Photo by Todd Bennington - Pacific County Republican Chair Aaragon Markwell
The Pacific County Republicans gathered in South Bend on Saturday, April 22, for their annual Lincoln Day Dinner, marked by prayer, the singing of the national anthem, and the raffling off of an AR-15 rifle.
Recently elected County Commissioner Lisa Olsen, the first Republican elected in the county since the early 70's, was named Republican of the Year. Long-time party member and current county Republican Vice Chair Nansen Malin, was handed an award named after Ronald Reagan for her party service. The Reagan Award is not an annual award but is instead only given out on an occasional basis.
Speakers included 19th Legislative District Rep. Jim Walsh. Walsh, himself in his first term, said people around the state and the nation have taken notice of Pacific County's turn toward the GOP at last November's election.
"The President, I am told, was shown a map of Washington, and that little bit by the coast that went for him in November. So he knows. He knows what happened," Walsh told his fellow Republicans.
"It was Pacific County's support in the primary that, to my mind, was pivotal in winning this legislative race," he added of his own successful bid for election to the state's House of Representatives.
Walsh predicted that Republicans, who are currently only in the minority in the state House by one seat, will be able to gain a majority in the 2018 election cycle.
The crowd also heard from Initiative 1552 organizer Kaeley Triller Haver. According to materials provided by initiative backers, I-1552 seeks to repeal a portion of the Washington Administrative Code making public restrooms and changing rooms open to anyone regardless of biological sex. The initiative also seeks to free businesses from related legal liabilities and require schools to maintain sex-specific restrooms and locker rooms, albeit with reasonable accommodations to be made for gender non-binary students.
Triller Haver presented a number of news reports and anecdotes in making her case for the initiative, arguing the current law doesn't serve the interests of transgendered persons but instead presents opportunities for sexual predators by allowing any person to use facilities based on whatever gender expression they claim for themselves at a given time.
Triller Haver said her commitment to the matter had caused her to lose her job of 17 years with the YMCA. County Republican Chairman Aaragon Markwell stated the initiative is in need of financial support in order to be successful.
The event's keynote speech was provided by former Seattle-area radio personality David Bose who skewered statements made by organizers of the recent March for Science. Bose also mocked the media's treatment of the scandal that led to the resignation of Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, employee sensitivity training, and the contemporary environment on college campuses.
Bose claimed the national resistance movement that has formed in opposition to President Donald Trump is designed to falsely seize a moral high ground by recalling the French resistance movement against occupation by National Socialist Germany.
"It's designed to paint a tapestry in which they're the good guys and we're evil. They're the righteous; we're the devil," said Bose.
Bose went on to further claim modern liberalism itself beares at least superficial resemblance to forms of fascism, and argued a current interest in the principles of federalism demonstrated by the political left is opportunistic and only motivated by opposition to the Trump administration.