The South Dakota Blogosphere loses a thoughtful gadfly, Bob Schwartz, who announces the end of 16 years in South Dakota with a blistering indictment of South Dakota politics. He offers this valedictory assessment of South Dakota's oxymoronity:
Where else can one find a group of individuals that tout the family and family values on one hand but in another seem to take pride in underfunding their educational system?
Where else can one find a state that takes pride in their "business friendly" environment but yet ignores that fact that almost no businesses are willing to relocate here? We even advertise how little we pay our workers as if it is a badge of honor.
Where else (other than the South) can one find a group of people that tout their moral values in one breath while legislating away the happiness of a whole class of their citizens in another breath especially when it comes to marriage equality and basic human rights?
Where else can someone who believed that they were a moderate Reagan Republican, someone who voted Republican their whole adult life, leave a state just 16 short years later as a disillusioned Independent with a total disdain for the party that they once loved?
Where else can one find a state were the term RINO used often and is even more despised than the term Liberal and usually just as undefined?
Where else can one find a group of people so against government interference and taxation all while being one of the biggest welfare states in the country, gladly taking in many more government dollars than they contribute? [Bob Schwartz, "It's Been Real, It's Been Fun, But It Hasn't Been Real Fun," The Lone Independent, 2013.08.03]
I know a certain type of local booster who will respond to Schwartz's criticism with a self-defensive "Good riddance! We don't need your negative nabobism!" But Schwartz's assessment of a dysfunctional political culture comes to me as I spend a weekend with a Canadian friend who reacts with genuine horror and disbelief to our stories of South Dakota'a restrictions on women's health care, our rejection of the PPACA Medicaid expansion, and our Legislature's belief that teachers should carry guns. (The dude she saw on Main Street with a black t-shirt declaring amnesty for illegal immigrants "treason" didn't help.)
Negative talk like Schwartz's makes South Dakota look bad. But when we advertise South Dakota as a low-wage haven, when we chase out intelligent professionals like Schwartz, and when we talk about the political decisions we make as a state, without exaggeration, we do look bad.
I want to tell my Canadian friend that South Dakota is a great place (and she loves the scenery, the geography, the history). I want to say good things about South Dakota to my fellow Americans. I want to hand every young person in this state a brief book on all the benefits of staying and learning and working and raising a family in Madison, Spearfish, and every other corner of our great state. I want to use the phrase "our great state" without irony.
But we can't dismiss Schwartz's indictment as out-the-door sour grapes, or my Canadian friend's shock as cross-cultural misunderstanding. Much is wrong with South Dakota. Those of us who love South Dakota have an obligation to point out those wrongs and demand that South Dakota fix those wrongs. I won't presume to put words or feelings in Schwartz's heart, but if he didn't care about South Dakota, he wouldn't speak up.
And neither would I. South Dakota, you're a mess. You're doing lots of things wrong, and you're harming your own future by driving good people away. Stop it. Shape up.
Yes, thank you mr.schwartz for voting FOR all those people who voted over those sixteen years AGAINST raising minimum wage for the working class and voted FOR mllions of dollars of funding of NBP, the five million dollar foreign cheese factory etc.. Now you run instead of helping your neighbors correct this boondoggle!!! We don't need people like you!!!!! goodby!!!
I would like to thank Mr. Schwartz’s for being a part of the discussion.
Government is supposed to serve ALL the people; not just liberals or just Republicans. It only works if everyone takes part.
To be fair politics can get ugly, feelings will be bruised. It is not a game for the faint of heart or the thin skinned.
I will miss Mr. Schwartz’s thoughtful discussions, as I found his debates to be invigorating. While I may not have agreed with him a various topics, I have always respected his opinion.
Mr. Schwartz will surely be missed in the SD Blogosphere.
South Dakotans always react to someone who gladly departs from the state like a jilted lover. There is the outraged invective and accusations, sometimes a mild lovers-come-and-lovers-go response, but seldom a consideration that matters are so offensive, so oppressive, and so without hope that the person left gladly and with an optimism in regard to new places. The South Dakotans who reside on stolen lands forget that their own ancestors, only a generation or two removed, left their home countries for the same reasons people leave South Dakota. Even the first generation after the homesteaders, as Hamlin Garland so perceptively records them, left the state for the many reasons that people leave it today.
