And just who might “they” be? As history proves time and again, the usual suspects: The Democrat party, teachers unions and all those “unaffiliated,” leftist candidates. For those of you who don’t know this fact, I can hazard a pretty accurate guess which subjects you didn’t pay attention to in your education — the sub-topic most affected in this column.

Yes, this is about Mesa County School District 51 and the upcoming school board election. Or, as our local Democrats (seemingly) prefer to call it, taking their rightful, exalted place in ruling over the masses using government force to mandate ideas so good they need government force to be implemented. Because my nearly 62 trips around this orb have proven to me the left in our great country believes itself our rightful rulers and overseers (yes, that’s intentional) and our schools are simply another fiefdom in the larger kingdom over which they reign. And they’ll use any means necessary to adorn their rightful thrones.

For decades, both before I arrived and ever since, we’ve pretty much had Democrat rule in our school district — up until the past two years. But for local Democrats and radical, teachers union minions (but I repeat myself) this simply can’t stand. Why else do you think the District 51 School Board has all of a sudden become political? Simple: Because leftists didn’t get their way in the last election in electing those dedicated to riding roughshod over our youth and parents.

And just what have all these years of Democrat rule over our schools brought us? The only success I’ve seen is the left has totally politicized school board elections with the help of the union and the local “daily.” This is literally what their candidates run on: We need people who will stand up to the MAGA school board majority as dutifully reported by said “daily” before the same said “daily” dutifully published its previously written endorsements by “insert candidate name here” in the blank line. I don’t know about you, but other than calling them Trumpsters, there’s no more political term in our nation than MAGA.

So exactly who’s making the school board elections political? I mean, all evidence supports the politics is being directed by those using the term MAGA with the natural follow-up, in-depth reporting of only certain candidates’ funding. But since the purpose of the reporting is to smear conservatives, it of course funnels to everyone on the opposite end of the spectrum. The end where I sit proudly. I know I shouldn’t use that word, but the left is gonna “left” anyways.

I say proudly for the simplest of reasons. Whatever the left wants or has wrought I pretty much always want the opposite. So back to my question above related to what has a half century or more of Democrat rule on our local school board brought us?

Most recently, it brought us a nearly $200 million, off budget high school which should have been replaced nearly 50 years ago at a fraction of the price. But our leftist school boards never saved the money or got the money appropriated to do the fiscally responsible thing. Worse, the funding got approved only after a full court press from “community leaders” (hint, they are mostly community rulers placed in high importance by themselves) guilting fiscally responsible parents and citizens into approving one of the most expensive high schools ever built in the nation. And what happened when these same “leaders” couldn’t get every social program and diversity and inclusion-laden 10 pounds of you know what into the 5-pound bag of you know what into the new high school? They did what the left knows best — they slandered and attacked the new school members and their families politically. But cheer up, we’ll have the coolest, shiny penny high school to post pictures of. It won’t matter if the test scores go up, the kids can always go to the clinic for a doctor’s note to get out of attending.

And that’s all our school board elections have come down to. One side wants to experiment with the latest shiny object — costs be damned — and the other side would like to go back to teaching reading, writing and arithmetic while being fiscally responsible with our tax dollars. Now which one is easier to sell? The falsely inclusive, diverse side saying we’ll take care of your kids’ food, health, babysitting and every possible need as long as you let us warp their minds into being good citizens of the world under our rule or is it we’ll be fiscally responsible with your tax dollars and bring back the curriculum which, ironically, made all these leftists so smart they constantly tell you and mandate you into how to live your life?

Your vote is easy to decide in the coming school board election. Consider whoever the local teachers union supports; whoever the “daily” endorses; whoever is all in on diversity and inclusion mandates from the least diverse and inclusive entity (that’s government, by the way) on the planet; whoever wants myriad more vaccines than the three they had as kids; whoever believes LGBTQ++ can only be taught with sexually explicit material and whoever says the other side is political. Then vote for the other guys.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com.