Commentary by Ed Wallace, Publisher / April 29, 2021

This is an open letter to my fellow UTGOP State Delegates as we prepare for our convention this coming Saturday.

We are living in treasonous times. Our party and country are being destroyed, and Republicans are being blamed for every perceived infringement and misdeed that can be imagined. We are being blamed for dividing America by those who paint themselves as victims and warriors for justice and freedom, when in fact… our county is the victim of their subversive behavior. Our society is at the peak of a false world and we are at a tipping point of the height of illusion. 

The liberals are not the only people destroying our party. “Our own” are helping the democrats tear our party apart. Unlike many of our candidates, the Democrats don’t seem to have a problem anymore in presenting who they really are. It’s a little different in our party, where our candidates are elected based on who they pretend to be.

Our platform is built entirely on common-sense, conservative Constitutional principles. Our members and elected officials are supposed to reflect those values. But the only time we hear about those values is during an election season when most Republican candidates say the 3 magic words, “I’m as conservative”…. That’s like waving a magic wand and casting a spell over the general electorate.

The result of this is that we have lost the trust of many of our members, and rightfully so. And, we have essentially lost our Republic and are now a self-imposed socialist democracy where the Mob Rules. Thus, we have become a nation where the Rule of Law is at great risk by the rule of men

Anyone that has been paying attention should not be surprised that our country is being overrun and destroyed. The time to prepare a defense has long passed. Now, our reality requires us to fight for our country, our way of life, and our political lives. Our opposition are maniacal geniuses, cunning and ruthless, and we are now forced to respond to a 5-alarm fire with a garden hose.

We have not reached this point by chance. Their intentions and plans have been laid out for 50 years. We’ve squandered away every opportunity to defend against and prevent their actions. Our Constitution and party are now essentially irrelevant. Our leadership’s spineless and corrupt behavior has contributed heavily to our present state. Both major parties have seen a rise of progressivism and neither side has the best interests of Utah or the American people at heart.  

So, How Bad Is It?

Our party has become a shell, an empty suit, to the point of being seen by many as nothing more than a front for the Democrat party. We keep electing shills who do not represent our platform, who don’t uphold their Oath of Office, or protect the separation of powers or our Constitution. Our elected officials, in whom we have placed our trust, seem content that they’ve allowed us to become slaves to the state when unelected bureaucrats order us around with our daily behavior.

There is very little about the progression of our government here in Utah that reflects our platform. Take a look at which party and who in that party has been leading our state for the past 37 years. The established elite have used our party as a tool to remain in power for decades and have pushed their agenda that has seen our government grow to the point where it is no longer manageable by Constitutional standards.

Related Article: Report: Utah’s Oligarchs – Fighting to Maintain Control and Elitist Utah Goodfellas

National party and conservative leaders have thrown their hands up in frustration and written Utah off as a lost cause. They can’t find anyone in the Utah GOP they can trust.

Essentially, we are now standing alone. This isn’t because the crem de la crem rises to the top…. Swamp sludge sinks to the bottom.

By their fruits, ye shall know them. 

The Utah Grassroots organization has issued an annual legislative report card every year since 1992. Their only guidelines are the Utah & U.S. Constitution (our platform). The combined total average in 2020 for House & Senate Republicans was 44%. The only Republicans who had a lower combined score are our last four Republican Governors at 31%. There is only ONE Republician representative who has a score above 78%: Travis Seegmiller (HD62) at 94%. With our Republican representatives voting like moderate and liberal Democrats, AT BEST, why do we even have a party? 

(UPDATE: A few hours after I published this article, I received this text and image from a Cox supporter: “Our consistently conservative legislators (elected by you, the delegates! [LOL]), support ….. for Vice Chair.” So, IN REAL TIME, we have a perfect example of “Magic Wand Republicans” lying through their teeth. The pathetic combined average for these endorsing “conservative“, platform, constitutional, Republican LEADERS, that call themselves “Team Utah”, is 44.54%. These are some of the swamp creatures that are embarrassing and destroying our party.

