Sheehy and the Republican thesaurus

by Marty Essen, Victor

I found Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tim Sheehy’s statewide guest column to be quite informative. Before reading it, I knew little about him other than, like me, he moved from the Twin Cities metropolitan area to Montana. The main difference being that I moved here in 1996, and he moved here in 2014. But I won’t hold Sheehy’s short time in Montana against him, as I’ve always believed it to be unwelcoming to proclaim someone less than a true Montanan if their lineage here doesn’t go back multiple generations.

Oh, and I also knew Sheehy was a Navy Seal. If you didn’t already know that, don’t worry, you’ll hear about it at least a thousand more times between now and Election Day. That’s because Sheehy’s campaign is mirroring the past campaigns of Navy Seal Ryan Zinke. You know, the man who became a national embarrassment for Montana with his comical self-promotion and extreme ethical deficiencies. Let’s be realistic. Although being a Navy Seal is an honorable profession, it isn’t any more relative to being a good senator than being a talk show host is relative to being a good president.

That said, I learned more about Sheehy via his use of the Republican Thesaurus than anything else. In his recent guest column, he trotted out all the required scary words and initialisms. Obviously, original thoughts aren’t his strong point. Let’s look at a few of those:

“Marxist”: Yes, no Republican guest column shall pass up the opportunity to pigeonhole Democrats as Marxist/socialists, which the majority of their base equates with communists. In the real world, we all benefit from socialism every day, with public ownership of schools, roads, fire departments, police departments, Social Security, Medicare, and yes, even the Navy.

“Woke”: For anyone who doesn’t know, the generally accepted definition of woke is “to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices.” In Sheehy’s own words, he thinks that’s all “woke crap.” Hmmm . . . Does someone have a bigotry problem?

“DEI”: Sheehy calls DEI “cancerous.” Of course, like socialism, the majority of Sheehy’s base doesn’t know what DEI stands for, only that it must be bad. DEI is Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. So what Sheehy is actually saying is that if you aren’t a white, straight, far-right Christian, you are a cancer! Ah, now Sheehy’s bigotry issues become clearer.

“ESG”: Sheehy also calls ESG “cancerous.” Another scary initialism? ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance. It’s simply a framework used to evaluate a company’s performance and business practices on sustainability and ethical issues. I never thought sustainability and ethical business practices were bad things, but then, I’m not Tim Sheehy.

“Radical”: Obviously, the Republican Thesaurus requires that all Republican politicians call Democrats radical every time they put out a press release or guest column. Then, with no awareness of their hypocrisy, those same politicians bow down to Donald Trump, a man who led an insurrection against America, has been indicted for 91 felonies, and found guilty in civil courts of fraud, sexual abuse, and defamation.

If Sheehy thinks the hate and scare tactics he spouts represent Montana values, perhaps he should get to know us better. A good way to do that would be for him to run for some local office. Later, if he gets the hang of that, he might be qualified to represent Montana on a federal level.