At election time, there is a certain risk that is most severe in local elections: the risk that friendship will trump judgment.
If we instinctively know how destructive leftist policies are, in terms of promulgating high taxes, burdensome regulations, etc., we are less likely to be conned into voting for a leftist for state or national office… because we do not know them personally, so we can think objectively.
At the local level, however, it is easy to be conned.
That leftist running for alderman, school board, library board, or township trustee is probably just as dangerous, just as destructive, as the congressional candidates you have no trouble voting against, year after year.
But you know THIS guy or gal personally.
He’s your neighbor, or your accountant, or a fellow parent on the local kids’ soccer team.
You talk to him or her all the time, waiting for practice to end, picking up the kids from school, or chatting across the fence, doing yardwork.
Now he or she is running for a local office. There’s no foreign policy involved, no Supreme Court or other federal judicial appointments involved… And we instinctively assume there is some difference between the importance of these races… A difference that will justify our casting a vote for this leftist ”friend.“
This difference is an illusion.
Most of the issues tearing our country apart at the state and national levels exist at the local level too,, they are just couched in different terms, manifested in different ways.
The refusal by our federal government to enforce our southern border is a nightmare because of local city councils that declare their jurisdictions to be sanctuary communities, and because of school districts that insist on providing free education, subsidized program participation, and free lunches to illegal aliens as well as to citizens and legal residents.
The war on American manufacturing that our federal government has carried on for generations is assisted by cities and counties that mandate outrageous licensing fees, set unaffordable minimum wage levels, and write zoning and building codes that make the construction and upkeep of factories completely unaffordable in the very areas that could provide them with employees.
In our discussions of state and federal politics, we all bemoan the loss of a public understanding of American history and economics… But it is those very local school districts that bear the responsibility for purging such subjects from society’s curricula.
Not only are local elections just as important as federal ones, but, upon reflection, we can see that they are actually the most important. If our schools still did the job they did in the 19th century, we wouldn’t have to worry about socialists running for Congress or Senate, because they wouldn’t have a chance, in the face of an educated public that fully understood the principles of liberty.
So here we stand, with local elections upon us, and friends and acquaintances on the ballot who we know in our minds should be opposed, even as our hearts tell us to give them a break, to give them a chance.
Don’t fall for it.
That pleasant face – waiting alongside you for practice to finish or for school to let out – intends to vote, as your representative, as a trustee or alderman, to raise your taxes, to drive businesses out of your area, and to dumb down your children’s education even more (if that can be imagined possible).
Our great nation stands on the edge of a cliff; every single step matters. There are no small races anymore; there are no positions, however seemingly minor, that cannot be used to do unexpected, incalculable damage by an acolyte of the modern left.
Copyright 2021 John F Di Leo
John F Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international trade compliance and transportation professional, writer and actor. His columns have been found in Illinois Review since 2009.
A collection of John’s Illinois Review columns on the growing epidemic of vote fraud, The Tales of Little Pavel, can be found on Amazon as either an e-book or paperback.
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