The delegates should also know that ALL of the C&B proposals were suppressed by the State Constitution and Bylaws Committee, which is allowed by Bylaw 7.5H. However, Article II of the our Constitution forbids bylaws to address (not just banning conflict) matters the URP Constitution has covered, meaning 7.5H is illegal. The C&B Committee could have elected to allow the delegates to hear some or all of these proposals, but they didn’t allow any. Total suppression. Only their preferred proposals are being presented. The delegates have been muzzled. END UPDATE)

We choose who represents our party just like we choose who we are. And, right now, we’ve chosen people who have implemented our platform 44% of the time. Is that how we want to remain going forward? 

Politicians have a legal right to lie to voters just about as much as they want. They know that we are a trusting people, and probably won’t do our due diligence to cross-check their statements by looking at their voting records and their actions. Unfortunate, most don’t. 

Our state needs us to lead in righteousness, with honor and character, and with grace. When we are at our best, there is no other group of people more suited to assume a leadership role in picking up the pieces of what’s left of our country after two to four years of a democrat, socialist regime.

If we don’t reunite behind our basic platform principles, and focus on living those values in everything we do, especially by putting forth candidates that share and live those standards along with us, in their campaigns, the bills they present, the votes they make, and the way they govern, then we’re done. 

We will have squandered away the greatest society, the greatest state, and the greatest country the world has ever known.

SB54 – Count My Vote

Our party must REVERSE the effects of SB54 (Count My Vote) and regain control of our candidate selection process.

SB54 was initiated and passed BY OUR REPUBLICAN LEADERS who claimed to represent us. The last thing Utah’s puppet masters wanted was for the citizens of Utah to have a deciding voice through the caucus/convention system.  

Under the guise of fairness and inclusion, CMV was really the diabolical usurpation of Utah’s democracy by those special interests. It was the largest fraud and manipulation that has ever been launched against Utah citizens, and it was very successful.

If we were allowed to continue along as we had, many of our current elected officials wouldn’t have made it through convention and would not be in office today. That includes the first major contributors to the “Count My Vote” movement. They are: The Hatch Election committee and the Leavitt’s, who each gave $50,000, and the Romney’s, who gave almost $100,000, and the Huntsman Corp who donated $100,000. The Romney’s moved to Utah a few months after SB54 became law. Coincidence?

The Romney Issue

As our junior Senator Willard “Mitt” Romney might say: Our party is “severely divided.” It’s been divided by our leaders and elected politicians who have essentially left our party, evidenced by the way they govern, by their words and by their actions.

Mitt Romney thinks the caucus system is beneath him and hates it so much that his family gave almost $100,000 to the CMV movement. Our party is infested with politicians who claim to be conservative Republicans but govern like Democrats. Romney actually received an award from a Democrat institution for acting like a Democrat and stabbing our President and party in the back.

We don’t need any more people who pretend to be Republicans. We need leaders who will stand firm for our party, our platform, AND our President.  

If the people who represent us refuse to do that, then we need do it ourselves. I don’t think that we should censure Romney. We should kick him out of the party. But censuring him is a good start.

The dirty elephant in the room is that the rank & file of the Utah GOP has not been dealing with rational and honorable people within its own leadership. Our party deserves to be led and represented by like-minded people who will stand up and defend the principles of our party and who are AT LEAST as honorable and reasonable as we are.

Related Articles: BREAKING: Utah PAC Censures Romney Chris Herrod: Why Does Romney Continue to Get A Pass? Romney & the Senate GOP Traitors’ Caucus The Ultimate Romney Collection of Stuff Dinesh D’Souza: Left Had Romney ‘Hiding Under His Desk’ Romney HATES Caucuses – Here’s the proof Romney Talks Guns. What’s Next? Spoons? Cars? Gravity? Another Day… Another RINO: Romney Announces… Finally How Did Utah End Up With ‘Mitt McCain Flake?

