My Inspiration: A Family of Fighters
Much has been said about the current polling woes of “national Democrats.” The frustration is real, but those approval numbers aren’t diving because Democratic values are out of fashion; voters are angry because too many Democrats either aren’t focused on what matters or aren’t fighting hard enough to deliver real change. I share the frustration on all sorts of critical issues: universal healthcare, housing costs, threats to democracy, stock trading, and money in politics, just to name a few.
Our nation is crying out for fighters, and some political campaigns are trying to pivot to meet this moment. But real, dedicated, genuine fighters cannot be constructed by political consultants or messaging strategies.
Real fighters have this in their DNA, and I’m proud to say that fighting does indeed course through our family’s bloodstream. I’m surrounded by inspiration: Sara, Badge, and Lander, members of our family who refuse to stand by and let bad things happen.
“Fighting like we mean it” is not something our family just says; it’s what our family does, and here are just a few true stories about my family that serve as inspiration for me:
PUBLIC SCHOOLS:
In 2021, following the tumult of COVID, a group of extremely radical anti-public-education candidates attempted to take over the school board in Kalispell, MT, where we live. These radicals promised to attack the building blocks of our public schools. Teachers and administrators were sounding the alarm, and the frothing, dangerous statements from this radical slate of candidates sounded a lot like what we now call Christian Nationalism.
Public school advocates were right to be frightened because the attempted takeover was not a fly-by-night experiment. Like many right-wing assaults, these folks sought and received support from a very wealthy MAGA benefactor who gave them more than $80k, an almost unbelievable sum for local school board elections that normally had budgets of a couple of hundred $ at most.
That shocking amount of money fueled a loud anti-education public-relations blitz that frightened our community. Sara was worried, too, but rather than stew or hand-wring over what might happen, she decided to change what would happen. As we discussed the impacts to our school district if these people won, she said, “I’m not letting them do this to our schools. Tomorrow, I’m starting my own PAC.”
By the next day, Sara had formed the “Proud Public Education Supporters of Kalispell PAC” and was frantically alerting the community about the urgent need to contribute and fight. Almost immediately, she was receiving community contributions and then, almost instantaneously, running aggressive social media ads as if the school depended on them.
Sara’s PAC and the small-dollar donations from friends and neighbors throughout the valley never came close to matching the big-money MAGA totals, but over the next few weeks, her ads were sharp and smart, and they galvanized the community to defeat 4 of the 5 extremist candidates. She was quoted in this celebratory story the next day, “This is a big win for public education and our kids. Common sense voters stood up to the bullies and said loud and clear that proven service for our students and schools triumphs over personal agendas and political propaganda.”
PUBLIC LIBRARIES:
Sara never really stops fighting for what is right, and she soon turned her sights to another community battle, the fight to save our highly respected system of public libraries. This was a big deal because in 2022, our county library system became ground zero for a red-hot national culture war waged by those who seek to destroy public libraries in the U.S.
The fight here in NW Montana became so incendiary that the New Yorker devoted much of its April 2023 issue to a story about the attacks on our Flathead County library system, which highlighted this battle as a wider lens into what was happening nationally. Here’s an illustrative quote from that article:
Public libraries—once as popular with libertarian autodidacts as leftists—have become targets of the Republican Party, and not just in Flathead County. Local library systems and local librarians are being vilified nationwide as peddlers of Marxism and child pornography.
In the face of all this, Sara once again said, “Oh no you don’t! Not on my watch!” And in 2023, she became the director of the Flathead Library Foundation and quickly went to work, not just stopping the destruction but almost unbelievably leading the charge to add facilities to the county system by building an entirely new Library in one of the small towns of our valley. When we discussed the challenges of her very difficult job over dinner many times, she would often stiffen up and say something like, “Someday all of this fever will pass, and there will be kids here who need a library, so I’m going to do everything I can to make sure they have one.”
And that’s exactly what she did. Through sheer force of will, Sara drove an effort that secured funding and then assisted with the design and construction planning for an entirely new and beautiful public library in the town of Bigfork on the northeast shore of Flathead Lake.
Sara succeeded, even in the face of all the overt governmental and cultural war resistance detailed in that New Yorker article, because she’s a fighter who cares about this place, and she refused to just talk about what was wrong; she did something to change it. The result is a brand-new purpose-built library, which opened to a beaming group of kids and community leaders in June of 2024.
A LIVABLE CLIMATE:
Given these and many other examples of Sara’s willingness to fight for Montana, it’s probably not that surprising that our boys are such brave fighters themselves. Beginning in 2020, Badge and Lander have dedicated themselves to defending their constitutional rights to a clean and healthy environment, which they believe includes a right to force the state government to address global warming through responsible energy policy. I like to say they are just constitutional conservatives because we are lucky to have a clearly enumerated environmental right in our visionary 1973 constitution.
When our boys chose to be litigants in the first-ever youth-led climate lawsuit to test this right (Held v. Montana), they knew they’d face criticism, barbs, and ridicule from kids whose parents did not share our politics. And they did in fact endure many of the sorts of things that are very difficult for teenagers to withstand, but our two boys and their fellow litigants steadfastly refused to cower.
In 2023, after years of preparation, the case went to trial with incredible national fanfare. The attention permeated our lives and dominated the boys’ social lives in ways they could not escape. They did not have much room to just be kids, as illustrated by the fact that one day we awoke to texts from friends who said, “Your boys are on the cover of the NY Times!”
When the trial started, almost all of the 16 kids who sued also bravely testified in open court. Badge proudly and emotionally spoke about the impacts of inaction on hunting and fishing, things he loves about Montana. And on the final day of the trial in Helena, as I watched Lander give the closing testimony for the entire case, I saw dozens of people in that courtroom in tears as his voice rose in a passionate challenge to adults to stop talking and start acting. It was emotional and inspiring, and reporters said it was exceptional, but I knew that our boys were just doing what they knew had to be done. As Lander said, “It’s ok, Dad, we are fighting for all Montanans, not just us.”
“That’s the sign of a good leader right there,” I thought. My boys were even fighting for the kids, and internet trolls like right-wing radio shock jock Aaron Flint, who constantly ridiculed them, because they knew it was the right thing to do. A few weeks later, these brave kids again made national news by winning that case and, in so doing, strengthened the rights and freedoms for every single Montanan.
CONGRESS:
And now I am following my family’s example, refusing to just accept a worsening trajectory for our state and nation. I’m running for Congress, knowing that this congressional race in MT-01 could decide the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. The stakes are as high as they get; if we don’t win a majority, our nation will face a very dark future.
Here’s the good news on this important race: Winning the primary is our first battle, and today we just released very encouraging polling (see memo below) showing that I lead by 15 points. This great news comes just after we released incredible fundraising results, including more than 10,000 donations to this all-important campaign.
To all of you who are engaged in this battle alongside my family, THANK YOU! To those of you who aren’t yet on the team…well, you can trust that this is not some newly found poll-tested effort to appear like we are real fighters. Our family’s dedication to Montana has been proven time and again. If you are looking for a place to make a difference, you can trust that this fight is in our blood.
I hope you’ll join us at BUSSEFORMONTANA.
Excellent as always Ryan! I suggest you let Lander and Badge do guest posts as well. The one Lander did was outstanding. We need to hear more from their generation.
Ryan the decimation of the Forest Service will be hard to undo. States have to be pushed to take over the stations and make emergency funds available to keep them in operation until we can unseat this Congress. Please push for this now in whatever way you can. See Christopher Armitage Substack.