The Trust is Gone

You can't eat political theater in Montana.

There’s a lot of bluster going on in Montana politics and meanwhile, New World Screwworm threatens our ag industry, an industry already battered by tariffs, input costs, and trade wars.

No one seems to be looking out for the Montana farmer or rancher. Secretary of Ag, Rollins? She lies like she breathes. How much longer can our producers take it?

We’re unprepared for what’s coming.

The price of everything keeps rising, especially fuel. The president has us enmeshed in a conflict, or war, or action, that could stretch on for infinity. Every Friday the administration ends the war in Iran and every Monday they start it up again.

Stocks crest and crash and our accounts are hollowed out.

The parasites in D.C. are eating our flesh, boring into our middle class and our working people. The trust we once put in our institutions feeds instead a techno-world of lies and quick profit. The anemic and hollowed-out press in Montana glosses over the real issues facing people trying to make a living. So many are left behind, unheard, without representation.

No wonder people check out. What politician or news source is there for them? It’s all for show, for likes and clicks, clickbait, video views, suspense and drama.

Montanans just want a market for what they produce.

People don’t lie awake worrying about dark money. They worry about healthcare, housing, and whether there’s a market for their crops. Montana has always been a hard place to make a living. It still is.

The hard work of investing in the people will take generations again, even if we don’t have generations ahead of us. We can build on what we’ve done and accomplished, each one of us, in our communities and neighborhoods. We can build on the good work of organizing but at some point we hit the wall: billionaires, electoral power structures, cons and grifts.

The billionaires don’t care about climate change, inflation or New World Screwworm. They’re prepared. What about the rest of us? Who’s standing up for us?

When one billionaire can buy a primary race for U.S. Senate in Montana, it’s a red flag, a three-alarm fire; it’s bombing idealism into oblivion with bald capitalism.

How can we accept the destruction of our self-governance without outrage?

No PAC spent any significant money to support my race in the primary. If someone says they did, they’re lying. It would have been reported to the FEC. The Republicans tried to strangle me in the crib. The Democrats, too. But this was never about me. This has always been about the people.

Just as we click on our phones, tablets, and laptops, we click away our agency. We let mailers and advertisements tell us who to believe, what to think, who to vote for, even if we assure ourselves that this propaganda is not working on us. We must take back our agency.

Montanans are trusting people. We’ve not built defenses against dark money, surveillance technology, and the data center billionaires who have enough capital to buy us out of a state. The press hints at this problem but trails off, always, either too late or not enough.

An entire “Dark Money Initiative” in Montana that’s gotten nationwide attention appears to be more about laundering dark money than stemming its flow. This organization is collecting signatures for a legislative initiative limiting dark money donations from corporations, all the while taking dark money.

Even Pete Buttigieg came to Montana to stump for it.

Future sessions of the Montana State Legislature hold the power to amend, weaken, or completely repeal the law if they choose to do. Seems a long shot, yet tens of thousands of people have signed, money has been raised, and a team deployed to elevate the initiative.

Its champions, Marc Racicot and Jon Tester, are helping to orchestrate millions of dark money dollars behind Seth Bodnar’s “Independent” run for U.S. Senate, a campaign that’s fractured the Montana Democratic Party and left many without a choice.

How does any of this help us stop Trump’s agenda?

Is anyone in the Montana or national media paying attention? Do they really think we’re such hayseeds and hicks?

Watching my own party disintegrate in a pool of dirty money while I know Montanans deserve better has been tough. I won’t be any part of it.

Hope exists for a new Montana, a place where our kids can afford to live here, where any one of us can get the same healthcare our senator or congressperson has. We need people in leadership who will listen, tell the truth, and fight the dark forces, not succumb to them.

A U.S. Senate campaign is not a $150 million business opportunity for political operatives or a favor in exchange for loyalty to Trump. It’s not a platform to launch a life coaching brand, buoyed by a multimillion-dollar investment from a data center billionaire. Montanans are struggling, facing challenges, and they need someone there to listen and help.

We’re hurting. We see what’s coming and we know no one in our state or in D.C. cares, at all. They’re catering to Trump, data center billionaires, and the almighty dollar. They’re lying, exploiting the vulnerable, and using our trust in institutions like our political parties and the press to manipulate and exploit us.

Fascism is taking hold. The oligarchs are controlling our political reality now whether we like it or believe it or not.

People cannot pay their rent or their student loans. Summer is coming and day care and afterschool programs have been cut to the bone. Our farmers and ranchers worry every day about water.

We’ve got an administration in D.C. that is more corrupt than any in American history and exposing and referring their crimes to an equally-corrupt DOJ will not work. We still have a choice. If we do not question why and demand better, we leave so many without a political home. Where is our outrage?

This isn’t about one senate primary. Do we want out-of-state billionaires putting their thumbs on the scales in our elections? I will not reward any candidate built on dark money with my endorsement or my silence.

Stand up. Speak up. Show your outrage.