Restore & Reunite

Our platform must be RESTORED & REPRESENTED and we must REUNITE around those principles by electing honest people who reflect those values.

We need to drain our swamp and put our house in order. We need to elect leaders. We can’t afford to elect any more politicians. We need to take our party back. We need to take America back. We need to make Utah great again. No one else is going to do that for us.

There are two ways we can ensure that happens going forward. We can do it by recruiting, endorsing, and supporting those candidates who carry our platform. And, we need to invite those of us who have used the party for their own personal gain, or to push an agenda that is against our platform, TO START LIVING up to our standards, or leave the party, before we expel them.

We’re told …. don’t cause problems. Don’t be negative by telling the truth. It will divide the party even further. Turmoil and discomfort from within our party is a protection mechanism; and just like a fever when you’re sick, it exists to help kill off infections. We will either get healthy again, or the party will die. Personally, I think it’s a good idea to turn up the temperature and help the symptoms fight off this virus.

One of my most trusted associates and I turn up the heat between ourselves with some frequency … especially as we go back and forth over how to express ourselves in policy and commentary. Friendships, like great steel, are strengthened by “heat” and a good “pounding.” As long as the trust remains between us, there should be some heating and pounding going on from time to time. It’s far more healthy than blowing in and bending to every wind that wafts by.

Our founders were not always united as a group of agreeable, flawless men. There were opposing ideologies, partisan factionism, personal tensions, dislike, and even hatred. Their personal and political differences undermined their attempt to form a classical republic. Nonetheless, they found COMMON GROUND with their admiration and evocation of classical virtue and republican ideals. They ALL aspired to put those principles into practice and were compelled to craft not just a fair government, but virtue of character, a bastion of liberty, and a viable country that became a leading world power.

Some suggestions as we move forward

Our party needs to be cleansed if we have any hope of continuing to be part of the political discourse. In Utah, politics has abandoned the truth and taken on the persona of a Kabuki theatre.

Our party must require our candidates and representatives to learn why they are Republicans and HOLD TO OUR PLATFORM or face a 1) no-confidence vote, 2) a censure, 3) expulsion from our party.

Our party should REQUIRE our candidates and representatives to have A WORKING KNOWLEDGE of our platform, and the Utah and U.S. Constitutions at least on a 5th grade level (more than 80% of Congress).

Our party should institute a “TRUTH IN CAMPAIGNING” standard for our candidates that includes disclosing the bills they intend to introduce. When’s the last time you heard a Republican candidate say “I’m going to raise your taxes” OR “I’m going to bring a higher level of waste into Utah because the company that’s going to benefit from it donated lots of money to my campaign.”?

Our party should hold our elected representatives to a HIGHER STANDARD that includes recusing themselves from voting on a bill that would benefit a specific entity, industry, or special interest group, that has donated to their campaign. 

Elected officials MUST BE BANNED from holding seats on any level of our party’s leadership. This would include State & County Delegates, and the SCC. 

All of the contact info, including email addresses and phone numbers, of our elected County, State, and SCC delegates should be transparent and readily available.

A list of ALL SCC committees and their members should also be transparent and readily available.

Since SB-54 hasn’t been repealed, SB-205 didn’t get out of the Senate and no one on the horizon is interested in enforcing Bylaw 8, our party should change its rules to INCENTIVIZE CONVENTION-ONLY CANDIDATES at the State level.

We should ADD A CONVENTION ONLY LANE TO OUR BYLAWS so the delegates will have a role and can put someone on the ballot. Our intent is to “keep the Convention alive and as vital as it can be with SB-54 in place.” 

Our party must RESTORE OUR CAUCUS MEETINGS ASAP. The people encouraging not holding a caucus since 2018 are the ones that want to kill the caucus and eliminate the convention. Our Utah caucus/convention was NEVER SET UP to go more than 2 years. Many people have moved, especially in college areas, and Leg chairs are scrambling to find volunteer replacements. This opens the door for a Leg chair to “stack the deck” in favor of a preferred candidate, thus corrupting the system. Anyone who thinks that the students here in 2018 are all still here in 2021 should not be in charge of any part of the delegate selection process. 