The landscape and the personal histories of the state do have a hold on people, and to the point that they tend to dismiss those who work to despoil the landscape and rewrite the history to replace the theft of the land with a defamation of its former occupiers.
Some voices will courageously proclaim that people need to stay and fight. But the fact is that the fight was lost long ago. The depletion of Democratic voter roles reflects an outmigration and a displacement with people who find a refuge in an education system converting to indoctrination centers, economic plans built on sweatshop schemes, poverty-level workers, and autonomy only for corporations and their executive cadre.
Nationally, job growth since our Great Recession has been in part-time and low wage jobs. South Dakota has gleefully led this trend for generations. South Dakota may be a great place to live, but not for most humans.
Really sorry to disappoint you Mr Potter but after your comment I tried to remember back over the past 16 years on how many of those I voted for actually won an election and I could probably count that number on one hand. Here in McCook county I can't remember anyone I voted for ever winning.
Also based on your comments it is apparent that you have never read my blog because if you did you would know that most of what said didn't apply to what I believe or how I vote but I will be happy to leave as you suggest anyways and will try to not let the door hit me in the rear on my way out.
In closing Mr. Potter, please feel free to keep living the "dream" here in South Dakota as apparently it offers you enough to be happy which all that really matters anyways isn't it?
Ouch, Professor.
Bill Maher is urging rich Democrats to just start buying candidates for states like South Dakota.
Thank you and blessings to Mr. Schwartz on his next chapter.
You made a difference by making people think...some of them not so much...but think they did.
Bob was a voice for those who don't see scorched earth politics as a goal, but rather, a detriment to good governance.
Safe travels and don't be a stranger.
Mr. Schwartz writes a disheartening and accurate indictment of SD politics.
There are so many of us ex-South Dakotans who left reluctantly but necessarily.
Yesterday I attended a county fair just east of St. Paul. It had all the rural stuff I love minus the oppressive politics overshadowing the fun. I ventured through the barns of cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, horses, fowl. I had a great time sitting on the low grassy ridge with other Minnesotans watching gigantic horses snort, puff, and dig in hooves to drag more than 3 tons of concrete and steel over the dirt.
The entire experience reminded me so much of rural SD and the farm I grew up on. There were buildings full of gorgeous quilts, children's drawings, pies to leave one drooling, lustrous woodwork, tomatoes, corn, etc.
Imagine! All this wonderful ambience and dozens of same sex couples married every day! Progressive taxes. More new business start ups and move ins from other states. Women in control of their own bodies. More money for schools. Democrats in control of government.
All the things Teabaggers rail against as death knells are alive and well in the most successful states as echoes of their strong moral fiber.
Sigh. SD could improve so much. Very smart, capable people are there. Others would return, if only SD Repubs would open their arms, rather than keeping their fists clenched, fearful that they might lose something. It's not a zero sum game. There is enough for us all.
Probably, better than anyone else, he points out the hypocrisy of the right in terms that must make them cower...or more likely ignore their own sin and get back to the game.
I think what Bob points out is that politics in South Dakota has become a junior high internet game that is based on likes, power and belonging to the cool kid clique and nothing to do with governance.
When someone as incompetent and blatantly partisan as SoS Gant and still hold him up to be a standard bearer for the the party, the GOP dives into the portrait that Mr. Schwartz provides.
I left a note on Bob's blog. Sort of lost track of all those blogs over the years, but anyway, I suggested that more than a few of us blogging in SD would welcome his comments even if they came from far-off Ohio.
And I guess we should wish Bob Mercer good luck with his health problem.
http://my605.com/pierrereview/?p=9073
No matter how bad things get, they could be worse. The Mitchell Daily Republic just had a story on Jim Davies, States Attorney for years at Alexandria,SD. He and I sat in a few USD government classes together. He recently found out he had prostate and colon cancer complicated with West Nile Disease. He is back to work with aid of a magnifying device to help his eyes damaged by fever, etc related to West Nile.
