I know Jack Riggins wants us all to Win Win Win, but–what will WE win?
Yesterday I received an email from the new chairman of the Lancaster County Republican Party (LCRP). His name is Jack Riggins.I’m sure he means well, but I wish he didn’t have my email address. I keep asking the LCRP to take me off their mailing lists, but so far, they’ve been uncooperative. And they keep selling—or sharing—it. I don’t hate them. I just don’t want to have anything to do with them. But more about that later.
I wanted to share Jack’s letter on Substack, but Substack isn’t letting me load images of any kind lately, so… I’m sharing his letter here as well as my response.
Here’s the first part of his letter:
A little background here: First, it’s a sad fact that politics is a nasty, horrible, sucking money pit–and political parties need (or want) ever more of it. I understand why Jack wants our support. The Lancaster County Republican Party is in serious trouble. The people who previously ran it outed themselves as globalist RINOs who weren’t just anti-Trump. When they made clear that they didn’t care what grassroots Republicans want or need, they also alienated the party base. When the party base refused to blindly follow them to perdition, these elitists took their politically generated wealth (generously contributed to up to that point BY the party base) and left the LCRP with nothing.
Last I knew, the LCRP was meeting in donated space in the basement of a commercial building with a broken elevator.
Okay–so they’ve got problems, and they have real needs. And, I’d like to be sympathetic. But I’m not–keep reading.)
When I saw this statement, I choked on it. It took me hours to go back and read the rest of this email.
Unfortunately, it confirmed what I suspected.
That sounds really good doesn’t it?
Except for one little detail. Grassroots Republicans realized after the 2020 election that votes from several high-density Nebraska precincts that vote majority Republican had been stolen and flipped via the proprietary vote counting machines installed and run by ES&S. We have been trying for FOUR YEARS to get those machines removed. We want restore the election integrity and transparency that we are guaranteed by our Nebraska constitution. These machines are opaque to public scrutiny and oversight. We have a just and reasonable complaint, but…we are being denied legal redress.
And our Nebraska legislature–which is heavily Republican–has ignored all of the evidence. Instead of voting to remove the machines, they handed the Secretary of State’s office more power over our elections with absolutely NO oversight. The Secretary of State contracted with ES&S for those machines. Following Jack’s recipe for reconciliation means allowing this abuse of public power to continue. It also means supporting the abusive politicians who are mistreating us.
So… WHAT WILL WE WIN?
Here’s what I had to say about it–and I apologize in advance. I really let my cranky all hang out:
Dear Jack,
I was interested to hear that you are the next chairman of the Lancaster County Republican Party… right up to the point where you said that the mission of the LCRP is to win elections.
Oh, really? To what purpose? So we’ll give you the money that we can barely stretch far enough to put food on our tables now? I write this as I’m preparing to head out the door to buy groceries on credit. (see info at bottom of this post)
Or maybe you think we should give you the money that we were going to use to fill up our gas tanks so we could go get those groceries instead? So sad–no–I need that gas.
This is why I’ve attended only one meeting of the LCRP–and will NEVER return. And will NEVER donate to the LCRP and have no desire to have anything at all EVER to do with most of you. (and I keep wondering why y’all insist on emailing me)
But you don’t care how I feel about you or that I want you to take my name off your mailing lists and STOP SELLING IT. You don’t care. All you want to do is “win elections.” Oh–and rip us off solicit lots of donations so you can throw endless amounts of money away on “winning.”
Winning…what? FOR WHOM???
What about restoring the integrity and transparency to our local elections that is guaranteed by the Nebraska State Constitution? Or–do you not care how those elections are won or who actually wins them? Right now, those votes can be flipped any which way in ES&S’s opaque vote counting boxes, and there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY and NO OVERSIGHT. Also, those boxes can be remotely accessed and hacked.
And ES&S doesn’t, from what I understand, have a vested interest in respecting and counting poor people’s and retirees’ votes from high-density counties in Omaha and Lincoln if those votes are for Republicans.
Nebraska’s Secretary of State, Bob Evnen (GOP) straight up REFUSES to allow anyone to see the actual vote registers from the last election. You can’t get your hands on them. Due to the way the laws were written by his cronies in the NEGOP, we can’t even sue.
He wouldn’t let us see the actual vote registers in 2020 either, and he awarded himself 100% of the vote for Secretary of State, even though people like me did NOT vote for him. Even though we voted for SOMEONE ELSE OTHER THAN HIM.
With Republicans in office like Bob Evnen, I have to question why it’s even worth the bother to vote. With ES&S rendering the counting of our votes insecure and subject to hacking, it’s looking ever more likely that our votes could be stolen and given to radical Democrats in such a way that we’ll never get redress over it.
But you think you can “win elections” even though we can’t get any legal redress over 2020 or even over the latest round of primaries.
WINNING ANYTHING as a Republican may be a serious pipe dream in this upcoming election, and given the oh-so-clever way that YOUR REPUBLICANS have set things up, we aren’t going to have any redress over this election either.
That–SUCKS.
As a voter, as someone whose life and finances HAVE BEEN SEVERELY IMPACTED by shitty people playing politics ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AISLE, I want more from you and from the entire LCRP.
If all you’re there to do is “win elections,” well–you do not deserve to win anything; you deserve to crash and burn (but I’m writing you and hoping that you’ll grow a heart and start caring about what you’re actually doing to the rest of us–because–I’m afraid that you’re going to take the rest of us down with you).
Try harder. Come up with something as your goal that decent Republicans can get behind and support. Come up with something to aim for that we all actually want. Something far beyond (and a whole lot more worthwhile to the lot of us) than just “winning elections.” Something like restoring election integrity and transparency. Like, guaranteeing that our votes will have REAL MEANING when we cast them.
Otherwise, I suspect that you’re going to see your party base running for the hills and refusing to have anything to do with you just as I am now doing.
Now; I’m still planning to vote. Despite the serious shortcomings of the Republican Party apparatus (and absolutely no desire to support any part of it), I still like Trump. I’m going to vote for him in the upcoming election.
I MIGHT vote for some other people too–if I know that they’re good people, if they aren’t the kind of schmucks who are guaranteed to turn around and betray us the way that Bob Evnen and his cronies have done. I have no hope, however, that my votes will actually be counted for the people that I vote for. Absolutely NONE.
And I’m done voting the party ticket. I will never do that again. If I don’t know the person well enough to vote for them, I’m going to leave that space blank.
And I’m posting your letter on Substack [edited to add: I’m linking there to here] and my answer to it. I wish you the best, and that you get your head out of the sand and start caring about why and how you need to support something greater than just “winning.”
Sincerely,
Krysti
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