{"id":2374,"date":"2023-11-01T01:59:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T01:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=2374"},"modified":"2023-10-05T12:55:07","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T12:55:07","slug":"chap-36-former-rep-on-political-mission-of-his-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=2374","title":{"rendered":"Chap. 36 – Former Rep on Political Mission of his Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chapter 36<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Rep on Political Mission of his Life<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dateline:  Daphne, Alabama, Saturday, November 20, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     For the past ten weeks, former State Representative Skip Dewar and his merry band of followers have been on the political fringe doing street theatre traveling around the country, with the motto \u201cHarnessing the Spirit of Imagination.\u201d  They\u2019ve been to 15 states since leaving Minnesota September 13th<\/sup>, this past week encamped in tiny Daphne, Alabama, on Mobile Bay.  But in a virtual reality setting, they\u2019re appearing all over America live-streaming their political antics from a blog site <rumpkins.com>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Traveling in a rainbow-colored RV they call \u201cThe Land Yacht,\u201d heavily decorated with political slogans, conjures up \u2013 for those of us who came of age in the \u201860s – visions of Ken Kesey\u2019s 1964 tour of America in a psychedelically painted bus named \u201cFurthur.\u201d   Kesey\u2019s \u201cMerry Pranksters\u201d touted dropping acid in hopes of building a counter-culture.  \u201cThe Rumpkins,\u201d the name Dewar\u2019s followers go by, have a more serious mission in mind.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Rumpkins lofty goal is to unite former Trump supporters -whom they call \u201cTrumpeters,\u201d with the growing number of independent voters \u2013 whom they call \u201cIndies,\u201d together with disaffected Democrats and Republicans, and align in a third-party movement under the banner of Andrew Yang\u2019s Forward Party.  \u201cWe\u2019re the next major party,\u201d former Rep. Dewar told me, \u201cbecause we\u2019re not proselytizing on any particular issue or issues, but rather talking about why we keep electing people who don\u2019t represent the majority view, who are too far left or too far right.  Let\u2019s move forward<\/u>, not right or left.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The Rumpkins playbook is to have fun with politics on the internet pretending to be a \u201cRump Legislature\u201d \u2013 not actually elected, but acting as if elected.  The session I watched last night mostly focused on uniting the country around the need for electoral reform, having open primaries, moving to \u201cmajority rules voting\u201d (aka Ranked Choice Voting), having 16-year-old voter registration, having independent re-districting committees, among other things. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Back when he was a state legislator, Dewar, although elected as a Democrat, made a name for himself as a champion of third-parties, including taking Minnesota\u2019s anti-fusion law all the way to the United States Supreme Court \u2013 and losing.<\/em> (“Fusion<\/em>” is a way to let third parties be on the ballot without having to be spoilers<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     One of the participants, Eloise Johnson, a recently elected school board member who won her election as a Forward Party candidate in Boulder, Montana, made a strong pitch for individual freedoms as a unifying issue.  \u201cWe don\u2019t need a government telling us whom we can love or what books our kids should read or not read,\u201d she blogged, which got a lot of \u201cthumbs up\u201d amongst the participants.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     The session started with a participant who said his name was \u201cPirate Jack\u201d explaining the blog was designed to maintain an up-to-the-minute current count of participants, and a quick voting method clicking on either the \u201cthumbs up\u201d or the \u201cthumbs down\u201d icon to register one\u2019s sentiment or move the agenda.  The highest count while I was watching was 207.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Another issue garnering wide-spread support, almost all \u201cthumbs up,\u201d was uniting behind fighting terrorism, but how to do that wasn\u2019t much discussed, nor voted on.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Another participant, Curt Driscoll, the Chair of Minnesota\u2019s Libertarian Party, whom I watched the session with, told me afterwards he agreed that electoral reform was key to getting back to majority rule in this country, and having a third-party movement focused on just that single issue was a good strategy.  \u201cI\u2019ve been friends with Skip Dewar a long time.  He\u2019s always been good at making things happen, making things fun, creating excitement.  A good organizer.  Sounds like a fun trip \u2013 stirring up imaginations \u2013 and, hey, anytime you can get over 200 people to participate in anything, you\u2019re doing great.  I\u2019m sure Skip understands, though, you can\u2019t have a legislative body when participation is unlimited and nobody knows whom the participants are.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

-End of Story-<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

     <\/em>After reading the story a second time, Skip told us encamped on Mobile Bay, \u201cThat\u2019s great.  You guys sure did it, not me.  Maybe you\u2019ve hit upon the 2024 Pig for President way to organize.   Maybe we should all start wearing raincoats like Bud Clark.  Lots of things I never imagined leaving Minnesota.\u201d   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

   \u201cGood Grief,\u201d we all thought, \u201cSarcasm?  Doesn\u2019t sound like Skip at all.\u201d  But, of course, none of us except Rocky knew how all consumed Skip was by the specter of a terrorist attack to which he was now an accessory after the fact for 26 days now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 36 Former Rep on Political Mission of his Life Dateline:  Daphne, Alabama, Saturday, November 20, 2022      For the past ten weeks, former State Representative Skip Dewar and his merry band of followers have been on the political fringe … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2374"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2790,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions\/2790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}