I believe the Utah Republican Party has a fiduciary responsibility to protect the integrity of its brand. I’m surprised that no one has started a class-action suit against the party for standing behind a 44% low bar. To do so requires leadership…a commitment to our principles and values (Platform) and an Ethics Code! It is impossible to protect the brand without an ethics code. And an ethics code is pointless if there is no committee structure to hold members accountable for their abhorrent behavior. As Americans, we are all entitled to due process. But how can you determine due process…if you do not have a process?

There must be a method in place for the Party to rid itself of the latter. This can only be accomplished with an ethics code of conduct and an ethics standing committee to enforce the code. Perhaps we start with a simple oath of office for all state and county Republicans elected to any position in the Party, Central Committee, Executive Committee, etc. and party personnel. This oath would contain those elements we agree are imperative for the success of the Party like, telling the truth and following the rules. Each member of the Party elected to a position of responsibility would bear true faith and allegiance to the Party Constitution and By-laws, as well as to the Platform and all decisions made by the governing body and standing committees. These party leaders should take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and agree to faithfully discharge the duties upon which they are about to enter. This type of oath would be easier to enforce because there would be no judgement made by a committee just enforcement of the signed oath and our rules. You get caught violating your oath…you lose your membership in the Party…period.

Final Thoughts to Ponder  

Most of us know that our country is founded on Judeo-Christian principles and believe that the documents our Founders produced were divinely inspired. 

Our spiritual leaders have been very clear about the need to protect the liberties and freedoms that these documents established. “Next to being one in worshiping God, there is nothing in this world upon which we should be more united than in upholding and defending the Constitution of the United States!” – David O McKay

“We have a divine duty — even a destiny — to preserve that Constitution from destruction and hold it aloft to the world…. The Lord expects us to safeguard this sacred and inspired document for the blessing of all of us and our posterity. If we fail so to do we will not only lose our priceless freedom but jeopardize the cause of truth throughout the entire world.” – Ezra Taft Benson

Too many people stand idly by and are mere spectators. If good wins, they join in the celebration though they did nothing to produce the victory. If evil wins, they will complain long and loud even though their own apathy helped produce the undesirable result. Those supposedly “good” people who stand on the side cease being innocent bystanders and idle spectators. Their failure to act not only allows evil to triumph, but makes them just as guilty as those they refuse to reprove and rebuke. In God’s words, “even thou wast as one of them” (Obadiah 11). “One who is silent when there are those around him in sin becomes a partaker with them” (Eph. 5:7).

The question that we all need to ask ourselves is this: “Do I want to stand before the judgement bar with the blood of our Democratic Republic on my hands?”  

When good men do nothing, they are no longer good. Many have the mistaken notion that good is merely the absence of doing that which is wrong. Not so! One is good not merely because he does no evil, but because he is actively working for what is good. “Let him eschew evil, and do good” (1 Pet. 3:11). James explained, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).

Edmund Burke said “It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man means well to his country; it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act, but always voted according to his conscience. This innocuous and ineffectual character, that seems formed upon a plan of apology and disculpation, falls miserably short of the mark of public duty. That duty demands and requires that what is right should not only be made known, but made prevalent; that what is evil should not only be detected, but defeated. It is surely no very rational account of a man’s life, that he has always acted right but has taken special care to act in such a manner that his endeavours could not possibly be productive of any consequence.”

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.” – Arundhati Roy

“No party, platform or individual candidate can satisfy all personal preferences. Each citizen must therefore decide which issues are most important to him or her at any particular time. Then, members should seek inspiration on how to exercise their influence according to their individual priorities. This process will not be easy.” – Dallin H Oaks

The time for us to act is now. We must restore and reunite around our party’s platform and elect honest people who reflect those values. We must drain our swamp.