Ah, Jim Jones, has lumbered out of the tar pits again to deliver another Jurassic-era lecture on how independent voters can save us from the big, scary culture war hellscape. Spare us the prehistoric wisdom, Judge.
The rest of America is charging through a conservative realignment and Idaho is no different. Idaho parents reject teacher union-led gender ideology and DEI in schools. Idaho taxpayers grow sick of bloated government. Idaho’s newest conservatives turn away from the coastal chaos they fled. Yet, Jones remains stuck in 1995. He blinks at the sunlight and wonders why Idaho keeps electing leaders who actually fight for the values that made this state great. He has no idea what time it is in America, and he has no clue what time it is in Idaho.
The irony here is thicker than that sticky black sludge he sits in. For years, Jones and his old-guard establishment allies have wrung their hands about the non-native extremists streaming in from California, Oregon, and Washington. They warn that these blue-state refugees import failed progressive politics and change Idaho. That complaint sounded fair to many. Yet here is the same dinosaur actively inviting unaffiliated voters, many of them the transplants he and his crowd love to lament, to waltz into the Republican primary on May 19. They can switch their registration on the spot and help trans-republicans kneecap the conservative culture warriors who proudly wear the GOP badge and show up to vote.
This is like inviting the invaders to rewrite the house rules while complaining they’re redecorating the living room. If low-turnout primaries bother you, Jim, persuade those in the party with your ideas, knowledge, and wisdom. Stop outsourcing the job to people who could not stomach registering Republican in the first place. Primaries are not a public buffet for independents to cherry-pick nominees. They are how the party faithful choose their flag-bearers. You cannot cry infiltration when conservatives move here for freedom, then cheer when left-leaning “independents” flood the GOP ballot to dilute it.
Jones calls the issues fake and the fights divisive. Tell that to Idaho parents tired of schools treating their kids like social experiments. Tell it to rural families who watch their tax dollars funneled into pet projects while basic services starve. Tell it to the working people who fled the very states Jones apparently longs Idaho to be. The “extremists” he sneers at deliver the red wave Idahoans keep choosing. Most of us reject the polite management of decline we see from his ilk within the GOP. We want Idaho to stay Idaho: conservative, self-reliant, and unapologetically pro-family.
The Republican Primary does not rest in the hands of 260,000 unaffiliated voters who sat out the hard work of party building. It rests with the roughly 189,000 Republicans who actually campaign, door knock, host events, fundraise, and vote in primaries. These are the people who remember why families flee blue-state disasters for Idaho. Jones can keep roaring from the museum. The rest of us will move forward, together.
Early voting is underway in many counties, please go to voteidaho.gov to check your voting status and make sure your ballot is turned before polls close on May 19th.