Keep Right — Column by Ralph K. Ginorio
On this Veteran’s Day in 2025, I reflect on our recent elections. It is, after all, for this system of selecting our leaders that our servicemen have risked their all.
No one could possibly be worthy of the sacrifices made by those who have guarded our freedom. We can only look at those who serve with appreciation and gratitude. Only by shouldering our own responsibility to perpetuate liberty can we truly say, “Thank you!”
Did we each vote? Did we study that which was at stake sufficiently to make informed choices? Were we seriously thoughtful in our deliberations? Did our vote help strengthen freedom in these difficult times? Would we stake the lives of our loved ones upon the rectitude of our choices?
I recognize my own failings in these regards. I did vote, but not every single decision was as well grounded in a systematic exploration of candidates and issues as they needed to be. My feet are certainly made of clay. I need to do better.
On the national scale, results were depressing. A man who wished murder upon the wife and children of his political opponent became the chief law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Corrupt and scandal ridden leftist Democrats won the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey. An Islamist Communist became mayor of the city chiefly attacked by Islamist Terrorists on 9/11/01.
Honestly, what else did we expect? These areas are all deeply Democratic, much as North Idaho is deeply Republican. Every major media organization prostituted their journalistic integrity once again to support Leftists, much as they have done for the past half-century. Most schools and colleges indoctrinate innocents into captivity to a Marxist worldview without ever teaching students objectively about our shared Western Civilization.
I suspect that when the numbers settle, even in these high-profile elections vast numbers of potential voters stayed home. This tends to favor narrow factions of passionate zealots over any “great silent majority”.
The unusual election in these deep-blue regions was in 2024, when Trump benefitted from broadly-held outrages over the conduct and policies of the Autopen/Biden/Harris administration. 2025 reasserts normalcy in these areas.
The most significant of these results was the election in New York City. There, in the second largest city in North America, an overtly Communistic and Islamist candidate defeated the disgraced and corrupt “mainstream Democrat” Andrew Cuomo. This former NY governor, and son of a former NY Governor, was a deeply flawed candidate who really had no business running to be Mayor of New York City. Republican Curtis Sliwa, founder of the “Guardian
Angels”, was barely even a factor in this race.
The virulently pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic Islamo-Marxist Zohran Mamdani won just over fifty percent of the vote, with the youthful products of recent decades of politicized schooling putting him over the top. Much like Trump, Mamdani will quickly learn that his executive powers are strictly limited by the City Council, the bureaucracy, the courts, and the US Constitution.
Still, he will do great harm to New Yorkers, to the reputation of New York City, and to a global economy in which NYC is a nexus. His supporters and victims will learn by hard experience precisely why Socialism can never, ever make human life better. Sometimes, pain is the greatest teacher. For some people, it is the only teacher.
Here in North Idaho we have a Republican and Conservative movement riven by hubris; an overweening pridefulness that invites defeat. Blinded by their own sense of factional rectitude, leaders of both the North Idaho Republicans and the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee have enabled one of the most Conservative populations in the United States to be governed by “nonpartisan” Moderates and Progressives. This must stop!
The Kootenai County Republican Central Committee (KCRCC) has indulged in a bit of petty vainglory. Some assert that a cult of personality is growing up around Chairman Brent Regan. I haven’t a clue whether there is any basis for these claims, but it is the sort of thing that KCRCC should endeavor to definitively refute.
KCRCC’s protracted support of Todd Banducci and company at North Idaho College, and of Bela Kovacs’ failed term as County Assessor, have damaged the reputations of all concerned. Objective competence does really matter, and any candidate for elected office should be capable of effectively conducting the duties of their office.
On the other hand, the North Idaho Republicans need to demonstrate something more than the track record of its leaders. Instead of grounding their claim to legitimacy in the considerable accomplishments of their leadership, they need to focus more on fighting against the left-of-center status quo.
If the NIR wishes to widen their appeal, they should adopt a “Contract with America” like program for municipal and county affairs. They should advocate this program for Conservative reform with verve and discipline during elections. More importantly, in-office NIR politicians need to demonstrate their commitment by implementing Conservative reforms with an unmistakable dedication and firm resolve.
This should include a real push to reduce Social Services, cut regulations, and eliminate grants, which always have strings attached. NIR should consider that not everything that the Chamber of Commerce craves for the sake of economic growth is healthy for our community.
NIR should be less like John McCain and Mitt Romney, who were ever-willing to negotiate across the aisle to achieve compromise. Instead, the NIR should aspire to be more like Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump in eschewing compromise in favor of pursuing victory.
Rightly or wrongly, what Conservatives like me want is for the Liberal and Progressive default settings established by Wilson, FDR, Johnson, Clinton, Obama, and Biden to be identified, opposed, and overcome. This is what I mean by revolutionary Conservatism.
Right now, KCRCC seems to be more fully engaged in energetically fighting for our society’s soul at the local level than does the NIR. Until that changes, even with all of their real and imagined flaws, KCRCC will deserve ascendancy.
I do not need my champions to be perfect. I do need them to be fully engaged in this fight. Until KCRCC fights with more common sense, and until the NIR is willing to admit to themselves that we are in a street fight for the soul of our culture, we will fail in our duty as our generation’s guardians of liberty.
