10/20/19

kurtz template gaining traction in South Dakota

There is some discussion in my home state of South Dakota about whether the earth hater party's political bludgeon could be cut down to size if there were some mechanism in place to redraw districts to make voting more equitable for Democrats. South Dakota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida are the most earth hater-tilted states.

This is at least as much about the flight of young people and Democrats from South Dakota than anything else. Inbound white retirees from somewhere else tapping into the state's culture of federal dependence have simply displaced progressive thought leaders so there is little mystery about that.

Voter turnout is dismal in Indian Country mostly because tribal nations endure hopelessness as they compete with the stingy red moocher state government for resources.

I remember having a conversation back in the 90s with none other than Bill Janklow on SDPB when Dakota Midday was still called South Dakota Forum about consolidating counties and making two regental universities community colleges. He said he carried a "bloody shirt" for bringing a similar suggestion to the legislature and regents.

How are 65 county seats and their bureaucracies either conservative or sustainable? They're not; but, it is the way Republican cronyism and patronage built barricades to democracy by providing benefits of the public dole to those who say they deplore big gubmint in a state that hates poor people.

The Wanblee district should be in Oglala Lakota County then Jackson should be rolled into Haakon, Jones and Lyman Counties. Stanley and Sully should be rolled into Hughes. Mellette, Bennett, Todd, Gregory and Tripp should be one county. Dewey, Ziebach and Corson should be a county. Butte, Harding and Perkins should be one. Lawrence and Meade should be one, Fall River and Custer should be one.

Fine. Stanley might be happier being in with Lyman and the others.

East River is a dead zone: smarter people than i can figure out how to sort out that mess. Everything east of the Missouri River is Cleveland anyway.

Let’s face it: the only worse place than Pierre or Aberdeen to live is DC.

It's obvious this phenomenon is no accident: it has been manufactured to make the state a corporatist tax haven for an exclusive set of Republicans while over $3 trillion languish in South Dakota banks.

South Dakota Democrats need to run on a corporate income tax, ending video lootery, reducing the number of South Dakota counties to 25, turning Dakota State and/or Northern State University into community colleges, and adopting my cannabis template.

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