Opinion
After Donald Trump’s first presidential term and now nearly halfway through the second, I have come to feel that I cannot vote for anyone who runs for office as a Republican. I say this as a result of living through Mr. Trump’s attempts to dismantle democracy; his use of his office to enrich himself, his family and his political supporters; his misogyny, xenophobia and islamophobia; his demands that Greenland and Canada become part of the United States; his use of the justice department as a vehicle for revenge against those who disagree with him; his attempts to stifle the press; his cynically imperialistic military actions in the Middle East and in Venezuela where he condoned the murder of people he called drug dealers without any charges or proceedings being brought against them; his construction of prison camps where the undocumented, often refugees and exiles, live and sometimes die under dangerous and unhealthy conditions; his illegal separation and deportation of parents and children; his use of ICE as an agency of state terror; his refusal to allocate federal funds for basic scientific research or for the maintenance of social service programs in Democratic-led states; his childish need to see his name and image everywhere; and his pretense of representing Christian values while behaving in the least Christian of ways.
Mostly, I’m tired of his lies.
But the real reason I can’t vote Republican even at the local level where the candidates are often my friends and neighbors, people I know who would do their best, is that over the last decade the Republican Party has not stood up and said no to Mr. Trump’s excesses. The party’s most influential members have refused to condemn what they know is wrong. In the face of what they know is graft and self-aggrandizement, they have remained silent.
Perhaps I feel so strongly about this because I, too, have sometimes remained silent in the face of obvious wrongs and I regret that silence.
But here’s the hangup with my sense that I can’t vote Republican — where I live, only Republicans hold office. My county has 5,058 registered voters; 229 are Democrats. That’s about 4.5% of the total. If we remove the 324 voters registered as neither Republican nor Democratic — Libertarians, Constitution Party members, unaffiliated voters and the 28 voters listed simply as other — there are 4,734 registered voters, with the 229 Democrats making up just over 4.8% of the total.
All this came home to me in our recent primary elections. The Democratic primary election ballot was, as it has been for the 40 years I’ve lived in Wyoming, a very short one. While there were Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate and House as well as for the statewide offices of governor, secretary of state, and superintendent of public instruction, there were no Democratic candidates for auditor or treasurer, none for my Wyoming House district, and none for the countywide offices of commissioner, coroner, attorney, sheriff, clerk, treasurer, assessor, clerk of district court, precinct committeeman or precinct committeewoman.
Some years back I was asked to go through the county election records to see how many people had won local office in the past several decades running as Democrats. None. It’s the primary that counts. As the Buffalo Bulletin wrote in an Aug. 13 editorial, “This year, every countywide race will be decided in the primary.” It’s pretty much the same at the state and federal level. Even when there’s a Democratic candidate, the winner of the Republican primary is the de facto winner of the general election. In my county, the choice is not to vote for a Democrat, a Republican, or some other party’s candidate, but for one of various Republican candidates.
But since I’ve decided that at this point in American history I can’t vote for a Republican, what am I to do? I could stay at home on voting day — not vote at all. Or I guess I could run for office even though I’d certainly lose.
Maybe I’m asking too much. I certainly don’t agree with every policy of the national Democratic Party and I have respect for the public records of many Republican officeholders. Still, watching the Trump administration’s efforts to slowly unravel democracy while most Republicans remain quiet is awfully disheartening. So this year, following the primary, I’m going to withhold my vote from all Republicans. It’s not a rational or logical stance, but going with my gut, it’s the one I’ve decided to take.
As someone under 40, I don’t understand Mr. Romtvedt’s point, other than he’s not going to vote. He wanders through Trump’s promises, lies, and crazy actions, but we already know this. Mr. Romtvedt is pondering this for the first time? There is very little here to take away from his piece, other than he’s a distraught liberal clutching his pearls.
I feel your pain, David. When I turned 18 and first registered to vote in the 1970s in Johnson County, the county clerk tried to talk me out of registering as a Democrat because, to quote, “there aren’t any here.” Back then at least there were some statewide offices held by Democrats; several were principled statesmen such as Gale McGee (U.S. Senate) and Tino Roncalio (U.S. House of Representatives). No longer. Now just a bunch of sycophant MAGAs who fawn over every unhinged word out of Trump’s mouth.
In the mid-1850’s , the strong Democratic Party faced off against the Whigs and the Know Nothings. The Know Nothings had the audacity to call themselves the American Party when it suited them. They were staunchly anti-Catholic and anti-immigration and very pro-nativist America-Firsters. The Republican Party was still in the crib, a minor party that formed to oppose slavery and not much else.
Long story short, after 25 years the Whigs imploded. The Know Nothings fragmented at the same time. The dazed and confused remnants of both parties joined the Republican Party, swelling the ranks enough to get an upstart Abe Lincoln elected president in 1860. The Democrats took refuge in the Deep South in defense of slavery . All of this resulted in the Civil War.
The last US President who was neither a Republican or a Democrat was the Whig’s own Millard Filmore of the 1850’s , often reckoned among the very worst of presidents. Those were the days.
