Inside the Cumberland GOP

Inflammatory information can be found anywhere in news outlets, in particular social media. Turn on your favorite, Tik Tok, Twitter (I refuse to call it X), Facebook, etc., there’s typically someone trying to get citizens riled up against each other, on any issue they are passionate about.

That’s what the algorithm is designed to do. 

SNN was invited to a conservative meeting of republicans by a local veteran, and did not know what to expect from this meeting.

“We don’t bite,” was jokingly shouted from the back corner in the Cumberland, RI Library meeting room when it was mentioned that the media was attempting to attend the meeting.

This is the first public meeting since the very large No Kings protests on Saturday. 

“We don’t care who you are, Independent, Republican, Democrat,” said Chairperson Tim Ruel, combat veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Chief of Veteran Outreach at Operation Standdown RI. “You’re more than welcome to sit and join the meeting.”

Tim shook hands with everyone who entered, held a loose meeting with jokes, and an overall pleasant atmosphere. Tim showed leadership by asking for feelings from the membership, about a fiscal concern for the committee, instead of forcing his opinion onto them. 

When the topic of a highly convoluted school bond and construction issue was discussed, School Committee member Keri Smith was vocal and passionate about her fiduciary responsibilities to the town. Her passion was felt across the room. This topic was covered by The Valley Breeze last week and has more information about the highly-attended meeting.

Keri was very knowledgeable about the multitude of municipal doings, even to the point of a new member asking, “how do you know about all of this stuff?”

Keri’s knowledge and compassion about the town was notable, and noticeable.  

The “no kings” protest was brought up next by Tim, who attended to check out the noise. He read a statement from the Rhode Island GOP Chair Joe Powers, “The so-called “No Kings” protests sweeping the country aren’t about democracy, they’re about distraction.”

The committee also joked about a “fake” picture about the number of people that were in Boston for the protest. They joked about how the picture has to be fake because the leaves were green. 

There might be a few false pictures circulating a different algorithm, but SNN was on scene in Providence, and there were at least 1,000+ people in attendance. 

The BBC, NBC, Snopes, even the right leaning New York Post wrote an article about the scene in Boston and how Elon’s infamous AI “grok” got it wrong.

The committee is correct in saying that America does not have a king. They laughed about the notion of the United States having a king. A king would not allow the amount of protesting that occurred this past weekend. Would King Longshanks let millions of people stop traffic on a busy Saturday?

We live in America, where people are allowed to have differences. It’s right there, baked into the 1st amendment. We can disagree on a litany of issues, but what we can’t do is de-evolve into neanderthals.

Salacious headlines and divisiveness will sell clicks, but it won’t bring us together as a country.