating up cops because they think the election was stolen, or left-wing extremists throwing Molotov cocktails because they think an oil pipeline shouldn’t be built, we’re dealing with people who have so thoroughly convinced themselves of their own righteousness that they feel justified in hurting other people and damaging property.
That’s where the situations are the same.
We have an expansive political process through which we can peacefully enact change in our society. It moves slowly, and it often doesn’t produce the exact results we want, but that’s not an excuse to abandon it, because the only alternatives are some form of autocratic rule or violent factions going to war with one another.
I much prefer the frustratingly plodding and deeply imperfect democratic process.
Anne writes, in response to
my Christmas column about the darkest day of the year
: “I just wanted to say that I truly appreciated your solstice article this morning, I don’t always appreciate your political columns or agree with them, but sometimes you write something that unifies all of us and helps us find common ground in the more meaningful aspects of life.”
We all spend a lot of time talking about how we’re different. From identity politics to the culture wars, we’re focused on what divides us.
It felt good to write about a way in which so many of us – across religions and cultures and geography – are the same.