Republicans and Democrats of that time would not recognize their grandkid’s parties today . No family resemblance whatsoever. The retention of names belies them.
Except for a few genetic clues do present themselves. I see a LOT of the Know Nothings in today’s Republicans, especially Donald Trump who hates immigrants, pretty much despises Catholics, and blows hard about America First. The Know Nothings were rife with conspiracy theories and xenophobia. Don’t take my word for it… I lifted that from the first sentence of a 2017 Smithsonian Magazine article on the Know Nothings. It went on to describe the KN inner sanctum, a elitist club called the Order of the Star Spangled Banner , complete with passwords, hand signals and oaths. Members pledged to be purebred Protestant Anglo-Saxon and reject all things Catholic . There were other darker more sinister rites and ritual behaviors , but difficult to parse between rumor and reality. When outsiders confronted them about all this, the rote reply was ” I know nothing…”. It stuck . They were Know Nothings to the bitter end in 1855 , although there remained an active Know Nothing Caucus in Congress till the Civil War began . Today we would call them the Freedom Caucus. Some historians claim a line can be drawn after the Civil War that ignoring state lines leads to the out of wedlock inception of the Ku Klux Klan. The takeaway is that old saw, the past is prologue to the future.
Ask your favorite conservative Wyoming Republican / Freedom Caucusser for a cheek swab or a few drops of spittle for a political DNA test. I’m pretty sure the results will yield a colorful pie chart showing a lot of Know Nothing and a smattering of Whig in the stock. In the case of our Donald J. Trump, we would find he’s pretty much a 50/50 reincarnation of Whig Millard Filmore and a card carrying member of the Know Nothing OSSB , if not its red robed Grand Dragon.
I share this dilemma and agree that it is up to the republicans to get rid of the most corrupt and out of control president in history. Why they don’t see or care that their party and the entire country has been seriously and possibly permanently damaged by the loser dt, is a mystery.
Colorado welcomes people of integrity who have the ability to think.
There is always Colorado! That might be the perfect fit.
As Douglas Adams famously quipped in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, people vote for lizards because if they don’t, “the wrong lizard might get in.” Alas, in Wyoming it’s much the same. Many folks register as Republicans not because they approve of the party’s agendas but because they are quite literally disenfranchised if they do not. This is the sad result of allowing political parties to have too much power. Parties control the ballot, political money, the rules of legislatures, and (most importantly) the elected officials who know they’ll be out of office if they buck the party. The author’s unfortunate dilemma is due to this situation, which only party bosses and insiders strongly want to perpetuate. Can we fix this situation, or are we stuck with it because the parties’ control of legislators means that the law will never be changed to do so?
The best way to get rid of the Freedumb caucus and their ilk is for every Wyoming resident to register as a “Republican” and vote in the Republican primaries.
Wyoming and the United States need open primaries with ranked choice voting.
Thanks David. Very well stated.
The corruption that is this administration and the Republican party is mind -blowing and overwhelming, by design! The issue has nothing to do with partisan politics; it’s simply the Rule of Law, decency, honesty and community. These fascist forces must be defeated in November. We face an existential crisis in America. Wake up folks! If we don’t oust Republicans from Congress in November we will cede our democracy to the criminal oligarchs.
Awe, poor fellow.
I have wished for a very, very long time that there was a “none of the above” option on the ballot for every race, in every election – and I know I’m not the only one in that boat. As beneficial as that option would be, I have almost no doubt that adding a requirement that to advance beyond the primary to the general a candidate must have a simple majority of all votes cast would functionally change our elections in a fundamental way that would be incredibly beneficial [to the voting public at least, not so much so for self-interested grifters like our SOS].
There’s lots of hoopla lately about ranked choice voting, and how it can solve all the worlds ills, I’m not convinced it is the panacea it’s promoted as being. In the 1st pace, it essentially eliminates the entire concept of political parties. If getting rid of our current two-faced Uniparty is the direction the majority of Americans want to go, then I guess that’s what we might have in the future. But completely killing the party system that has existed since the birth or our nation is at least as radical and significant as popular election of US Senators and granting the franchise to women, and it is fraught with unforeseen complications and potential negative consequences that could be tantamount to opening Pandora’s box.
Instituting the none of the above option and 50% to advance would be pretty damn radical, but in my judgement, much less so than ranked choice, and it isn’t based on some complex formula that to this day I have yet to hear, see or read a concise, coherent explanation of.
Adopting these two changes absolutely would mean we have numerous run-off elections, which of necessity would include substantial costs for administering them, but I have very little doubt that those costs would turn out to be a very wise investment!
Exactly, David, and your reasons are well summarized.
It’s very disturbing that Republicans that either respect, or in the case of elected ones, vow an oath to the constitution, do nothing to rein in their president that violates it almost daily. Our country is hurting internally and externally (with former country allies), and our elected congressional “leaders” just bow to Trump like he is their spiritual leader – never to question or challenge his actions or statements. Like you, I find myself not trusting the Republican Party, because it’s the party and not their elected individuals that call all the shots and demand strict adherence to party policy….and thus by association to Trump. So, as voters, we really aren’t electing an individual who we trust will represent everyone; we are carte blanch, electing a party. And that party is putting the screws to us and our country.
