German Newspaper Die Welt Discusses Rich County Politics

The reporter  Wergin Clemens from Die Welt contacted Mayor John Spuhler  and wanted to know why Rich County  had the largest percentage voting for Cruz and why we are so conservative.  Die Welt newspaper is the largest in Germany.  Spuhler  thought it might be interesting to read and shared this.  They had a fascinating conversation on topics not in the article (see below for the link) and then of course a long discussion about Donald Trump, the Second Amendment, even Hitler was brought up. This has been translated from German and some German words and syntax remain.

Where Donald Trump experienced his greatest defeat

Wergin Clemens, Washington Bureau

http://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article154195618/Wo-Donald-Trump-seine-groesste-Niederlage-erlebte.html

“Wes Tingey has come directly from the cow pasture and apologizes

for the strong smell of his shoes. The man with the weathered face had to help a calf which has just come into the world. "It still had the amniotic sac through the nose and would have suffocated if I had not been there," he says.

It took a little persuasion to get Tingey for discussion in the Country Store, the only attraction in Woodruff, a small patch in the remote Rich County in Utah. It's calves season, and the cattle farmers have their hands full. And in Washington, they are not good to speak, not even to journalists who come from the distant capital. But Wes Tingey holds in addition to his many professions, the office of party chairman of the Republicans in the district. And therefore he can best explain why this remote corner of northeastern Utah Ted Cruz with 79 percent of the highest ever victory earned - and Donald Trump a crashing defeat.

"In this county live 98 percent Mormon, and Mormons are pretty conservative people," says Tingey, who runs a cattle with 300 cows and beside still the Country Store, which supplies the region with gas. He had even been a Trump-trailer at the beginning, he admits. "I liked what most Trump fans like: that it does not come from the establishment," says Tingey. "But he has his mouth not under control, and that has scared me. If he does not control his tongue, then he would give us einhandeln as president a lot of trouble."

Many voters have apparently similarly seen and voted throughout Utah overwhelmingly against Trump. Cruz has surged in this western state with 69 percent of the Republican vote, a dream result, competitors John Kasich ended up with 16 percent in second place, while Trump took humiliating 14 percent.

In a normal election year an arch-conservative like Cruz might hardly have been given opportunities, in Washington party establishment because he does not have any friends and he has fallen out with many of his Senate colleagues. Because he is so far to the right, the polls regularly show that Cruz could hardly exist in a presidential election against Democrat Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders.

But this is not a normal election year, and the rise Trumps has many alarms inside and outside the party. And there appears a man like Cruz suddenly as a savior who might save the Republican Party before Trump and the damage that this would cause the image of the party in the long run. Reason enough for a search for clues in the district of Cruz earned his best result in the whole pre-election campaign.

"Cruz is the only one who has a chance to beat Trump.”

The local Republikanerchef Tingey will in any case that even a conservative pragmatists like John Kasich would fit well to Rich County. The high approval ratings for Cruz he sees primarily as a strategic vote against Trump. "John Kasich could get more votes if anybody would have believed that he would have had a real chance at the nomination," says Tingey. "Cruz is the only one who has a chance to beat Trump."

Rich County has less than 3,000 inhabitants. The Rocky Mountains are of an almost painful beauty. In the south, the Bear River Valley, a framed by snowcapped mountains mountain valley, where many more cows than people lies. To the north is the lake Bear Lake, having the largest water marina Utah in Garden City and is dominated by the summer tourism.

John Spuhler, mayor of Garden City, has German and Mexican ancestry. He says Trump's aggressive style has people quenched here. "That does not fit well in this conservative community," says Spuhler. "Because this community also appreciates sympathy and you ensures here to treat people with dignity and respect. So if you're a conservative idiot, then you ruin the people of it," said Spuhler. "It is simply not appropriate to make fun of a disabled person or to say that you will kill some people."

During the summer his city, Garden City, is a popular destination for water sports tourists. The Mayor looks sporty and has moved from Denver to Garden City because he loves nature and outdoor enthusiast is. "Trump is more for a New York mentality. For the I-hit-you-on-the-nose-setting, and that does not fit here," says the mayor, who incidentally still operates an education company in China. "Even if we disagree, we laugh and make jokes about and can eat dinner together. I do not know many people here that are mad anyway."

Garden City is getting ready for the short summer season before that, when the 500-inhabitant city suddenly swells two months a year to 30,000, even on weekends to 70,000 residents. "That's 60 crazy days, and then after that the moose and other wildlife come back in your garden.   This morning, the bald eagle flew over my house." Spuhler pulls out his cell phone and proudly displays the image of a friend who has just shot a huge mountain lion. From all over the world people come here to hunt, and in winter for ice fishing in the frozen lake.

Rich County is susceptible to an outsider candidate who opposes Washington. What they like in Cruz, is his insistence on the constitution, on the strict limitation of the central government. "Many people have the feeling that the creators of our nation and its founding documents on spiritual principles build as inalienable, God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. The right to bear arms to protect themselves. rule of law process, all these are the constitutional principles that Ted Cruz embodies "says Spuhler.