I have read Cori's blog since its inception, have posted on and off for several years and during that time have noticed something.
Most posts by "progressives" about South Dakota. imply that they belong to one of two camps.
The first camp implys that most South Dakotans and too stupied to realize that they should be miserable, but if you listen to me I'll make you see the light so that you can see how miserable you should be.
The second camp implys that they(progressives) are miserable because a vast number of South Dakotans are satisfied with their lives and the political policies of the oppressors(Republicans).
As I have said before, until progressives(the democratic party) are able to find common ground with a majority of South Dakotans they will remain irrelivant.
Joseph, although you didn't include names in your comment, I'm guessing you might be referring to me, among others. I'd like to respond.
First, I don't describe myself as 'progressive.' I am a Liberal' and proud to be so. I support democracy and capitalism, as long as safeguards are built into the law to ensure that neither distorts into something else.
I'm guessing that you didn't read my comment critically. If you had, you would have noticed that I did not criticize any South Dakotans for staying, nor did I question their intelligence. It's you who have suggested that, not me.
I wonder if your generalizations about 'progressives' are a convenient dodge so that you can avoid giving serious consideration or attention to what is written. If you had really read what I wrote, you would know that I want SD to be better, to improve, just like I want MN to improve, and farming to improve, etc.
I urge you to pay attention to comments and respond to what is truly there so you can contribute to the conversation.
By the way Joseph, I hope you have truly read this comment.
You are right, you just want South Dakota to be better, but better to you is apparently not better to a vast majority of South Dakotans
The people and the parties are very different. Most South Dakotans just want to do their own thing so there's a lot of common ground on a individual basis. But the parties and governing policy is very different. Most people are moderates, but if they swing right they're ok with the policies progressives can't tolerate. It's pretty amazing to think that right across the boarder gay marriage is legal. That's huge. This conversation reminds me of that book out a few years ago Who Moved My Cheese? If your cheese aint here, you gotta go get your cheese. At times I feel some people prefer to complain rather than accept they must make a change to ease their discontent. Go get your cheese man!
South Dakota changes very slowly. It's the nature of this place, and we all know that.
This is an interesting discussion. I can understand the frustration with the South Dakota mindset, and I really didn't think that was really why we left. Though on reading Newquist's posting, I am rethinking a lot of what I had previously told myself about why we left South Dakota.
I always have thought we left mainly for personal career reasons. I nearly doubled my wage by moving, and Liz found the attitudes of people at her job would not allow her to progress. When "business friendly" turns into worker oppression, anyone with any self respect either starts union organizing or says, "see ya."
I guess I was tired of fighting the South Dakota mentality, too. Funny as it may seem to some of my political foes, I never really enjoyed the fighting. I would have preferred staying on the school board in Rapid City and trying to make a difference there. But you had a state political structure that didn't care about excellent schools, so all your effort was just trying to remediate the mess the Legislature and Governor were causing. Forget about really being able to improve education.
And so it went with a lot of things from the 1970s on up to when we left in 2001. Fighting the idiots was a thirty year effort with some wins and some losses, but it gets to the point where you fight the same battles again and again and you say, "ba-bye." I mean Daugaard inviting in studies of nuclear waste is just a repeat of Janklow 1982.
Since we were mid-life and needing to make money to retire with some dignity, and tire of fighting, we left South Dakota.
Deb, I attended the Sioux Empire Fair this afternoon. My Canadian friend and I found the Tea Party booth offering a petition to stop ObamaCare and the Planned Parenthood booth offering a petition to support ObamCare.
We also enjoyed watching sheep shearing in the petting farm barn.
Donald's point is key: it seems one doesn't have to fight as hard elsewhere for basic things like a decent paycheck or school system.
