Written By –
Claire Kennedy
State Committeewoman, Oklahoma County
Crossposted from Grassroots on Fire
It’s time to make a choice
Normally, in a political party, the leadership will embrace, include, and empower the active, energetic part of the party. For good or bad, that’s what the party does. When the party leadership doesn’t do that, then what happens? There’s division. Today, there is terrific division in our state’s GOP parties. The ground team (aka grassroots) is taking more and more interest, participation, and even control, while the leadership is resisting this control and preventing participation at every turn.
But there’s something more important going on. A serious movement is afoot, upsetting some and overdue for others. A little history is in order here to understand what’s going on.
Where Did These New Volunteers Come From?
First, with an improbably and highly duplicitous election in which everyone knew that Trump won, many of Trump’s supporters were scratching their heads and wondering, WTF! A couple of weeks passed, and there were no answers other than, yes, the winner of the 2020 election actually received more votes than the famously popular presidential election of 2012. Really? It was apparent that this election was not anything close to fair, honest, or transparent.
So what’s a lowly voter to do? Sit on our duff and act like it’s all ok when it’s clearly not, and there’s a slew of lying going on? As one conservative observer noted:
Elections have consequences and stolen elections have disastrous consequences!
“But what can one person can do” is the eternal question that most citizens ask.
A Grassroots Army Volunteers
So many of these election deniers took the advice to get involved in their government and volunteered by the hundreds of thousands in their local party system. But what they found in their political party and their elected officials, is that the lie was as pervasive throughout all levels of government as it was in the election fraud. Even our own Senator Lankford proposed 5,000 illegals a day as a compromise for the massive border situation. What? That’s almost 2,000,000/year. That’s acceptable?
That’s not the worst of it. The leader of our State Senate also decided that a bill authorizing driver’s licenses for undocumented residents was okay. I wonder what part of the party platform this was included in:
This is directly from the OKGOP Platform. This blatant circumvention of the platform sets the grassroots on fire. This is not brain surgery; the platform clearly says no driver’s licenses for undocumented residents, and the Oklahoma Senate Pro Tem’s bill crosses out all requirements for any citizenship document. What could be simpler? The Senate Pro Tem was advocating for everyone to have a license.
This is a sample of the bill’s markup that was deleted in the new SB 699. This huge influx of volunteers after 2020 was watching not only their federal government lie to them but their local government as well.
As if this in-your-face rejection of common sense wasn’t enough, grassroots also became involved in their local city government and their school boards (where they were subsequently referred to as homeland terrorist for trying to save their kids from being exposed to porn), only to find out that the rot was even worse in their own back yards.
They discovered there’s not an upswing in rot in our government in both parties, but it has been there all along, under the radar. Only with the intrusion of hundreds of thousands of moral, ethical, decent volunteers with common sense and grounded in reality has the truth come to light. And these grassroots want it cleaned up.
What The Establishment Doesn’t Understand
Ignoring the ideology of these grassroots volunteers is fatal. The current elected officials are solicitous when they want the grassroots votes but discount any constituents after being elected. This is one elected official’s remarks to a constituent who is asking that the vote for the Oklahoma Senate leadership be public:
Okay then…that’s a great way to treat a constituent: “…won’t let anyone influence her vote and doesn’t want a constituent’s input!” This is the sort of communication the elected officials and party leadership have with the grassroots, whose job is “to do and die and not ask why,” according to the establishment. The grassroots have been pushed to the side repeatedly and are now taking action. The establishment has the big picture because it is so big that the grassroots “little people” can’t possibly understand these big ideas. The big-picture people share only what the “little people” need to know to execute the big picture.
Here’s the problem: these “little people” are not the normal, run-of-the-mill volunteers the establishment has had. This new class of volunteers have degrees, and many have advanced degrees. What’s making this more frustrating is that in the past, these volunteers have had to work their way up the system. They have been indoctrinated on how to treat the “big people” to get a place and get invited to certain meetings with higher-ups.
Many of the grassroots delegates at the national convention were not told there was a rest area where they could take a break from the hard chairs on the floor and were also told that “some” alternates could not come to the convention floors. Normal tradition allows each delegate to exchange their pass with an alternate so that all delegates, alternates included, can experience being on the floor of a national convention, but apparently, that was the rule in the 2024 RNC Convention for some of our state’s delegates. Worse, an exclusive group (“big thinkers” only) was invited to a reception with some very high folks in the RNC, but not the grassroots. What’s the purpose of this exclusion? To make sure that the establishment is on top? To make sure that the “little people” don’t get to participate in the national delegate system? And how is that helpful for the future better conservative government? Really?
Treating them as though they cannot absorb and cogitate on “big picture” ideas is demeaning and misses the whole point. The party that does not use the abundance of talent in this new class of volunteers is doing so at its own peril.
Further, calling the grassroots divisive and angry makes them (grassroots) even more resolved. As Lady Thatcher wisely remarked, “When they resort to personal attacks, that means they have no other argument.” There is no other argument for truth, honesty, fairness, and transparency. These grassroots deal in these terms. They can’t afford not to. They live in the world of reality.
Not only can these “little people” absorb complex ideas, but they have and will demonstrate strategizing, organizing, and implementing the likes of which any corporation would envy. Saying that these people aren’t astute enough to grasp a complete “big-picture” concept is delusional and calamitous to those who hold this belief.
