Port: A Republican Party dedicated to defeating … other Republicans?
MINOT, N.D. — Readers of this column do not need to be told that we live in strange political times. We went through the looking glass a while ago. And yet, there are still new horizons of weird to set sail for.
Here’s one: How about a Republican Party dedicated to defeating other Republicans?
I’ve mentioned before, as an illustration of the Donald Trump-aligned extremism that’s rising in the North Dakota Republican Party, the change in leadership in the NDGOP’s District 2. At a recent reorganizing convention Jerol Gohrick, who made regional headlines for threatening the Grand Forks City Council , was elected as chairman. But there’s more to the story, thanks to the reporting of Jacob Orledge in the Tioga Tribune .
It’s not news that Gohrick and his ilk despise the current leadership of the NDGOP, but they’ve also announced their intention to break their district party off from the statewide NDGOP, and to actively campaign against elected Republicans.
Why should readers across the state care about the machinations of a rural legislative district tucked into the state’s northwest corner? Because what’s happening in District 2 is a distillation of what’s happening to the NDGOP across the state. And because the NDGOP is the dominant political force in state government, this matters to all of us.
