On the issue of voting centers, Republican Party Chairman Tim Overton released a counter editorial to Democratic Chairman Andrew Dale’s op-ed last week. His reason to not move forward with the original plan is because he’s worried about woke students and Haitian cannibals being brought to the polls thanks to card carrying communist Andrew Dale, someone who I’ve never even met. Overton manages in his piece to avoid talking about why his proposed plan would only allow one early voting site compared to two, doesn’t answer on whether his plan is even legal under Indiana law, and proclaims that First Presbyterian Church would be a go to location for radical protesters.

Not only is he so compromised that he glosses over the vast majority of the piece, but since he doesn’t know how to actually engage with local issues, he instead brings up the “extreme” Muncie Resists, more rhetoric about how “far-left” the Democrats have gone, and the uproar at the Victoria Spartz town hall. It’s laughable that he’d name-drop Muncie Resists, when I seem to get charged with the radical label more often than they do, but at the core it’s revealing that he won’t address the vote center deal in good faith and instead only cares to bring up culture war issues. Overton being brought in as chairman just reveals that Delaware County Republican’s are unable to address actual policy.

The first “run-in” I had with him back in November was when I got Res. 14-24 passed through city council. The resolution essentially is an acknowledgement of Transgender Awareness Month, and while the first thing the party would do is call that a culture war issue itself, keep in mind that Muncie has a significant LGBTQ+ population and history, having the oldest gar bar in the state for example. And so if you go back and follow the statement I made that night, the actual issues I’m bringing up have to do with precarious employment, healthcare access, and persecution as they relate to the community here. And, it’s hardly a culture war when you’re speaking from experiences of being threatened and called faggot at your own job.

As soon as Tim Overton stepped up and talked, it was clear he watches too many Daily Wire segments not to have adult-onset brain rot. We all laughed when he said “I have all of human history to back me up,” likening himself to a postdoctoral researcher at the CATO Institute. He repeated a talking point about how rates of gayness and mad tranny disease have gone up since WWII, which unless you also consider left-handedness to be a social contagion, what’s your point exactly?

Time flew, and at the start of March he became party chairman with no challengers. Outside of his support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015, he doesn’t have the type of party connections in their ranks that would entitle him to that role, so it’s obvious to most observers that he holds no actual power in the party. Certainly he believes he’s part of some sort of groundbreaking Baptist intelligentsia, but all he can really do is point a finger while Stephen Brand makes real decisions. He’s all for calling anyone he disagrees with irreligious, when what most of us actually want is religious pluralism as a baseline. Overton tries distinguishing himself from being against separation of church and state, but “not in separation of God and government” according to his church.

If you want a sense of what the Post-Democrat advocates for, we want home rule again for city government. I want local government that isn’t just in it to facilitate business transactions, I want one that can materially provide for people. And yet both on a local level and throughout Indiana, those home rule capabilities have been limited by landlord lobbies and business interests broadly. Anytime that we’ve been able to act freely, whether it be putting funding towards tackling addiction, making utilities cheaper, or taming slumlords, it’s the Republican party that’s been at the forefront of squashing change from happening. These things should matter whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, and you can even find my critique on how the former should wise up.

Since Overton’s claim to fame comes from 2015, it’s a sworn bet he’ll only bring up barely relevant issues and never local. He can prove me wrong, by coming to a compromise on the vote centers, but Post-Democrat readers can take it to the bank that if vote centers don’t happen, you can thank their party. Not to mention, he isn’t pulling shots the way that Stephen Brand is, or the state party who he follows orders from. I will say, if Brand is true on his word about transparent government, and granted he wouldn’t pull a 650-person firing squad on yours truly, I’d say fair words about him. But Overton is never going to care about what Muncie or the county represents, and culture war issues are going to be something continued by many of our elected officials. It was early this year that Mayor Dan Ridenour decided not only to appoint himself to the Muncie Land Bank and attempt to push John West out of it, but also appointed former County Council member Ryan Webb. Among many things, the guy is known for putting up a yard sign saying that trans women like myself are “insane men.” Now half that statement might be true, but past the stories of Ryan doxing residents and posting rainbow swastikas, Ridenour has a seething hatred of the Land Bank getting in his way. Ridenour appointing Webb is really about derailing the organization by turning their meetings into the Ryan Webb show.

But of course, take my words with a grain of salt. We’re an openly left-leaning paper with the word Democrat in our name. And if you’ve followed the Post-Democrat long enough, you’ll know it’s obvious Andrew’s my father (I’ve joked about it enough times). But the real question is, who said that the Post-Democrat gave a flying-fuck into a rolling donut about carrying anyone else’s water?  I lose money every year on this site after all, so I don’t care to always align my views with the official party, Muncie Resists, or even another family member. But at least we’re fucking doing something. My family fought the KKK here in the ’20s, I just finished a book about Muncie corruption, and my website only continues bringing citizens into the political process. Why? Because unlike alcohol, Irish doesn’t wear off. So yeah, I’ll stay angry and kick against the pricks.