Coldwater residents have learned a valuable lesson: Actions have consequences.
Their town’s twice-elected mayor, Joe Ceballos, has been charged with felony voter fraud by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. Ceballos appears to have registered and cast ballots in multiple elections, despite not being a citizen. While you might expect townsfolk to respond with anger, that’s not the situation at all.
Indeed, a remarkable profile of Ceballos by veteran Kansas journalist Roy Wenzl shows a town shocked that such a good guy — “He’s more American than I am,” a friend said — would be charged. He’s a die-hard Republican in a place full of them. More than 83% of Comanche County voters picked Donald Trump for president last year. More than 78% appear to have chosen Kobach in 2022.
“If deportation happens, I can tell you that Kobach will have trouble showing up here, especially if he asks to stay with us for a while,” said Dennis Swayze, a rancher who mentored Ceballos.
But the attorney general hasn’t done anything wrong here. Kansas voters know precisely where Kobach stands and what he means to do. They have voted for him repeatedly. Trump, likewise, made no secret of his desire to oversee the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. Violent or nonviolent, with legal status or not, immigrants would be targeted.
That’s what Kobach and Trump promised.
Trump on immigrants in late 2023: “They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country.”
Kobach just last month on the Coldwater case: “It still effectively takes the vote away or cancels the vote of a U.S. citizen.”
Most town residents voted for these men. Whether they realize it or not, they’re getting what they wanted. On Election Day, they chose cruelty.
Expressions of dazed disbelief punctuate Wenzl’s story like infuriating landmines: “If you know Joe, you know Kobach picked the wrong guy” “Deportation would be, as I told Joe, like sending me to Egypt.” “He doesn’t take anything about America for granted.”
Residents who know Ceballos agonized about his voter registration, wondering if they should have provided better guidance. He made an honest mistake back in 1991, they say, and the mayor shouldn’t be made to pay the price.
But as they agonized, none appears to make the leap that their blind allegiance to a party that demonizes immigrants might have contributed to the problem.
Even today, even after these events, Ceballos’ friend Ryan Swayze offered this thumbnail political analysis: “Democrats think the government provides, while Republicans think the government should let us just do our thing.”
Republicans just let them do their thing, huh? Not in this case!
Here are some hard truths for the people of Coldwater.
As sure as if every Republican voter of Coldwater lined up to cast a stone at Ceballos, their choices at the ballot box in 2024 and 2022 had the same traumatic effect. They did this to their friend. They did this to their mayor. They did this to their beloved town fixture. And until they figure this out, our country and our state is not going to get better.
Take responsibility. Own up to your actions.
People whose brains have been liquefied by conservative propaganda believe they’re never to blame for adverse consequences. Setbacks always must be the doing of nefarious leftists. They’ve been turned into perpetual victims, always losing to a Clinton or an Obama or a Soros. But, of course, the fact is they’re part of one of the most successful political movements in American history. That political movement has goals and policies that are meant to be enacted.
If you demand responsibility and accountability from others, you must be willing to demand it from yourself as well. Follow conservative Republican beliefs to their logical conclusion and you will see many more good people punished for honest mistakes.
I didn’t feel great after reading Wenzl’s story. The mayor has all but admitted to the charges against him and said he voted in practically every election over the past 30-some years. If convicted of a felony, he seems likely to face deportation. Removal from the country could happen anyway, his lawyer fears.
That will leave Coldwater, Kansas and the United States all worse off. I sympathize with the mayor and wish state officials could show more empathy.
But that’s not what the majority of the public wanted. That’s not what Coldwater voted for. They should sit with that shame.
To paraphrase Walt Kelly: They have met the enemy and he is them.
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
