It is going to be a job to keep this county organization alive.

Last report from the election board has the count of registered Democrats in Stephens County at 6000.

I believe at least a third of those registered Republican are Democrats seeking a voice in the local primary elections. Because such was true of Democrats 50 years ago.

When the registration balance between democrats and Republicans in Stevens County crossed over from democrat majority to Republican majority – – that was in 2013 I think – – I was asked by the newspaper editor to express an explanation for the drift away from Democratic registration to Republican. Being slow witted, I couldn’t think of any politic answer.  George Wallace and Lyndon Johnson knew.

The answer that I had heard most from people who were actually Democrats at heart before Re-registering as Republicans was. “The  Democratic Party changed and I didn’t.” I translate that to say Democrats now stand up for people who aren’t me.

When I contemplate the quotas we have inside the Democratic Party for electing officers and the number of special representatives we have on the policy bodies I say, “Do you know what? They are right.”  At the convention it is all unions and minorities.

On the Republican side I see those who switched as getting the death penalty, miles of border wall, Muslim ban, guns galore in exchange for Bush-style tax cuts and train wreck deregulation.  

In that spirit, school vouchers will come to be in Oklahoma. By public policy right,  families with school age children are entitled to public schooling. Crippled children must be accommodated. By Republican logic the right is not to a public education, but to the the dollars that education might cost. Vouchers are 99.44% a cost reimbursement to families with children already being educated outside the public schools. Vouchers won’t change much. Just more for the aristocrats enabled by former Democrats.

I am more and more ready to stand with John Roberts on the way to stop race discrimination. That is to say go whole hog on CRT. Seek out and kill the factors in our laws that enable and cause race discrimination—laws, regulations  and practices with the impact of School segregation, red lining, and all like that. Then trash quotas.

My ideal government can have favorites. The GI bill was an example that worked out well. The Americans With Disabilities Act is another favoritism by government that I approve. 

The Civil War amendments and the Enforcement Act and the 1875 Civil Rights Act were, I think, planned to bring about equal enforcement and complete citizenship for all citizens of this nation. No bits of affirmative action in them.  The 14th brought states under the Constitution.  The 14th tasked states to enforce equal protection. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” To not discriminate with state powers and, beyond that, to not allow anyone to do that in public accommodations.

As it happened, those measures were not enforced.  I hear John Roberts say, Let us now enforce them. Instead of selecting favorites by race.

The way the Democratic Party’s policy bodies are now selected I don’t see how a fair and balanced approach to improving the lot of those with less than median incomes can be developed. The Republicans divided the lower class by convincing the white population that “Democrats now stand up for people who aren’t you. “

Jim Holland 

Keep the wheel squeaking…

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