Cruz’s religiosity finds here more reverberation than Trump, who is perceived as secular. Also Trump’s socially populist message found no takers. "We are here actually all independent entrepreneurs," says Spuhler. When looking for a job, the state is the last thing one would think of. "In Utah, we believe that a man pulls himself out of the swamp. If we cannot find a job, then we create one, that is a question of attitude."

Mayor John Spuhler

Here in the remote parts of the Rockies, the pioneering spirit of the West is still very noticeable. 150 years ago,  Mormon families from Salt Lake City were sent to the north, to colonize the area inhabited by Shoshone and to report to the Mormon faith. They braved the harsh climate - in the south in Woodruff about was minus 46 degrees Celsius, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Utah temperature registered. "They are mainly people from cold climates hergeschickt, about Sweden or German," says Spuhler.

The Mormons  fled to the West, in order to escape persecution by the government in Washington. It also explains Utah’s aversion to the central government, the Cruz served most convincing. He also has more understanding shown for one of the basic problems of the countries in the West: they do not own their own country. For reasons that have to do with the expansion history of America, has the central government - unlike on the east coast - most of the land in the West is owned by the federal government.  Rich County is 70 percent Federal lands.

If you drive south from the lake, the valley opens to an almost clichéd scene of the Wild West with a wide horizon, framed by mountain ranges. Kuherden graze on the still marked by winter brown pastures. Sometimes appears a lonely farmstead, until you reach Randolph, the capital of the county with just under 500 residents. Here is the built in brick Mormon Church, the Randolph Tabernacle, of which the people here are proud. Opposite is the small administration building of the district.

Commissioner Bill Cox
Photo by Wergen Clemens

There sits the gnarled Bill Cox who looks a bit tired because he had to help at night several cows at calving. But when it comes to the country he is really talkative. Cox, like all here in the County wears multiple hats. He operates from 4 a.m. as a postman and distributes letters and parcels at the post offices in villages and remote farms. He is farmer with 250 suckler cows, and farms 800

hectares of land. He is the head of the County Commission, the county government, and responsible for social services. And Cox finds that the central government makes life in the rural west and more difficult.

The communities live mainly from property tax, here in Rich County but only 30 percent of land is taxable, the rest belongs to the federal government. For farmers, it is vital to be able to let their cattle graze on federal land. But under Obama the environmental regulations have been steadily tightened. "The problem is that there are people in Washington DC, who decide what happens here with us, people who have never been here and who have no interest in Rich County," says Cox.

The latest harassment is that now is to turn the whole farming area to the sage grouse, which is at home here. "If the notice that there is somewhere a Balzstelle, then can take place no economic activity within a radius of four miles," says Cox. Then no roads can be attached, no water pipes laid, no water troughs for cattle and sheep to be built, and there is no resource extraction permits. And requests sometimes took up to eight years before the approval because the people responsible for this, change districts every one to one and a half years. "That's ridiculous that regulate us, the economy broken, which is really frustrating," says Cox.

You have here some good reasons for that anger at Washington, that cultivated Trump. But the real estate mogul has fallen out with the Mormons, as he put the Mormon faith of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney in doubt just before the caucus. "Whether one is here very religious or not, when the roots of the people look at here, then there is always some Mormon pioneer," says Cox. Romney attacking so was not a good idea. "Because Trump has lost all the support he has had perhaps. One does not come to Utah and so says something rude."

What is required for the people here is basic decency. Also Trumps penchant for boasting is a problem. "That was what repelled the people in our conservative district most. It does not do to knock to the chest and brags about how great he is," says Cox. "This is offensive to people with middle incomes who work 12 to 14 hours a day to make ends meet." Here  you do not count how much money you have, but what you begin with and what character you have.

In a sense, this is true for all of Utah, says Jason Perry, who heads the political science institute at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City the capital. He points to a recent survey of Utahns showing that honesty and integrity are the most important qualities that they are looking for in politicians. Right behind it was the demand that politicians should treat others with civility, even the political opponents. "The typical candidate in Utah is not as hostile as Trump, he does not fight in this way and not say things like him," says Perry. And because the Mormons were a persecuted minority once, even Trump’s remarks about Muslims came to no good. "If someone as talks about a religious group, as the Mormon church is very sensitive," says Perry.

But Trump's foreclosure fantasies against Mexico and the world are not prepared to accept. "Most people see Utah as a global player and consider themselves International, many speak several languages, although Utah an enclosed inland state," says Perry. This has to do with the global presence of the Mormon Church and the fact that particularly the young men are encouraged by the Mormons to go for two years on a mission abroad.

When you arrive at the airport in Salt Lake City, then there are at any time with families welcome posters welcome the returnees after two years of absence. "From our population, many who once lived abroad and therefore have a global perspective," says Perry. Many schools in Utah would therefore offer "dual immersion" classes in two languages.

So it's a very unique mix of conservative, rural values ​​and world solidarity that has immunized Utah as no other state in the US against Trump.

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