MY TURN: Restitching the community fabric
In this era of ideological division, misinformation, disinformation, echo chambers, outright lies, and conspiracy theories, where do we turn, and how do we ascertain the truth? How can we improve our community with all the divisiveness? How do we restitch the community fabric?
Democrats and Republicans Together, DART, was formed in late 2020 to advocate for sound, qualified and thoughtful community leaders in governance and public service. Its goal is to identify, elect and support skilled and competent leaders in our community organizations, regardless of political party. Our focus remains on local and regional non-partisan races, which are still of utmost importance. We take an educational approach by providing information and recommendations to the community about candidates we believe are the best for governance and community building. We have also sponsored educational forums on issues of community importance. Ultimately, we are a large group of friends and neighbors concerned about the far-right takeover of our community and legislation that does not serve the people's interests.
Alas, partisanship bleeds through at every level. It is nearly impossible to be solely concerned about the North Idaho community. Corruption of the Republican Party at the national, state and local levels continues at full speed ahead. Staunch, lifelong Republicans have been kicked to the curb. The divides in this country have never been greater since the Civil War. Dark money is flooding into all levels of politics, and special interests abound. Certain classes and colors of individuals are having their inalienable rights threatened. As we have seen in North Idaho, every non-partisan election has become increasingly partisan.
Most of our accepted and trusted media outlets have taken sides in politics. At the very least, they are often silent or complicit in the face of the MAGA steamroller. The rise of the social media blogosphere has become indecipherable.
As we have seen across the country and here in North Idaho, protests and rallies are increasing in size and frequency, with people of all political persuasions participating — independents, Republicans and Democrats. Folks that choose to support organizations like ours are called many things by the far right — DINOs, RINOs, Trump Derangement Syndrome, unpatriotic, fascists, socialists — the list goes on and degenerates.
Are you tired yet of the extremism that has gripped Kootenai County and our nation over the recent years? Do you feel that we’ve lost the ability to coexist with our neighbors and even family members? If so, can we offer you some hope?
There is a growing number of people in our community who, over the past few years, have come together, even as members of opposing parties, to attempt to restore a sense of normalcy and non-partisanship to our elections, so we can, in fact, elect the most qualified and competent candidates. As importantly, we felt that we needed to come together to restore the sense of community that drew so many of us to North Idaho in the first place.
If you agree and wish to participate with us, then please take this opportunity to reply to this invitation. We are not asking you to commit to a political party or sign up for meetings (unless you wish to, of course). We ask that you demonstrate a concern for our community and be at least willing to read the periodic information we provide. Most importantly, commit to becoming an informed voter in every election. If you can commit to this, please respond to this message via email at [email protected] or through our website at https://dartcd.wixsite.com/website, and we will be in touch with you. (Please note that we are not some cryptic organization trying to capture your personal information.)
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The DART Board of Directors
Richard Palagi, Nick Arambarri, Chris Fillios, Lynn Fleming, Kris Jamtaas, Nancy Jones, Joyce Lider, Michael Viale, Philip Ward
(Community volunteers and North Idaho residents)