The ground was warm. The robins had been chirping for weeks, the sun as hot as a July morning. We knelt in the aisle and transplanted the slips of onions into the row. One by one, we tucked the roots into the soil.
Overhead the day continued. It’s been too dry, too early. The jets roared above transporting evermore weekend warriors to the valley, tires screeched at the three corners as cars took off, and loons, ravens and cranes paraded the airwaves. Each enjoyed a distinct call to the Flathead.
Anyone in the valley who works with their hands knows labor. Maybe you farm like us, or bang nails, mix mud or work as the lunch lady at school. You know work and what time is worth.
The last batch of men we sent to Congress checked out, left us in an expensive time, in the most expensive state. Our four men in Congress are robbing us blind with excuses on why they won’t help regular working folks.
The same fraternity of political men run all of Montana. They run all of Congress. Yet want us to believe that one day soon they or their anointed successors will fix all the hurt and expense which they themselves imposed upon the working people of Montana.
Voters want a uniter, not another mean-spirited divider. We’ve got enough expensive problems. There’s no benefit to us from a quarter-time Congress collecting full-time wages while vacationing across the globe. Give us a fighter, a leader willing to stand up for working values. From the onion patch looking up, the billionaires and their private jets are doing just fine.
The incumbents would rather quit D.C. than come to one live townhall in Montana. These yes-men are making living more expensive every single day. Hospitals are closing across rural America. Our insurance is through the roof. Energy costs are exploding our wallets.
The yes-men of Montana want to spend a billion taxpayer dollars building a roaring twenties style ball room at the White House instead of feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, or healing the sick. The four horsemen we sent to Congress forgot about people, to idolize the gold.
I spoke recently with Alex Lawson of Social Security Works. Lawson is a national advocate for keeping rural hospitals open. He indicated it was indeed the yes-men of Montana who are cutting our access to healthcare, closing hospitals, shuttering nursing homes, and threatening our Social Security by giving lavish tax breaks to the mega yacht owners.
There’s no government money in Social Security. It’s worker money that seniors get back at retirement. Most every working person pays a massive chunk of their paycheck to tax. The Social Security tax rate for millionaire earners is a couple points. Billionaire investors pay a small fraction of a percent. The yes-men of Congress wouldn’t be planning to cut senior benefits if everyone paid their fair share.
Montana yes-men politicians put rural hospitals in places like Hardin, Wolf Point, Terry, Jordan, Cut Bank and Poplar at big risk of closing. Hospitals like Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Polson and the Big Sky Medical Center are in trouble with three years of negative margins.
The tech-bro billionaires are in it for themselves. The politicians seem to only show up for work when inside information provides good stock trades. The rest of us are on our own. They’re spending our taxpayer dollars creating a Roaring Twenties for just them, filled with ballrooms, gold statues and nonstop champagne.
Bring back the Gilded Age, the yes-men cry, as modern-day Robber Barons jam AI data centers down our throats, jacking up our power rates while stealing our water and jobs. Plenty of glossy-flyered politicians are on the ballot, vying to be the next yes-men of Montana, catering to Big Tech and forgetting about the rest of us.
It’s a rotten deal and every working person knows it. Change is coming. You can feel it in the air, the way people talk, how they turn out. The yes-men are scared of losing power. They need a truckload of anonymous billionaire dark money to repeatedly lie to us in order to win.
Anonymous money yells that your neighbor is the problem and more ballrooms will assure justice for all. They and their high-liability donors are full of it. They know it. We all know it.
Halfway down the long onion row, I got up off my knees. Stretched. Watered the transplants and headed to the mail box, en route to lunch. I dropped the ballot from the mail onto the table and ate my egg sandwich. It tasted better than ever.
I looked at the ballot. It held the promise of a new day. Inside the envelope was hope for the working person. A single vote is power and it scares the yes-men and their anointed successors. It’s why they’re pouring record amount of secret money into this Montana election.
By June 2, voters will winnow the field and select the Montanans we trust to fight for us and fix the mess created by the yes-men. If you don’t act, living will just get more expensive. You’ve got a couple weeks to get that ballot off your table and to the election office to be counted.