Thank you for speaking out for all of us that feel hamstrung.
I certainly understand and agree with all of the reasons you’ve given as to why nobody who really cares about this country should support Donald Trump and his administration. I’ll also agree with your feelings of why people who actively aid and abet the ongoing criminality, and those that passively stand by, are equally as complicit in the damage they’ve inflicted on our country.
The only difference I’d have Dave is that I don’t think it’s right to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Not voting for Republicans that you know to be good, decent people just risk the chances of a slimy opponent to be elected instead. Steve Harshman would be a great example of what a good Republican looks like. He has forcefully pushed back against the Trump aligned Freedom Caucus and questionable individuals like Chuck Gray during his time in the legislature.
Thanks for your piece Dave. It spelled out in plain English what’s wrong in the United States presently and everyone should start paying close attention to it.
I agree with you re Trump and his destructive actions. The current republicans in Congress are either scared or also corrupt. They are spineless sycophants.
It’s discouraging to live in a state that doesn’t recognize the reality of this administration. Our family has always been Democrats as far as I know.
I love Wyoming. I hope it wakes up..or at least some of its residents do..that this current administration is a criminal interprise.
While I agree with Dr. Romtvedt’s assessment of our bullying despot, I believe it is still important to vote locally. I am so encouraged that the Freedom Caucus lost so many seats in state positions. SO encouraged!
Mr. Trump is an expert at starting so many small fires so quickly that the fire fighters did not realize the problem until it was a roaring blaze. I agree that the Republican party is very slow at standing up to him–they are also intimidated–I believe that they are SLOWLY starting to.
“Think global. Vote local.”
BTW, I have not voted for president at ALL in the last three elections. I could not support ANY of the candidates in those elections. To me that is a very sad situation.
We need more moderation–movement toward the middle–rather than polarization AWAY from the middle.
Welcome to the new two-party system, Dave. Vote down the line for whatever standard party you want to feel good in the general election, but if you don’t vote for sensible republicans in the Wyo primaries you might as well not vote.
Personally, I don’t mind the fact that office holders are registered as Republicans, so long as they are not being manipulated by bigoted leaders, special interests and understand basic principles of democracy, the rule of law, that climate change is man-made, market economics., and that tariffs are taxes. Of course that excludes MAGA, the so-called Freedom Caucus, and Trump supporters.
David your decision is not irrational because it is a rational tactic. We tend to think that voting is only about choosing political leaders but that is just part of story. Voting is also about sending messages to elected leaders. If you and others don’t vote for a person or slate of candidates, it’s recorded as under-votes and those don’t go unnoticed. Or, if Democrats suddenly get ten percent more votes than in the past, Republicans will take note. I think your thinking rational in a strategic sense.
Spot on, and there’s no bigger bunch of snowflakes than the ‘conservatives’. If you criticize them they can’t take it, even though they completely control the state. They feel threatened because they know their form of government is wrong. They even voted Chuck Gray into office, a guy that stabbed us all in the back.
The Democrats are far from perfect but they are better than what we have now. Vote blue.
So sadly true and well written from your heart. Extraordinary article! This criminal tyrant and his cabinet should be fired. The only fact left out is that the democrats are just as corrupt. All bought off and controlled by foreign countries and billionaires. It is disgusting and shameful. If we do not fire them out great Republic wil be no more!
No, not “just as corrupt”. Statements like that serve no function. There is simply and demonstrably no comparison.
David, you realize this nation is 40 Trillion dollars in debt, right? That young adults have essentially lost all hope of owning a home, supporting a family, etc.. That inflation continues at a staggering pace.
Trump was elected in 2016 because half this country (republicans) rejected the status quo that is taking all of us off a cliff. Many see now Trump was simply an actor, that he did nothing to right the sinking ship.
Democrats on the other hand cheated in 2016 to keep the staus quo in H Clinton over Bernie Sanders (not that socialism was going to fix anything).
Americans have known that “Change” is needed or we are doomed for quite a while. They didn’t get change with Barack Obama, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. 18 years ago in the middle of a financial crisis voters chose a man who voted to Bailout the Banks over the American people and continued wars in BH Obama. Nearly 2 decades later we have gone from a nearly insurmountable debt of 10 Trillion dollars to bankruptcy ensuring 40 Trillion.
Now the “change” offered by Democrats is the same change they cheated away in 2016, Socialism. Which history shows leads to disaster every time its tried on a national scale.
Its going to get worse, before it gets worse.
The deficit was 19 Trillion dollars when Trump got in office. It is now 40 trillion in a year and a half. I don’t know how that is going to save us
Pat, so the debt doubled under Obama and it has doubled once again under Trump and Biden.
Americans don’t seem to realize that Republicans and Democrats in Washington DC and most everywhere else are literally destroying this country.
And it is almost like they’re doing intentionally
Go tell every country in northern Europe and Canada how terrible democratic socialism is. You’ll get a poor reception from its constituents.
You are a free fellow, move.