Dakota Beacon

Many people have been asking me lately, “What is going on in the Republican party?”

The answer is quite simple. It is the political industrial complex. The party over the past few decades has been slowly turning all operations over to the consultant class. They have hired professionals to do the work volunteers used to do. In other words, people on the payroll of outside interests who are not always policy or principled driven.

This has set the stage for today’s battles raging in Fargo over a few legislative seats. You have a Republican legislator who is running with a Democrat with no repercussions from the state party.

You have the most powerful insider who has made tens of millions on North Dakota contracts using his money, power, and influence to attack Republican-endorsed candidates. His claim is they aren’t “Reagan Republicans.” Says who? Of course, it is him since he controls the vehicle with the funds used to attack candidates. 

Establishment insiders want to tell you what to think, what to drive and how to cook. But how did this happen, you might ask?

Because the NDGOP turned most of the legislative races over to the Odney Advertising firm over 10 years ago and gave undue influence to his firm and the former owner of the company. A political PAC has been formed called the Brighter Future Alliance which allows money to be shielded from who is behind these attacks.

When you have an outside firm doing all of this work on behalf of the party, the money flows through them along with voter-access lists. Lists that volunteers and various campaigns have spent thousands of hours and dollars building, only to be used against them. It is like the gestapo now in control. They choose to do whatever they believe is best.

We began to see it when Gov. Burgum spent millions of his own dollars to elect legislators who he wanted to support his agenda. This Brighter Future PAC began around the same time, doing the same thing.

This PAC had other interests like big oil, the Chamber of Commerce and government-funded agencies' support.

This will be the demise of the Republican Party. I suspect Democrats are observing and will figure out how to get back on track.

The pendulum always swings both ways. 

The very thing that has distinguished the party of Reagan as a holdout against government overreach is being used to undermine the principle of argument and informed consent.

As insiders squash dissent, it will force solid conservative Reagan and Trump Republicans to either start a third party or join forces with like-minded Democrats.

It seems the insiders believe that incumbents shouldn’t be challenged in the primaries while they attack Republican candidates endorsed by the party.

I suggest the GOP does some serious soul-searching. If they don’t come to some type of reconciliation the end result is inevitable.

Emineth is a North Dakota native businessman and political activist. He is a former executive director and chairman of the North Dakota Republican Party. Emineth has served on the Republican National Committee and chaired numerous presidential campaigns in North Dakota. He is the host of “The Legislature Today” and “Open Range” daily TV shows on BEK. He is a serial entrepreneur and has 40-plus years of business experience with multi-national companies. He has traveled the world extensively and has served as CEO and president of mid-tier companies.