Far-right disinformation campaign leads to narrow bond defeat

Chariho got MAGA’ed

By Will Collette

The May 7 referendum vote on the proposed $150 million Chariho school construction bond lost by around 75 votes or about 1.5% of the votes cast. These numbers are still unofficial and reflect the Board of Elections count as of mid-day today.

The total vote count is actually irrelevant, since the Chariho Act requires all three towns to vote "Yes."

I’m proud to note that Charlestown voted overwhelmingly for the bond, 847 Yes to only 332 No. This was due to broad consensus spanning Charlestown’s usually yawning political divide. 

I’d also like to think Charlestown was less susceptible to the MAGA bullshit that was hurled at the construction plan largely by Hopkinton and Richmond MAGA Republicans such as Scott Bill Hirst and Clay Johnson.

I’ve heard it said that party affiliation doesn’t matter much when it comes to local issues. I used to think that was true. But today, Trumpian politics has so pervaded our entire body politic that every issue involves a deathmatch between truth and “alternative facts.”

Screen shot from "Forgotten Taxpayers" website

Richmond came close to shaking off the urgings of Clay Johnson and the MAGA majority on the Richmond Town Council. Richmond is still listed (as of BOE’s mid-day count) as having voted No by a two-vote margin, 803 No to 801 Yes.

It’s Hopkinton that was the spoiler, providing the margin for the bond’s defeat on a town vote of 1,007 No to 719 Yes. Hopkinton's vote alone was enough to kill the bond.

Scott Bill Hirst and his MAGA friends threw every possible objection at the wall and enough of it stuck to win over that town.

They said Hopkinton is taxed too much, as if taking advantage of a one-time bargain in state cost-sharing would cause them undue harm. They said there was no need to replace the three elementary schools in question because…something. 

One of the schools is almost 100 years old and is slated for closure because it can’t meet building standards.

They said the bond was another giveaway to the building trades unions. They said it didn’t matter that the state would kick in $112 million because state money is the same as local money even though it obviously isn't.

The fact that just about all their objections were false, distorted or irrelevant didn’t matter – the idea was to create enough doubt to push voters to go their way. Just scroll through the Letters to the Editor column in the Westerly Sun to see how broad yet narrow-minded their attack was.

I graduated in 1967 from Sacred Heart Academy in Central Falls. It was also 100+ years old and slated for closure for all manner of structural problems (and it was shut down three years later). I know what it’s like to go to school in an antiquated, dangerous facility that lacked the proper infrastructure needed for a proper education. I would not wish that experience on any child in the Chariho system.

We need these new schools. Times have changed and we now know schools must be upgraded to provide security against school shooters, sanitation and ventilation to blunt the spread of air-borne diseases, fire protection and state-of-the-art wiring to take advantage of the technological tools for today’s learning.

Republican MAGAs have been following the dictum of their Mandarin Mussolini to “love the uneducated.” 

Rather than focus on restoring Chariho to the top ranks of the state’s school, the MAGAs want to debate what books are read, and what “version” of history is taught. They want to cloud the real issues with yammering about who uses what restroom, who plays what sports and whether schools are where young people can learn to respect people who are different from them.

The rise of Trumpism, fascism, White Christian Nationalism, intolerance and ignorance make our need for an educated public all the more crucial.

I see no possibility of any change in the election results. We lost and ignorance won. I don’t know what happens next and what the Chariho system will do about the structural problems this bond issue would have addressed. 

One thing is sure: the cost to fix what is broken will cost Chariho taxpayers a lot more, thanks to the No-Nothings who engineered the bond’s defeat.