Mason Dings Schoenbeck for Challenging Members of His Own Party

Senator Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Watertown) spent good money kicking Republican “aberrations” and “crazies” out of the Legislature via the Republican primary. Conservative Rapid City troublemaker Jordan Mason takes umbrage and accuses Senator Schoenbeck of having a superiority complex:

The recent interview of South Dakota Senator Lee Schoenbeck by SDPB, where he referred to people he disagrees with as “aberrations,” inferring himself and his cohorts as being superior, sounds vaguely familiar to the racist undertones of supremacist groups which have deteriorated our country and its culture. And it is ironic that Senator Schoenbeck did so while simultaneously trying to promote himself as a leader of the Republican party which was founded on the idea of the abolition of slavery in 1854 and 110 years later was the party that helped pass the Civil Rights Act. Senator Schoenbeck’s words are nothing short of disturbing, to say the least [Jordan Mason, op-ed to Dakota Free Press, 2020.06.22].

Mason reaches for the wrong tar brush here. He infers from Schoenbeck’s efforts against fellow party members an attitude of superiority… but don’t all politicians assume and actively promote the notion that they are superior to the candidates they run against? Isn’t superiority inherent in the assertion that you should “Vote for me and not the other guy”? Isn’t Mason himself guilty of the same claim to superiority of his views in his condemnation of Schoenbeck?

Mason then leaps from the non-unique to the non sequitur, trying to associate Schoenbeck with white supremacy. We can make strong arguments that Schoenbeck is on the wrong side of some civil rights arguments, but I’ve never heard him preach the kind of racism that other elements of his party promote. Schoenbeck himself dropped bombs on radical racist extraordinaire Neal Tapio.

Curiously, Mason tries to associate Schoenbeck with Tapio before veering off into other spaghetti:

But sadly, this is an ongoing trend with Senator Schoenbeck from Watertown, an area of our state which also brought us the xenophobic and Islamo-phobic Senator Neal Tapio just a few short years ago, and comes as no surprise. In fact, this is one and the same Senator, who just this year re-introduced “riot boosting” legislation that the year before in 2019 was held by federal Judge Piersol to be unconstitutional due to the law’s “suppression of free expression” [Mason, 2020.06.22].

Yes, Senator Schoenbeck was the legal eagle who hoghoused an electric utility bill into a revival of Governor Noem’s branch of the Republican war on protest. But Schoenbeck didn’t bring back the sloppy legislation that Noem threw into the 2019 Session at the last minute only to see it trashed in court. Schoenbeck exercised his superior legislative and legal intellect (skills sorely lacking on the Second Floor) to produce a better-worded protest-suppression bill that addresses the concerns of the court and is on its way to enactment next week with no legal challenge that I’ve heard of yet.

Mason goes on to accuse Schoenbeck of betraying bedrock Republican principles of inclusivity:

Now, Senator Schoenbeck has openly declared his intention to silence a part of the Republican party, which holds opposing viewpoints to his own on subjects from free speech to basic civil liberties for all citizens within South Dakota.

But Senator Schoenbeck’s comments do illuminate one important fact – there is a very clear disagreement in the Republican party about our values and our direction.

Unlike Senator Schoenbeck, I for one, as a Republican, will continue to adhere to our foundational principles established in our 1856 platform to continue to “invite the affiliation and cooperation of the [people] of all parties, however differing from us in other respects, in support of … [securing the rights] of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness … to all persons under [our nation’s] jurisdiction” [Mason, 2020.06.22].

Preaching tolerance of diversity sounds nice—actually, it sounds downright hilarious coming from any South Dakota Republican. But there’s always some point at which diversity becomes irreconcilable difference. Inviting the affiliation and cooperation of all people of all parties is fine, but Republicans will work like heck to prevent me from winning an election, just like Schoenbeck worked pretty hard to replace certain legislators with whom he disagrees with better candidates (or at least with candidates who will support his bid to become President Pro-Tem). That’s no different from Republican Mason working to paint Schoenbeck as a bad influence on his party.