Joseph, I welcome your honest assessment, as a long-time reader, of which camp you think I'm in. I may lean to camp #1, but I do not contend that South Dakotans should be miserable. Chatting with my Canadian guest this weekend makes me think we should be more embarassed of what we settle for. And I don't think anyone should have to settle: the majority you posit shouldn't have to settle for the struggle Donald describes to achieve basic economic liberty, and my liberal friends shouldn't have to settle for life elsewhere.
Unless there's a federal law to legalize gay marriage, we'll be dead before South Dakota makes it legal. June Emry, a school principal in Madison (there's also a dormitory on campus named after her), couldn't vote for part of her tenure. We are the last or near the last to change. We all know this. What's that definition of insanity? Doing the same thing but expecting different results. This is the deep, impeded culture of South Dakota. Even if liberal, other places are certainly no utopia, but people prioritize, and often they go regardless of their politics.
I wonder, Joseph. I wonder if you are really correct when you say the 'vast majority' of South Dakotans disagree with my ideals. I said I support undistorted democracy and capitalism.
I wonder if SD was free of any form of gerrymandering, if state and local governments were completely transparent (an essential quality of democracy), if elections could not be bought by the richest. . . I wonder, would South Dakotans still elect a one party government of Republicans?
I'd love to see South Dakotans have that opportunity. That is precisely what I want for SD. I'd still be in SD, contributing to the extent of my resources, if we had a real democracy in SD.
Cori,
You ask, what camp do I think you are in. Oddly, you are much like my very conservative son when it comes to South Dakota and in fact much like me.
We all three love South Dakota, and would rather live here than anywhere else. My son lives in the liberal world of California working for a non profit. Needless to say probably the only conservative in the office. He gets along with everyone because he was taught not to push his political beliefs on other people. Be honest with people about your beliefs but understand that other people see things thru different colored lenses, not wrong thoughts. but just different ways of seeing things. He will return to live in South Dakota one day and when he does he will be active in the Republican party.
You have left South Dakota and came back and are about to leave again. You will be back, South Dakota is in your blood and it is then that I believe you will become actively involved in the politics of South Dakota.
Several years ago we had a conversation at the court house and I told you then that I understood why you were where you were politically because I, myself,had been exactly where you were.
In South Dakota, if a liberal (I am a liberal in the true sense not the modern sense), wishes to remain sane they must, and I quote, "it is most important to remember that you change the things you can change, accept the things that you can't, and be able to tell the difference."
When the Democratic party in South Dakota recognizes that then the party will again be relivant, but don't hold your breath. When you come back in 10-15 years you will find the Dems in South Dakota. the same as they are today, unless they change the way they think.
Ms Geelsdottir,
I don't know you from Adam, however from your posts here you strike me as a very modern liberal.
You prefer to blame others(gerrymandering, lack of transparency)rather than asking yourself , why am I out of step with my neighbors.
I think most South Dakotans prefer my brand of freedom to your idea of democracy. You would impose on the people those things you think are right, even if those people didn't agree with you, because your ideas are better than theirs. Thats the attitude the Dems have to correct if they are ever again to have any success in SD.
If I have offended anyone with these posts I am not sorry. I do love South Dakota and realize that to get better we need a two party system here, and in order to do that the Dems need to get their heads out of their you know what and start coming up with ideas that resonant with voters here and not be in lock step with the national party cause that party aint never gonna fly in SD.
True on Emry, but South Dakota still beat a majority of states to allowing women to vote. We were the first state to adopt the referendum. We banned gay marriage in 2006, but by the smallest popular-vote margin of any state that has passed such a measure. We've defeated our worst major abortion bans twice at the ballot box. We do lots of dumb things, but I'm not convinced that dumb is so deeply in grained in our culture that liberals stand no easy chance of changing it.
Joseph, your prescription for Democratic relevance in South Dakota seems to involve accepting the Republican philosophy and making only small changes around the edges. I contend that's what the South Dakota Democratic Party has done, and that that accommodation has weakened it. Offered a pale imitation of the Republican Party, a majority of South Dakotans choose to go with the real thing.
