EDITORIAL: Politics is a Team Sport

By Ryan Spoon

My fellow conservatives, I hope that you all have had as much FUN as I have had over the past several days! President Trump has really hit the ground running! WOW!! And we get to enjoy four more years of this?! I love it! There’s some good legislation making its way through the Idaho Legislature, and President Trump already killed the disastrous Lava Ridge Project. Not to mention that I think we’re all still glowing from our victory over Prop 1. I’ve been having my own extra bit of fun over the past couple of days, calling out one of our “Republican” state representatives, Stephanie Mickelsen from District 32 in Bonneville County, who has been a vocal proponent of unrestricted illegal immigration.

…if you guys think that you haven’t been touched by an illegal immigrant’s hands in some way, through either your traveling, or your food, you’re kidding yourselves!

Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen, House floor debate, March 29, 2024

Sorry, Stephanie, but this is America’s Golden Age, not Joe Biden’s America, and we’re going to take your farm slaves away. You’ll have to hire legal American workers and pay them well and treat them well.

But let’s talk about WINNING, specifically winning in politics. Why are many of us involved in politics? Why do we invest our time, money, and energy (even our sanity!) in all of these political debates, meetings, campaigning, and donating? Maybe we should back up even further and ask ourselves, “What IS politics?” The simplest answer that I’ve ever been given is “Politics is the adjudication of POWER.” Politics is not debating, not ideological posturing, not noble losing, not martyrdom, not displays of “courage.” Politics is the adjudication of POWER, the wielding of power to implement one’s goals.

Many of us started out in politics with no power at all. We were rebels and revolutionaries and unelected grassroots activists. We threw bombs (verbal ones only, calm down, FBI… well, mostly just verbal) and called out every politician in sight. And then we called out everyone else just for good measure. For what?! Why did we do it? Was it because we love the fighting? Was it because we love the romantic self-image of being a revolutionary? Was it because we lack basic social skills? Sadly, for some among us, many of those things are true, but for most of us, we fight, because we want to make a CHANGE. We want to see our values and ideals transformed into policy. We want to adjudicate power and change our society for the better.

Here and now in Idaho, we’re at a tipping point. Conservatives are on the cusp of real power in Idaho politics. We are seeing some extraordinary new legislation making its way through the Idaho House and Senate right now and very little that’s really bad is even being heard. After all of that blood, sweat, and tears for years, even decades, our moment is finally arriving! So, let’s not waste it!

[Double foot stomp to get your attention!]

 THE ACTIONS THAT GOT US HERE WILL NOT GET US TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

Please read that again. In other words, what got us from Point A to Point B will not get us from Point B to Point C. What served us well as revolutionaries will not serve us as well as we begin to GOVERN. History is replete with examples of initially-successful revolutionaries who failed to make the transition to governance. Do you want to be like Nathaniel Bacon, leader of Bacon’s Rebellion in pre-America Virginia or one of the other countless failed, short-lived revolutions throughout history? Or do you want to be like George Washington and actually see your values transformed into policy? Don’t become an eternal revolutionary like the NAACP, for example, in its desperate attempt to keep racism alive for its own profit and power.

I would like to propose a couple of principles for Idaho conservatives as we make this transition from REVOLUTION to GOVERNING.

First, politics is a team sport. Our team is not “Republican,” as you all saw with my castigation of “Republican” Stephanie “Plantation Mistress” Mickelsen. Our team is CONSERVATIVE, and we need to make that team as big and as broad as we can stand it, because this game is won by sheer numbers. The RINOs in Idaho like to disingenuously throw around Reagan’s 80% quote as they try to bully us into supporting “Republicans” that we agree with 50% or less. They want me to treat RINO Treg Bernt or RINO Jim Guthrie like an 80% ally?! Never!! I will never ask you to do that! That is a mockery of Reagan’s quote, and it is a betrayal of our principles and values. I will, however, ask you to support those that are truly in that 80% tent and possibly even some that are just outside of it. Set aside pride and petty disagreements and personality conflicts and reach out to those in that 80% group. If someone is in that 80% camp, treat them differently, treat them better than those outside our team. Ride with your team!

My second point expounds on my first: if politics is a team sport, then treat those on your team better than those not on your team. An important leadership principle that I have learned is “praise in public, criticize in private.” Identify who is on your conservative team, and then conservatives should not be PUBLICLY criticizing other conservatives. We can have some very aggressive and robust disagreements behind closed doors, but our disagreements and criticisms stay behind those closed doors until we reach a point that we have to sorrowfully conclude that a person is no longer on our conservative team. Be careful! Don’t rush to those parting decisions! It’s very hard to take back that decision to part ways. As for those outside our conservative team, criticize them as loudly and as publicly as you like. Ask ICE to raid their businesses, for example! 

Third and finally, I want to talk about the dirty C word, “compromise,” and its distasteful cousin, “incrementalism.” Revolutionaries don’t have to compromise, and incrementalism can actually sap strength from a revolutionary movement, because it delivers a partial victory, leading some in the revolution to give up or declare premature victory. Revolutions live and thrive on defeat and misery, as we all saw during COVID. The more the other side oppresses, the more the anger builds and the stronger the revolution gets. However, governing is different from revolution. Both compromise and incrementalism are absolutely vital to governance. Liberals have been kicking our butts for decades by using compromise and incrementalism to destroy our country, one partial victory and one bad policy at a time. It’s time to turn the tables and claw our way back, one partial victory and one good policy at a time. Just make sure you don’t give up after that first partial victory. Get one step and then take another and another. Keep moving forward! Keep taking more and more partial victories!

Now go forth and conquer!

1. Find your conservative team and make it as big as you can possibly stand (and then make it just a little bit bigger).
2. Treat your team better, praising in public and criticizing only in private, and save the bomb-throwing for those not on your team.
3. Learn to use compromise and incrementalism to defeat liberals, one partial victory at a time.

About Ryan Spoon

Ryan Spoon graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1998 and served as an active-duty Army officer. He now works in fire protection engineering consulting. He is the former Chairman of the Idaho Freedom Political Action Committee (PAC) and the current First Vice Chairman of the Ada County Republican Party Central Committee (Ada County GOP).

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