This Idaho group is 'huge threat' to democracy, GOP Senate leader says at Boise forum

[TexasTowelie]

Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Winder, a Boise Republican, spoke out against the Idaho Freedom Foundation on Wednesday, calling the think tank’s influence “one of the biggest threats” Idaho has to its democracy.

During a virtual forum for legislative leaders held by the City Club of Boise, four lawmakers addressed the recent session, which was tumultuous and included a break brought on by a COVID-19 outbreak. When asked about the biggest disappointment of the session, Winder took aim at a number of lawmakers in his own party.

“I think my greatest disappointment is how many legislators are willing to follow the direction of the Idaho Freedom Foundation,” Winder said. “To me that’s one of the biggest threats we have to our democracy in our state is — we’ve got a small group of people that are very vocal, that are very aggressive towards anyone that doesn’t agree with them.”

Winder said more groups in Idaho need to form to counter the constant messaging that legislators receive and to stop the trend toward the “extreme right.”

Read more: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article251846883.html

Winder may have spoke his way out of a job with those remarks.

[calimary]

1. Good Grief!!! It's like our country has a disease!

trump has changed America and NOT for the better.

[OldBaldy1701E]

4. He had nothing to do with it.

He was a figurehead. The rethugs changed America and they started doing this over 50 years ago. Please don't give that idiot credit for this, as he is not intelligent enough to have plotted it. At all.

[zaj]

5. It was Steve Bannon

Well, Putin > Bannon > Trump

[Cosmocat]

6. 99% agree

Been saying all along he was symptom, not the cause.

His one master skill is knowing and taking advantage of the weakest elements of the human spirit, and while the GOP of its own volition was headed this way as you accurately not for decades before he came down the escalator, he knew he could take the whip from the "establishment" GOP and did.

He did not build the monster, but he did know he could, and did take control of it, and while it probably was inevitable, he took it to a level where it now is that it full on, overtly attacking America democracy.

[chia]

8. "nothing" is an overstatement. He united and validated them, he's the accelerant, "God's strongman"

as the excellent Sarah Posner put it in her book "Unholy:Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump." She clearly lays out how the last five decades or so prepared the way for Trump, so I don't disagree with in the main. But they were waiting for their King David, (flawed but God used him for his own purposes in evangelical-speak) and they found him. That's why it's virtually impossible to sway his base, because they're predominantly white evangelicals looking for Trump to bring on the second coming.

[OldBaldy1701E]

10. If it had not been him

It would have been someone else. As you point out, they have been up to this shiat for over five decades. Trump was not even a thought to these people five decades ago. So, again, to sit all this on him is to ignore what got us here and what has to be done at the source to correct it. (I prefer to just delete the entire 'party' to be honest. They have shown that they are not being political for the sake of the country. They are being political because they like being asshats and controlling everything and everyone.)

[BradBo]

2. That state going to alienate anyone not radical right enough.

Giving more tax cuts to the rich is typical race to the bottom stuff.

[Evolve Dammit]

3. "Whites only" or die. Insanity is here

[Mr. Sparkle]

7. why is this group any different from the heritage foundation or Alec?

not been from Idaho, they sounds like the latest bunch of grifters on the scene. All of these groups should be banned.

[hermetic]

9. The IFF has been around since 2009

They are a bunch of evil, greedy and stupid Libertarians. They don't believe in "government." I was very surprised, and pleased, to see Winder speak out against them. I hope he can get some other Repugs here to agree with him.