As Bob Schwartz suggests in his post, the status quo with which your asserted majority is so unmiserably content relies on disproportionate federal government support and extra local government effort to make up for a cheapskate state government. (School funding is a good example of that unfair burden.) Government support of roads, agriculture programs, research, and health care (VA, Medicaid, Medicare) pumps all sorts of money into our economy. Our state was built and survives on programs created by people who believe that government is a positive force. Yet in our cognitive dissonance (not stupidity; this is a different psychological malady), we like electing people who tell us government is a negative force.
There is no one thing Democrats need to do to rebuild and win. But addressing the disconnect between what Republicans say, what they do, and what's really good for South Dakota should be a fundamental part of any Democratic campaign. South Dakota Democrats do need to change the way they think, not about the positive role of government, but about how they treat that message when they campaign.
Deb's comment about gerrymandering is not some dodge of personal responsibility. Gerrymandering of legislative districts is very much part of why Republicans dominate the Legislature. If district boundaries didn't matter, the parties wouldn't fight so hard to win the decennial elections and draw those boundaries for their own benefit.
And Joseph, let's lay out some cards. Does your concept of freedom really differ that much from my idea of democracy? Don't we agree on more principles that we disagree?
You say Dems have an attitude of "our ideas are better than yours," and that Dems must change that attitude, but don't the Republicans in power have the same attitude? Don't the Republicans impose their ideas about abortion on every woman in the state? Did the conservatives include an exception in the gay marriage ban for people who disagree with them? Didn't the Republicans in Pierre want to impose their ideas of teacher merit pay and ending continuing-contract protections on every teacher, not just the ones who agreed with them?
Rick Weiland's bravery is as patriotic as any action performed by the Right in South Dakota.
Having said that it might be time for Democrats to boycott elections completely, let the earth hater party Republicannibalize allowing us to pick up the pieces and rebuild Pierre from the rats up.
Linda Daugaard is clearly frustrated with SDGOP dragging its feet on social issues: bless her heart for ignoring the governor's feet of clay.
Cory, if more SD Democrats ran for the legislature, they would have a chance at changing the political balance in the state. How many Republicans run opposed every 2 years?
Until the War Toilet is neutralized Democrats should sit every election out.
Michael, there is no doubt we need candidates to carry our message in the campaigns. I'm trying to rouse them to the hustings and offer them a campaign brief book right here.
The younger generation will eventually transform South Dakota, but a lot of dinosaurs have to die off first. By then we'll be old geezers, and just to let you know, when you turn 50, big life changes start to look scary. Ten years earlier they didn't. If you stay too long, it's likely to become permanent, so you better make sure it's something you can live with for the long haul.
The younger generation is 50 when it comes to politics. To really shake things up, we need a candidate for Governor that is in their 20's.
By chance came across these anti-suffrage cartoons. Talk about mean. Apparently everything's a struggle: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/12-cruel-anti-suffragette-cartoons-1375735641-slideshow/
There are liberals in South Dakota, and none of them fit the stawman descriptions of the right-wing mighty Wurlitzer.
It appears that my comments about gerrymandering the lack of transparency in SD aren't being addressed by Joseph or others except Cory. My questions about government in SD remain. If the state were governed by leadership devoted to openness, accessibility and accountability, what would it look like? I wonder if SD might be at least lavender?
Rather than focusing on me and my politics, what about my questions? I don't see it as a Democratic or Republican question. I see it as a question of good governance creating an engaged and interested electorate.
I'd love to see Rick Weiland engage Mike Rounds or Stace Nelson in a conversation like this. I'd like to see next year's candidates for Legislature address Deb's comments about gerrymandering and transparency frankly. They should talk about redistricting and explain what's wrong with recent proposals to empower a non-partisan committee to draw Legislative district boundaries. They should talk about open government (Bernie Hunhoff will: he did a fair job this year of shoehorning more openness into our state economic development programs).
And who knows: maybe if we did draw districts with less political bias and be more open about state government actions, voters would still send a GOP majority to Pierre (though surely not as big as the current majority). The GOP does have us Dems outnumbered, but if we can talk sense to the surging Indy bloc, we have a fair fight on our hands.