By AlaskaWatchman.com

Donald Trump’s election and the announcement of his choices for cabinet positions have triggered our friends on the left who gnash their teeth and bemoan what has befallen them. Some, like Alaska’s ever-foolish Senator Lisa Murkowski, vow to vote against Trump’s cabinet choices in their confirmation hearing.

Other leftists have taken things one step further, making outlandish promises to leave the country, and have deleted all their social media accounts in spite. It is time for rational people to think about what Donald Trump’s cabinet choices indicate despite what the liberal snowflakes are telling us.

Trump proposes to place people in his cabinet who are committed to reducing the size and scope of the federal government. This action reminds me of my grandmother’s raspberry patch when I was a kid. She was an excellent gardener and had a section of her garden set aside to grow raspberries. As kids, we loved going out in the summer and picking a handful of fresh berries for a snack.

However, that wasn’t the biggest benefit we received from her garden. The prolific abundance of berries it produced allowed her to make her special raspberry jam every summer. Everyone in the family loved it, and we looked forward to late summer when she would harvest berries and can the jam – sharing jars of it with everyone in the family to enjoy all winter. I honestly don’t remember ever eating store-bought jam in my childhood thanks to grandma’s prolific garden and jam-making skill.

If the truth is known, voters in Washington, DC, are probably who Lisa Murkowski really represents. It isn’t the residents here in Alaska. It is the entrenched members of the government’s administrative state.

That all seemed to change one day. One spring she organized all of us grandkids into a work party and informed us it was time to prune the raspberries. Experienced gardeners know that raspberries can spread quickly and take over your garden if you are not careful, and besides that, an out-of-control raspberry patch doesn’t produce as much fruit. My grandmother knew these facts and what to do about it, but to us kids, pruning back the raspberry patch was heresy! We were worried we would never have jam again if we cut down all the plants! I remember arguing with my grandmother forcefully to prevent the “great pruning.” Surely, there must be some other way. I pleaded, but she was adamant about what she was going to do.

Finally, all her little grandkid helpers were rounded up, me included. Fifty-five years later, I still remember the day. It was quite a chore and took a long time, but the plants were cut back, the walking paths between them restored, and the old dead canes and underbrush removed. We kids thought grandma had lost her mind, but the truth is, it turned out she was right.

Although the volume of green foliage in her raspberry patch was reduced, it was now possible to walk through the garden easily. Before the great pruning, we could only pick the berries around the perimeter. Afterwards, we could access every plant. Also, the reduction in foliage made it easier to see the berries, and because of the additional sunlight, each plant seemed to produce more berries than before.

My grandmother’s raspberry patch is a metaphor for what Donald Trump proposes. He believes our government has grown too big and is bloated, making it less efficient than it should be. Because of its size and inefficiency, it can’t provide the services it should to the people. Trump is planning to prune it back to make it more productive.

So, when you hear members of the Deep State like Alaska’s Senator Lisa Murkowski moan and whine about Trump’s cabinet picks and how they won’t be good for the country, what she means is that these picks will reduce the size and scope of the government bureaucracy back in Washington DC. The members of that bureaucracy contribute money to Lisa’s political campaigns. When you hear about “Dark Money” in politics, like the outside dark money that was opposed to the recent repeal of ranked-choice voting, much of it comes from people in Washington, DC. They support candidates like Murkowski and try to secretly influence elections in places like Alaska to further their agenda. If the truth is known, voters in Washington, DC, are probably who Lisa Murkowski really represents. It isn’t the residents here in Alaska. It is the entrenched members of the government’s administrative state.

So now, when I watch TV and hear the Lefty elites complain, I am reminded of way back when a bunch of ignorant kids surrounded their grandmother, begging her not to prune the raspberries. My grandmother knew she was right back then, and Trump knows he is right now. Today’s naysayers are the ignorant children who fail to understand the situation. Yes, Lisa, I’m talking specifically about you.

The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.

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OPINION: Despite Murkowski’s protests, the ‘Great Pruning’ is necessary

Greg Sarber
Greg Sarber is a lifelong Alaskan who spent most of his career working in oilfields on Alaska's North Slope and in several countries overseas. He is now retired and lives with his family in Homer, Alaska. He posts regular articles on Alaskan and political issues on his Substack at sewardsfolly.substack.com.


6 Comments

  • Rino Rider says:

    The AG isn’t who Lisa M or Susan C should be worried about. It’s the new “Department of Government Excess” as they will be publicy posting each pork-barrel program that they dismantle.

  • Steve says:

    Let’s not forget Lisa LOST her last Republican primary, like her daddy’s spoiled little brat ran as a write-in candidate. When she realized she had a complicated last name to spell she had our corrupted judges reinterpretation of the candidate declaration to seek office name required to be spelt correctly on a write-in vote. The her lawyer help do away with party primaries. Is this the type of character we want anywhere close to the powers of government. Now she want to reject Gaetz who will investigate the 300,000 missing children who were trafficked across our southern board. Does Lisa care about these children? Not as much as she does about getting things her way.

  • Penny Johnson says:

    Mr. Garber, while your metaphor is well taken, the object of focus is misplaced. The more urgent focus should be on Mediocre Mike who has expended political equity to “live another day”. The warning signs are all there: an insidious invasion of tens of millions in Outside Dark Money to install and preserve Ranked Choice Voting. How does a Lt. Gov. (Dahlstrom), a 20 year politician, whose only job.is to manage our elections & clean up the voter rolls get primaried because of her failure to do so? Alaska has 113% of eligible age registration, when a healthy registration rate is 60 – 70%? How does a Republican state allow continued membership in ERIC, which shares private voter
    information with NGOs who then concentrate their efforts on registering Democrats? With the retention of RCV, a Democrat tool designed explicitly to divide and conquer, Dunleavy’s days as governor are numbered. As President Trump says, “They’re not after me, they’re after you – I’m just standing in their way”. This has all happened on the governor’s watch, in an era of the Trump wave. Dunleavy let the Dems kick down the door of Democracy in Alaska.

  • Davesmaxwell says:

    well stated penny keep it up! fresh air and a bright light on truth! GOD BLESS YOU!

  • Linda Nix says:

    Thank you Greg for eye opener article about Lisa Murkowski, She is the biggest Rino in Politics l know of , how she can even look in the mirror an call herself a Republican is beyond reasoning. She is an embarrassment to the State of Alaska. lm thankful for those that see her for what she is a Democrat in Republican clothing.

  • Diana says:

    If Senator Murkowski does not want to do the work of the Alaskan people, we should help her exit her seat.