Bonneville County bucks conservative trend, temporarily

Jan. 20 marked a new day in America’s history and, equally notably, the national trajectory when it comes to how we collectively believe government ought to serve the public. Said simply, voters will now get from Washington, D.C., less government, more control over illegal immigration, the end of control of government by corporate special interests and elites, and significantly lower taxes.

Excluding major Democrat-held strongholds like California and, say, Portland, Oregon, the message was received everywhere.

And taking a closer look at Idaho as a microcosm of the United States, the message was received here as well, except for in leftist encampments that are political kissing cousins to California like Blaine County, the city of Boise, and Bonneville County.

Yes, you read that correctly. I include Bonneville County in the list of leftist beachheads because it is the one place in Idaho that has bucked the trend of moving more toward the right. The questions that need to be asked now are, “Why?” and, “What do we do about it?”

The answers to these questions are relatively simple: Last year, a group of leftist Idahoans launched a campaign to take control of the Idaho Republican Party. These leftists included Tom Luna, the former state GOP party chairman and former state superintendent of public instruction best known for bringing Common Core to Idaho; Trent Clark, former state GOP party chairman, chairman of the big business lobby Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, and himself a former lobbyist for ag chemical company Monsanto; and Tom Loertscher, former GOP state representative who often blocked pro-Second Amendment legislation, lost the Republican Primary and left the party to run an unsuccessful write-in campaign.

There are several other players, but the list is too long to mention here. Suffice it to say, Republicans in Name Only (RINOs, as we call them), worked really hard to keep the state Republican Party under the control of establishment big-government Republicans.

They wanted to continue the corporate welfare gravy train at the Legislature, and they wanted to stop actual conservatives from controlling the state party and state elective offices from the governor’s office down to state legislative seats and GOP precinct committeemen.

They failed just about everywhere — except in Bonneville County. Why? Because Bonneville County was at the forefront of holding elected officials accountable for saying one thing to get elected and doing another. The GOP committees began asking tough questions of legislators like Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, who said she’d be a conservative voice for us in Boise, but once there, voted consistently with liberal Democrats.

As we got under these legislators’ skin, Mickelsen teamed up with Democrats like Carrie Scheid, whose Post Register column with her husband Jerry serves as a purveyor of leftist talking points, to promote left-leaning politicians in every possible elective office. The effort then received massive funding from the great and spacious building south of town. And the primary target for that funding was Bonneville County’s conservative GOP committees.

So now, the Bonneville County GOP is controlled by Republicans who in any other state would be Democrats. They secretly don’t like Donald Trump very much and they have no patience for people who believe that government’s sole purpose is to protect a free society and our God-given rights.

They’re much more favorable to a government that’s really good at creating programs on which people are dependent, just as is the case in California.

The Gem State heist was successful only in Bonneville County, and only for a short while. Now that grassroots conservative populists have awakened nationally, they will not go to sleep anytime soon, and that includes those in eastern Idaho. Conservatives will recapture Bonneville County in 2026.

Doyle Beck is an Idaho presidential elector.