The establishment Republicans and the left-wing media would have you believe that “extremists” and “libertarians” have taken over the state party and many of the county Republican Central Committees.  In the words of Donald Trump, “that is fake news.”

Throughout the primary and even now, people have labeled my friends and me extremists and libertarians. I even read the other day that I am a libertarian operative. That was tweeted by an establishment candidate that does nothing but loses primaries. In fact, I don’t know that there is a candidate in all of Idaho who has lost more races than this guy. He also loves to throw out these false labels, apparently.

When asking any of these people for examples of any of what makes us radicals or libertarians, they can’t come up with an answer. The reality is, I’m an Idaho GOP platform, Republican. Have you read it? If not, here is a link for you.

I’ll grant you that there are likely many libertarians who vote Republican here in Idaho. But the people I know that are mobilizing and making a difference to bring Idaho to an authentic/liberty red are Republicans who either were awakened during the lockdowns (because of what has occurred here in Idaho to businesses and in our schools) or those who have moved here from other states hoping to find that conservative eutopia we all believed to be here. Unfortunately, we all learned that Idaho isn’t as red as we believed and we are at a crossroads that many of us have seen before.

The reality is that the establishment is terrified that they can’t control us. They are terrified that we can’t be bought. They are terrified that we will be effective where they haven’t been. They are terrified that their “good old boys” network will fall apart.

I had a cordial conversation with a large GOP donor via email over the 3 days that the GOP Convention was going on. He was strongly in favor of Tom Luna and even sent an email calling people like me “radicals” and said that we are damaging and dividing the Republican party. During our conversation, I told him that the reality is that people like him are afraid that they won’t be able to control us “radicals” with donations and we can’t be steered in the direction they want us to go. We are going full steam ahead righting this ship with or without them and their donations. I also reminded him of another time when people were called radicals, which was in 1776.

I’ll finish with one example, and this is one of many that I can point to.

While standing in line to cast my ballot for our state party leadership, I was talking with someone who won his primary election and has no challenger for the general election. He will be in the statehouse come next year, thankfully. We were having a great time chatting and laughing and a female lobbyist walked up and introduced herself to him. She mentioned 5+ large corporations that she lobbied for, including a really large Tobacco company. The look on his face and his demeanor completely changed. I could tell he was extremely uncomfortable and wanted out of the conversation. I already knew it, but at that moment I was reminded that he couldn’t be bought. His votes will be for the people who elected him and not for special interests. His votes will be for the betterment of our state and our liberties first, and not for the betterment of some large corporation unless that is just a by-product.

It’s no wonder the establishment is panicking… but not for the reasons they are saying.