Hi, From Montana

All you’re going to get today for breakfast is a few words and a picture—AND YOU’LL LIKE IT!

and hi, I’m in Billings, Montana going door-to-door for a political candidate who’s going nowhere.

Two roads have diverged into a wood and sorry I cannot be both a true believer and a person of faith. Jon Tester, 4-time Dem US Senator will lose in Montana to a guy named Tim Sheehy whose campaign for US Senate proposes NO NEW TAXES—Manage What We Give You Better.

Very weird statement that: Manage What We Give You Better. The equal at the very least of Wyoming’s motto— “The Equality State”—offering residents the whopping minimum wage of $7.25 an hour

Manage What We Give You Better.

Take that, Montana. And you’ll like it!

As I read the words, NO NEW TAXES—Manage What We Give You Better—is a decidedly mixed-message. On one hand, the assertion resonates (NO NEW TAXES) and on the other hand it’s more or less a back-handed slap in the face handed down from on-high by an all-powerful tribunal of get-rich-as-quick-as-possible Republicans.

The Message is from the English royalty, from the Czars and Marie Antoinette passed down through generations (Carnegie to Rockefeller to Forbes to The Koch Boys) from the very rich to the less rich to the poor, a revival of Reagan’s ‘trickle down’, kindly proffered I’m sure and with a smile on his face, served up from Central Casting located somewhere in Plutocracy County, USA.

Is the message—Manage What We Give You Better—as horrible, as demeaning, as nasty as I thought it was when I first saw it yesterday while walking the streets and avenues of Billings, Montana on behalf of Jon Tester, talking with some seemingly sweet and decent people? Yes, the message is worse the more I think about it, a kind of strange twisted path, a trail of tears these otherwise nice, well-meaning folks I talked with, seem to be taking. Unless I’m wrong.

Yard signs for Republican candidate for Senate, Montana, with the catchy phrase ‘Manage What We Give You Better’, Billings, Montana, October 12, 2024. Photo by author.