Democrats ain't what they used to be

 The Grant County Beat's compilation of citizen testimony regarding suspicion-worthy 2020 General Election behavior by Grant County Clerk Marisa Castrillo ("What is she hiding?" published 9 June) presents a thumbnail image of entrenched bigger-picture corruption. If, as these witnesses testify, there was no video surveillance of the Bayard Community Center early-voting polling location – and no working camera monitoring the Grant County Clerk's absentee ballot box during early voting – and no marking of spoiled ballots as "spoiled" during the first week of early voting at either Bayard or the Administration Center – and if for any length of time there was a ratio of Democrat-to-Republican election judges contrary to New Mexico law – the Grant County Clerk not only failed to uphold New Mexico law, but failed to impartially protect the interests of Grant County residents.

And if this clerk also failed or refused to recognize and accommodate a duly appointed poll challenger (or multiple poll challengers) per New Mexico law – and, further, attempted to intimidate said poll challenger(s) – she is guilty of a petty misdemeanor and a fourth-degree felony and should be prosecuted accordingly. If the Grant County Attorney advised the Grant County Sheriff that charging the Grant County Clerk with violations of New Mexico law constitutes "a conflict of interest," such advice only screams the question: Whose interest?

Certainly not the interest of honest Grant County citizens who, perhaps mistakenly, trust Grant County officials to abide by laws enacted to protect citizen interests.

Democrats of old – meaning old enough to have been raising families during the foreshortened Kennedy presidential years – have rightly observed the disintegration of what they once believed to be "the party of the average citizen" and that "Democrat politicians aren't what they used to be." I would argue (although I will not do so here) that today's Democratic Party is what it was long ago intended to become and that its anti-American, anti-Constitution policies have always been inevitable. Whether or not this is true, today's Democratic Party has made it abundantly clear that it would rather censor, shame, ridicule, cancel, outlaw, fine, and imprison independent thinking than stand in its light and honorably debate it (while, with its mainstream-media mouthpieces, attempting to pervert or annul the language on which rational discourse relies). And whether or not today's extreme political strife was inevitable, we now have what we have in New Mexico and D.C., which is to say that if the Grant County Clerk either ignorantly or willfully acted to diminish or silence the voices of Grant County residents, she – and every smaller-than-life tyrant of her ilk – is responsible for WHAT we have, including skyrocketing grocery and fuel prices, soaring crime rates, unprecedented distrust of taxpayer-salaried officials at every level, defund-the-police mania, and wanton widespread annihilation of the rule of law.

All of which Democrat politicians and bureaucrats appear happy to blame on anybody else.

If the Grant County Clerk behaved even approximately as represented by the integrity-expecting election-process witnesses cited in The Beat's recent editorial, she should not await prosecution for her offenses. She should gather the remains of her honor, apologize, and step down – as should every public official who has betrayed public trust for personal or political gain.

 Michael Russell
Grant County, NM