Republicans face a test of extremists' power in Idaho's primaries

[Nevilledog]

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NPR
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In the Republican Party, Idaho is one of the most intense battlegrounds between moderates and extremists. The primary is next month and political analysts see it as a national test for how far to the right the GOP can be pulled.

npr.org
Republicans face a test of extremists' power in Idaho's primaries
Moderate Republicans are organizing in opposition to extremists gaining control of the party.
6:00 PM · Apr 8, 2022

https://www.npr.org/2022/04/08/1091435312/idaho-primary-republican-party-politics

There was a moment when cattle rancher Jennifer Ellis decided she couldn't stand on the sidelines anymore. It was when Ammon Bundy, who led an armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon and was later acquitted, moved to Idaho and began mounting his campaign for governor.

"When you see him rising in the national consciousness as some kind of a cowboy rancher, that gets a little touchy," Ellis said one windy afternoon on her ranch near Blackfoot, Idaho.

To Ellis, Bundy gave ranchers — actual, working, public lands ranchers who follow the law and pay their fees — a bad name. Self-described moderate Republicans like her viewed the scofflaw rebellion as a precursor to today's right-wing politics of conspiracies and trolling becoming mainstreamed. Ellis is also alarmed by the meanness and threats directed at anyone with opposing viewpoints.

"It's dividing communities," she says. "They love the politics of fear."

Ruby red Idaho is one of the most intense battlegrounds between moderates and extremists in the Republican Party. Its primary is next month. Political analysts see it as a national test for how far to the right the GOP can be pulled.

*snip*

[Haggis 4 Breakfast]

1. Bundy moved there because it was the ONLY place he thought he had a chance of being elected.

[2naSalit]

3. This will be interesting to see.

I left Idaho because the politics were getting too out there.

[brooklynite]

2. If Eugene Debs could run for office from a prison cell...