So, I finally went to a meeting of the Republican Party in my town. Being that the local election is in two weeks it was a pretty long meeting, two hours. But it was fairly interesting to see what it consists of. Except for asking a question of a guest speaker who’s running for higher state office I kept my mouth shut and listened. My town is unusual in New England in that the Republicans are the dominant party. So, it was interesting to see what they saw as the correct strategy to take concerning attacks in the local press on their policies. It was actually heartening to hear them speak rationally about things like mask mandates and vaccination requirements. Being embedded in a blue state means that certain things like school health requirements are off the table but it was extremely encouraging that we were sitting closely together in a conference room without any mask nonsense at all. People even shook hands without naked fear showing on their faces.
There were a number of jokes about the crazier woke complaints that some townspeople had levelled against the town government. One of my favorites is the calls for all Republicans to resign to atone for the January 6th “insurrection.” The selectmen were debating whether they should address this complaint by assuring the town that they were indeed in New England on January 6th and doing their jobs. Inwardly I was thinking that the way to answer something like this would be with snarky humor but I kept quiet. No need to get myself labeled as an unserious person, yet.
I was interested to hear that the state government is policing speech at the municipal level. They have outlawed the use of the word “character” when the town describes itself in writing. They were told that was a dog whistle for “white.” Amusingly the town folks were looking for synonyms for the word character to allow them to work around this silliness. I found this approach to short circuiting the typical New England virtue signaling exemplary. Follow the letter of the law and defy the spirit of it.
There were many mundane items having to do with budget and personnel and I could tell there were a lot of things being discussed that had a lot of history and back story that I wasn’t privy to. But it was interesting to see how the various personalities and positions asserted themselves in the discussions. And even though some of the subject matter was dry I found myself interested in the positions that the various individuals took. The elected officials were extremely anxious that everything possible be done in the short time remaining to shore up their campaigns against Democrat and media attacks. The committee members wanted to make sure that there wasn’t too much spinning around on things that had already been arranged like print and electronic media press releases. Obviously, everyone was looking at things from his own point of reference. But understandable considering what their jobs were.
As I drove away last night, I found myself thinking, “I wonder what will be at the top of the agenda at the next meeting.” I left my e-mail address and phone number on their attendance sheet and I’m sure they’ll contact me to contribute money to their coffers. But so far, I didn’t see anything that told me I shouldn’t find out more about this group. They seemed like intelligent, normal people. And there was not even a hint of human sacrifice being part of their initiation ceremony. Of course, they didn’t declare me dictator for life yet but so far so good.