Utah County republican residents seem to revel in the fact that this is the 'reddest' place in the country. The psychology behind this is complicated, but knowable. What is incomprehensible is the logic used to justify One Party rule as the 'best' for them. Allow me to explain. . .
In a republican government, competing interests elect representatives that will give effect to the aspirations of the largest number of constituents, and these representatives are replaced or preserved by their efficacy in actually creating the policies and laws wanted by their constituents. If they are unwilling or able to represent their constituents, then the institution of elections provides a means to replace them with another who can convince a majority that they will do a better job.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as we have all heard. Elective representation is a means to separate the power of government from the person of the governor, and hopefully enforce virtue in the government by (hopefully) prompt elimination of bad actors and creating a vital link between the governed and the government.
This only works, though, when interests can compete in the marketplace of ideas. When the marketplace of ideas fails, then you have the political equivalent of a market failure due to monopoly. The technical problem of monopoly is that the information feedback mechanism that is the basic virtue of a functioning market is silenced. With no alternative source, information about demand is excluded, and the monopolist is free to charge prices dictated by whatever he can get his hands on, rather than needing to charge a competitive price or lose the sale.
Many residents who call themselves conservative republicans believe and vote Republican because there is a feeling of solidarity and safety in being part of the Party in Power. We all crave power, because that can lead to greater security in this hostile world. This would be rational if the political system was a robust market of ideas and competing interests had to provide better alternatives in order to be entrusted with the power of government, and those interests or Parties actually had to strive for and provide better government in order to preserve their positions. Competition would lead to improvement, and improvement would lead to better government, that is better for all of us.
So, back to Utah County.
The Republican Party has had only one challenge to their County Attorney Pick in the past 12 years that I can discover. And that one challenge was during the dark days of the George W. Bush administration, when the country collectively ran ourselves off a cliff, and Utah County was actively supporting the administration more solidly than almost anywhere else in the nation. Put bluntly, Utah County is a One Party Government.
“How bad can that be, if I'm in The Party?!” I'm in power, and there is none to molest or make afraid. THIS IS THE BIG LIE. The error is in the word “I'm”.
When there are two sides to a question of government, each voter is important. If your side is winning, you must appeal to each individual voter in order to maintain that voter in your camp. The government must listen to the individual. Even if you're on the losing side of the question, your voice is important, both to the government, who doesn't want to miss the development of an improvement that would replace them in power, and to the opposition, who needs your vote to replace the current regime, and so must listen to your concerns to win your support.
When there is only one party on a ballot, as seems to be the goal not only here in Utah County, but for the GOP nationally, then everybody who is not Republican is unimportant. This is easy to understand. What is obviously misunderstood in Utah County, and among Republican voters in Utah, is that in this situation, everybody who is not part of the Republican ruling clique also is unimportant.
Ask yourself this question: If there is no challenger to the Republican nominee, what reason is there for that nominee to ask me how I feel about or where I stand on any given issue? If he doesn't really need my vote to win, since he's unopposed, then why should he care about me as a republican voter?
But it's actually worse than that. Newtonian physics dictates that ever minute spent listening to or trying to serve a voter who isn't needed by the candidate is, actually, a drain of energy and time on the candidate who actually does have a job to do – namely, please his real constituency.
What is his real constituency? It is the Republican Party 'leadership', such as it is. It's the mayors and councilmen and legislators who use their positions to enrich their donating cronies, and usually themselves with tax money stolen from the predominantly republican registered voters!
So, to sum it up: People like to be in the 'in crowd'. Once 'in', they seek to eliminate competition. But in blindly supporting the in-crowd eliminating all competition, they make themselves just as exposed, weak, powerless, and vulnerable as the out-crowd. It is only when good people vote for the person and issue, rather than Party, that the democratic process works. In Utah county, the One Party Rule has made democrats and independents powerless, but what most republican voters don't understand is that it has also made them equally powerless and irrelevant.
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