Jill Duvall and I have been working together for years as board members of Elbert County Democrats. on a regular basis, we both have friends who contact us to ask if we are aware that the Elbert County Republican Facebook page is overflowing with our posts from other blogs, groups, and personal Facebook feeds. The answer that we give them never varies. Yes, we are aware. Yes, we know who is doing it. But the part that surprises these Republican friends of ours who have alerted us to this trash talking the most is when we tell them we are okay with it. Now, let that sink in for a moment; we are okay with this for several reasons that might just surprise you.
The Democrats of Elbert County who get trashed by these immature men on a regular basis are grownups. This spying and copying is the sort of behavior that Jill and I are both used to because as educators, we both spent a lot of time with adolescent boys and girls. It is a common denominator among immature middle school kids.
Our Elbert County Republican counterparts cannot be satisfied that they live in an area where 70% of the population is Republican and extremely conservative. This certain strain of Republicans win the local elections based on that fact just as surely as Democrats in Boulder spank the Republicans in a similar fashion. But, these men can only feel better about themselves if they can trash somebody. They do not honor an opposing point of view. Their mantra is, "Our way or the highway." They could never live in a neighborhood where they were in the political minority because there would be so few neighbors with whom they could share their vitriol. By us being okay with their trash talk, they expose themselves for what and who they are. It is helpful in a way, because despite their ugly attacks, most Republicans are really no different than Democrats. We have families, friends, jobs, pay bills, pay taxes, worry about our kids, etc. So when our Republican friends call us to explain that they are confused as to why these men are so obsessed with us, we can only shrug our shoulders and tell them that it is what it is. We can't stop them, so we look on the bright side. They are spreading our message for us to an audience that might not otherwise see it.
Now, I am speaking for myself and not Jill, although I am sure she would not disagree because she does the same sort of volunteer work that I do. I am proud of who I am. I had the opportunity as a young man to take over a large heavy highway operation that belonged to my father and my uncle. I did it for a time, but it was not my calling. Nope, I was a handful as a kid, and my family was pretty damned dysfunctional and rife with alcoholism. (One of these Republicans even went so far as to belittle a column that I wrote on how people who were suffering from anxiety centered around our new POTUS might better cope.) That is the same kind of abuse I had to deal with as a child. I got a lot of help from teachers. When the choice came down between money or purpose, I chose to teach school. I figured somebody out there might need the same kind of help I got from good role models in school. Again, I am proud of myself for trying to give back in the same manner that help and kindness was shown to me.
One of these Republican men howls about me online for picking up my PERA check every month. It is my retirement. I earned it. I make no apologies for it. I have worked since I was fourteen years old. And I continue to work hard, even in retirement. My wife and I have always understood that if you work hard, you can have a lot of the things you want. Because of my past construction skills, my wife and I were able to build (every aspect of the construction) our home here in Elbert County. We worked in the city during the day and came home to our trailer. We set up the lights and worked into the night on our ranch. We built a barn with living quarters and bought surplus materials at auctions. Every building, every road, every bit of landscaping, and every fence on our sixty acres was built with our hands. Gaye taught as a public school teacher as well, and worked just as hard as any man ever could. We faced adversity and hardship during those years, but our sacrifice paid off, and we now live in the house we always wanted. We weren't able to have our own children, but we were able to build a dream. I will not be shamed by the likes of these people. I am the type of person who-made-this-county.
Since I moved out here, I have mentored children. I have run for public office. I do community advocacy work. I helped stop a toll road. Gaye and I have helped hundreds of people get their water rights adjudicated and we have never charged anyone a dime. I do photography and history on the web. I have written hundreds of articles in newspapers and blogs. I volunteer to help with the elections every cycle that occurs. I do that knowing full good and well no Democrats will be elected.
These trash talkers think because I am a liberal, I have no patriotism...no sense of civic duty. Well it is pretty easy to talk about patriotism and civic duty when you do not have to put up with abuse like some of us Democrats do out here in Elbert County, but I do believe none of these self-proclaimed "good citizens" doubt that when Elbert County requires a volunteer from the Democratic party that Jill or I won't show up. No. We are predictable like that. We do it even when we know people like these trash talkers are going to be spewing their venom at us from behind the scenes. We are just that horrible.
The previous little diatribe is not boasting. It is what we do. It is what we will continue to do despite this minority of bullies in the local Republican party. It does not make me perfect nor above criticism. As my wife and former students might attest, I can be annoying as hell. But I do try to be a good citizen and that is more than many. It is not about tearing people down.
I have numerous blogs. I write weekly in one called Mundus Vult Decipi and it does pretty well. That blog is generally about Elbert County through the eyes of a Democrat. For thirty-eight weeks in a row, I have put out a blog entry and I have avoided most, if not all of the ad hominem stuff that gets turned back on both Jill and to me. These people who trash talk us may not agree with our politics, but both Jill and I have remained reasonably civil to those who refer to us as deplorable liberals, leftists. And yet ironically, the trash talkers vitriolic responses to our ideas have proved fruitful in a way. The more two of these people in particular try to tear Jill and others like us down, the broader our base of like-minded people have come together. When I say like-minded, I am not saying duplicates, because many are Republicans. It is okay to have differing opinions and still work together.
It is much easier than it has been in years to work on bipartisan concerns since the local party chiefs seem to devote so much time to worrying about us. Not every idea we put forward is viewed through partisan lenses and we work across the political aisle a lot these days on issues of water and future development. Funny the way things turn out sometimes.
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