Montana Democrats first in US to create formal role for Indigenous

In an effort to reverse voter apathy in Indian Country the Montana Democratic Party has become the first state party to formally include Indigenous as equitable partners.

Montana is home to 12 Indigenous languages three of which are at risk of going extinct after Donald Trump weaponized a novel coronavirus strain killing many Assiniboine, Gros Ventre and Montana Salish elders. During Montana's last legislative session Trump worshiping reactionary Republicans moved to cut funding for Native cultural preservation. Outside Montana’s reservations the state has become the new Orange County, California where the Last Best Place is becoming the next best strip mine and a welfare rancher's wet dream. 

A transplant to Montana, the state's christianic Republican governor was the richest member of Congress who literally bought his seat in the state’s Executive Branch.

In past years the Trump Organization used the federal courts to punish tribal nations who built casinos Herr Trump said were competition so he slow-walked resources to reservations effectively deploying COVID-19 as a biological weapon in Native America.

Indigenous people comprise at least 6.7% of Montana’s population of 1 million. In 2018, Democratic Sen. Jon Tester won by 17,913 votes, and in 2016, Gov. Steve Bullock won by 19,818 votes. Both victories were within the margin of the Native vote. [Nora Mabie, Great Falls Tribune]

David Treuer was born of a Holocaust survivor and Ojibwe mother. He wrote in The Atlantic that he believes that most land held in America's national parks should be remanded to Indigenous peoples but it's my view that the land held in the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service should also be part of that trust.

ip photo: Slippery Ann Creek in Montana's CM Russell National Wildlife Refuge.