By Alexander Lomax
Axon CEO Rick Smith. Photo Credit: Jim Poulin, Phoenix Business Journal
It was a tough year for Democrats all around this year, and Arizona was yet another example of this. They lost ground in the state legislature and have made Governor Hobbs’s intention to get a majority in at least either the State House or Senate a pipe dream. Perhaps the biggest issue nationally was a question as to what the party stands for, to what their messaging is. Then I got an email from the District 3 Democrats (covering much of North Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and Cave Creek) and ohhh boy…now I see why they got creamed.
Their monthly newsletter was…interesting. How so? Well let’s dive in!
In the words of the newsletter, “The party of NO is dead set against apartments and they’ve taken complaints from nearby residents (who don’t want apartments nearby either)” – how dare they actually listen to those effected, am I right?
“If Axon doesn’t build on that site, Amazon or FedEx is likely to do so.” – wait…do the LD3 Dems have some insider information here? Or is it baseless scaremongering about big bad corporations? And then they go on to reference the economic benefits between Axon and Amazon. I’m sorry, but what? Axon owns this land, not Amazon. What are they even talking about? Clearly they think their readership is stupid.
But perhaps the most disappointing thing is a loss of ideals and a north star. After all, it wasn’t long ago that the Democrats were the party of public education in Arizona. And Axon singlehandedly stiffed Arizona schools out of tens of millions of dollars via the Arizona State Land Trust by purposely misleading the Trust as to the nature of this purchase and what it would do with the land.
Do they not care about education anymore? Or did they simply ditch that in favor of corporate bullies since Republicans took the lead on education? Or have they received a check from Axon and are now doing its bidding?
In a nutshell, you see why the Democratic Party has been failing nationally: seemingly no moral rooting, simply a party full of relationships of convenience. What do they stand for? Who knows, not me.
The party that once believed in corporate accountability, education funding, and democracy has actively turned their back on all of these, so it should be of absolutely no surprise to anyone when more and more people turn their back on the party and Republicans revisit their dominance of Arizona politics.