The SDGOP is splitting and it's good

The ever-widening chasm in the South Dakota Republican Party opened even farther after Donald Trump targeted the state's congressional delegation during a rally in Rapid City.

The state’s all-Republican, three-member congressional delegation — Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds, and Rep. Dusty Johnson — did not attend the event in the ice arena at The Monument. Their absence was loudly noted several times by a crowd of about 7,000. In a piece of rhetoric aimed at South Dakota’s agricultural industry, Trump boasted that “farmers picked up big, fat, beautiful checks” during his administration, thanks to his efforts to secure government payments to farmers during the pandemic. [Trump rally highlights Republican division with booing of absent Thune, Rounds, Johnson]

Now, in addition to a traitor piling on already stressed farmers the state's Republican-glutted public utility commission has rejected one carbon dioxide pipeline and all but sank another proposed by Summit Carbon Solutions splitting Republicans even more. 

Industrial agriculture is ecocide and for those of us who love the Earth shucks like Summit’s are subsidized corporate greenwashing but ironically many Republicans actually benefitting from caching greenhouse emissions decry them as caving to the Green New Deal. So Summit had turned to using eminent domain to condemn land for private enterprise provoking resistance from many Republican landowners and their surrogates.

According to the latest Rasmussen poll only 45% of Republicans want Trump on the general election ballot so Republicans with legal standing are driving the lawsuits to block him. 

Sens. Thune and Rounds are among the republic’s most popular so how are attacks on them from the state’s Republican governor not a disconnect?

Internal Revenue Service agents are investigating Russian money in South Dakota banks and trusts despite coverups by Republicans like Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson.

If you are a South Dakota conservative who can get on the general election ballot in 2024 and intends to run as an unaffiliated or third party candidate for the US House or for the legislature from your district I will support your efforts both with money and in print.

Learn more at Bill Janklow’s idea of public radio.