by Ryan C Christiansen
Columnist

Imagine you’re a member of the Republican Party in North Dakota. By definition, you’re a conservative, and so any kind of change is hard to accept. You want things to remain like they were in the good old days, when big industry used the latest technology and cheap labor to make lots and lots of money, just like they did on those bonanza farms. And you want men to be in charge of women and to have the final say in how many children they’re going to have. And you don’t want kids thinking about sex at all, and you want those homosexuals to go find another state to live in.

You’re a Republican, and you want things to be—well, just like they are right now in North Dakota, and you want your children and grandchildren to grow up to be good Republicans, too. But the problem is that it’s getting harder and harder to justify being a Republican, because only 22 percent of Americans, a near record low, now consider themselves to be Republican. And you realize that just because Republicans have a majority in one of the least-populated states in the union, it doesn’t make them relevant on the national scene.

Republicans see the writing on the wall. They feel like they’re being backed into a corner, and they’re numb with disbelief. They’re in denial. And on some level, they feel guilty about the fact they didn’t do enough to help Republicans on a national level to do better in the 2012 elections. Of course, they’ve found a way to blame others, and they say that the only reason minorities, women, and young people voted for Obama and for Democrats is because they wanted all those “gifts” that Obama promised them, things like health insurance, fair pay, equality, and legal status.

You see, Republicans are in the middle of what’s called the Grief Cycle, and they have moved past denial, guilt, and blame to the bargaining stage: To the 22 percent of folks who still think that being a Republican is meaningful, they say: “If you can stick with us until the next big national election, we’ll work with our rich oil buddies to buy you more representation in Washington. In the meantime, let’s show ‘em what a Republican supermajority looks like.” They’ve led efforts to give tax breaks to oil companies, outlaw abortion, discriminate against homosexuals, eliminate sex education—the list goes on.

Meanwhile, the American population is continuing to become more diverse, and the same is true in North Dakota. As our population grows, we bring in people from all over, each with their own backgrounds and values.

And diversity is problematic. That’s because it’s human nature to react negatively to the diversification of a population. When we find ourselves surrounded by people who aren’t like us, we grow uncomfortable with our surroundings, and we trust people less, even those people whom we used to identify with. We withdraw into smaller and smaller circles of cohorts, and instead of investing in the community as a whole, we choose to protect our own interests.

Could it be that the Republican Party no longer even tries to keep its finger on the pulse of its constituency? I imagine Republicans forwarding all sorts of e-mail to one another, messages filled with half-truths and lies and cute little memes, and then carrying these “facts” with them to subcommittee meetings, where they decide, without hearings, that they should impose their agenda onto everyone else, no matter how many people might disagree with them.

The sad part is that even though change is painful, and diversity is uncomfortable, research shows that when people from different backgrounds are forced to work together toward a common goal, such as in the workplace, they do learn to trust one another, eventually. Here in North Dakota, a diverse group of people did grow up together. We Norwegians, Germans, Russian-Germans, Englishmen, Irishmen, and others grew up working toward a common goal and eventually, we all became North Dakotans. In the process, we also came to align ourselves with one of two political parties, but we accomplished a lot across the aisle. During half of the last 50 years, we had a Democrat in the governor’s office, believe it or not.

And the Republican grief cycle isn’t over. Not yet. At some point, the Republican Party in North Dakota will have reached its low point, and after a period of despair, when they realize the magnitude of their loss, they will approach life in a calmer, more organized way. They will learn how to reconstruct for themselves a new reality that involves embracing a more diverse society. And having accepted that new reality, they will be able to plan for the future, as the minority party.