I sent a “thank you” note to Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White last week for doing what Idaho’s most powerful Republican politicians failed to do: confront a hate group.
One of the main reasons I decided to run for lieutenant governor was because Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin lacked the character we need in that office. However, the Republican politician who wants to replace her is no better.
My opponent, House Speaker Scott Bedke, has endorsed a hate group by being silent.
On June 11, Coeur d’Alene police arrested 31 men who “came to riot downtown,” Chief White said. The vicious bunch sought to add kicks, punches, and smoke grenades to a situation where local white nationalists were already intimidating the peaceful Pride Day crowd. Even without the outsiders, local anti-LGBTQ “prayer day” activists, displaying rifles and handguns, were stalking through a crowd of Idaho kids blowing bubbles.
With silence, Speaker Bedke spent decades making Idaho a place where local white nationalists felt safe to intimidate unarmed peaceful people in a city park. Speaker Bedke’s silence even made a group of (mostly) out-of-state white supremacists feel welcome to come and terrorize the people of Coeur d’Alene.
Chief White, on the other hand, spoke candidly. He identified those 31 men as a “hate group.” He preempted the predictable conspiracists by stating that the 31 men were not undercover cops, nor undercover feds, nor undercover “antifa.”
Chief White spoke up. He told the truth.
Speaker Bedke kept quiet—which I am sorry to say tells a different, ugly truth.
My truth is this: I will not stand quietly as extremists import violence into our cities. I will not be silent when the peace-loving citizens of Idaho need a leader to speak for them.
I will not be silent as extremism threatens us all.