The Daily Headlines
These sorts of headlines only bring more support and impassioned loyalty. They see their leaders suffering in the most humiliating way that the left and controlled opposition can think of, and all that happens is an outpouring of more support. All the while, their leaders are screaming, “I’m going to jail for you!” Or “Next Man Up!” Or any number of other rallying cries that only make the grassroots giant more dedicated and convince those fence-sitters that the irrational behavior of the Democrats and the controlled opposition doesn’t look like it’s 1.) working or 2.) legal. Well, duh!
Back to the Present
So here we are today, with a whole mass of grassroots volunteers who have suddenly appeared on the scene, and the leadership hasn’t any idea what to make of them. These new grassroots want accountability, responsibility, transparency and honesty returned to government. They haven’t come up through the party system. They don’t care about the old party indoctrination. They care about results, and they want to see action now. They have listened long enough to their leaders tell them one thing, then present driver’s license bills for undocumented residents, watched the overflow of undocumented migrants cross the border in droves, ruin the wealth and financial system of this country, while the state, sitting on a pot load of money can’t even give a grocery tax exclusion without a huge fuss. The grassroots are disgusted with what has been the current leadership and want it reversed. The current leadership doesn’t want to rock the boat – everything’s just fine as it is.
Case in point: Our state had the lowest turnout rate in the presidential election as of December 7, 2020. Does that sound like a goal that we should praise and maintain? Click the graphic to see more.
Here we are on the cusp of another presidential election. We are supposedly told it will be the most important election in our lifetime—maybe since Abraham Lincoln—and our turnout record is abysmal.
What’s just as maddening is that our largest county has purchased a program to directly affect this lagging turnout. However, because the leadership doesn’t want it (yeah, I know, why?… who knows why, because there’s no communication to the “little people”), training has been stopped and most likely won’t be started in time for the most important election of our lifetime. That kind of leadership needs to change, and this is the sort of leadership that complains about the grassroots as if they are the problem, as if they don’t understand, and as if they are not even close to any solution. Really?
The grassroots can’t afford false illusions and pipe dreams. They don’t put up with foolishness or deception. They aren’t here for themselves but for their families and the generations that come after them. These grassroots live by truth and reality. That’s a deadly combination of the establishment and the liberals. The grassroots are only interested in results. Remember, these folks live in the real world and do not consider 55% turnout anything to brag about.
The grassroots expect to work harder and smarter.
The establishment hasn’t had to work for so long that they’re not sure where to start.
The grassroots investigates new methods to make for better results.
The establishment likes things the way they are – the status quo is fine.
The grassroots studies and knows the rules and how to use them.
The establishment is above rules and does not even know what they are anyway.
The grassroots want to implement the rules and create a better environment for voters and the voting system.
The establishment has its rolodex of excuses ready for another poll failure.
The grassroots wants to cure this abysmal failure and cesspool.
The establishment can’t even see the failure and wants to keep things the same; after all, it’s worked for decades, so what’s wrong with it?
The grassroots want to see a more representative government.
The establishment doesn’t see anything wrong with today’s government.
The grassroots want to drain the swamp and rid their party of the infectious rot to prevent any future infection before the opposition party takes over, and then there will really be in a mess. There is no more passing this off to another generation to fix or even deal with. It’s now. The grassroots realize that if this isn’t fixed now, it will become an overpowering problem. There is also no more compromise. You don’t compromise with rot. You don’t unite with rot. Rot will only infect you. You must pull the rot up by the root and throw it out. It’s compromising and sliding our values and morals away a little at a time that has gotten us into the current situation of gender distraction, climate absurdity, and energy dysphoria!
What’s To Be Done?
The truth is that the time is now. The liberals and the controlled opposition (who are just as much in bed with the corrupt liberals as any liberal could be) have drawn their line in the sand. The grassroots know why: Their dirty secrets are about to be discovered.
The Grassroots Truths
The grassroots see that Navarro and Bannon went to jail, but Mayorkas and Garland didn’t. Trump gets convicted, but Hunter Biden hasn’t (till after the election, just in time for “Dad” to excuse him.) Ray Epps insights riots, but the J6’ers are the ones in jail. There is a two-tiered judicial system, and there is also a target on the back of every true conservative out there. It’s not only scary to be conservative but physically and fiscally threatening. But if bystanders and fence-sitters think that these people won’t come for us, then we really don’t understand the people who arrested the J6’ers and those who sat by and did nothing. The time is now to be counted as those who want to see responsible government replace the good-ole-boy system. Otherwise, prepare for a very dark time in this world. Reagan was right, this country is a bright and shining light on a hill. Without that light, that fate is darker than we can imagine. The inaction from the status quo will bring us to Churchill’s choices:
The grassroots know now that if they don’t do something, then our country will pass away and die of socialism – which will be full-tilt socialism from the liberals or a contained, controlled, slowly-moving socialism from the establishment. Either way, it will end badly. It’s time to act, or there will be nothing else to do but perish rather than live like slaves.
This is the divide that describes the Republican Party in the United States. Our state isn’t the only one going through this transition—every state in the union is. When the establishment cries that people in their own party are after them and these “divisive forces causing disruption” will cause a terrible outcome in November, it’s their last gasp at power.
And when there is no truth, there is no principle, then politics is only ever about power. ~ John Anderson, former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia.
Written By – Claire Kennedy, follow her Substack at Grassroots on Fire