Screw Dan Ahlers

Since at least 2014 this interested party has been saying the South Dakota Democratic Party should look at a DFL-type strategy.

Minnehaha County is going to step up and own the South Dakota Democratic Party if county chairs don't fire up their delegates to go to the goddamned convention. If candidates want support from the party they should know what the platform is and not announce a run expecting the party to back them, especially if they don't attend the convention. Platforms are crafted at the convention by delegates who are frustrated that candidates like Dan Ahlers, Billie Sutton, Joe Lowe and Tim Bjorkman completely ignored what the party stands for. Billie Sutton was a fart in a haboob who bought Susan Wismer's mailing list and bombed my inbox begging for money. 

During the 2016 presidential primary Senator Bernie Sanders won West River, ffs. 

While the author of interested party is a staunch Democrat and has been 100% correct on how to run a credible political campaign in South Dakota up til now it's been far too revolutionary to represent South Dakota Democrats in the party's present deflated context. When only one Democratic South Dakota native knows what wins elections in that state, life might be easier if this scrivener just jammed a fork up his nose. Combined with a split in the SDGOP South Dakota Democrats could become competitive again. 

Dan Ahlers is a Democrat in name only at best and a mansplainer at worst. If he doesn’t know how to negotiate with a progressive sitting as Chair he was ill-suited for the position anyway and should have butt out before now. 

So, not running someone, anyone, against Republican At-large US Representative Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson in 2020 and again in 2022 are more embarrassments for the South Dakota Democratic Party who hasn’t won a statewide race since 2008. Johnson has never stopped raising money so the SDDP needs to hound the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for cash and start running opposition ads on every commercial radio station in South Dakota. My party can recruit some respected Democrats to record radio spots then bombard the airwaves paving the way to 2024. 

Johnson needs to be held accountable for coddling a would be dictator and building a war chest on the Big Lie, for his failures to support Medicaid, for voting against marriage, for not moving on immigration reform and for his culpability in driving talent from South Dakota. But he certainly knows which side of his bread gets buttered so the extreme white wing of the Republican Party owns him lock, stock and schlock. Johnson went from being a likable moderate to becoming just another tool of the oligarchs who hoard trillions in South Dakota’s banks and trusts because, hey, that’s where the money is. When a handful of Republicans need socialized freight rail to ship subsidized grain Howdy Doody Dusty is all aboard but when thousands need passenger rail he’s ambivalent then votes against the Earth and for the Trump agenda without remorse. 

Johnson wasn’t duped by Maria Butina, he was an accomplice!

If Professor Reynold Nesiba thinks so highly of himself he should put on his best class and announce for the seat Dusty Johnson simply cuts the cheese into. 

The addition of Dan Ahlers as executive director was an attempt to dilute the progressive message most South Dakota Democrats hope to convey and anything else is capitulation to the hate the SDGOP heaps on voters.