4 days ago
The new SLO County missionaries: From conquest to coexistence
Colonizers come in all creeds, cultures, and colors. I know. I am one. White, but born in Nigeria. Raised on tales of imperial contradiction and the soft hypocrisy of good intentions, I recognize cultural conquest when I see it.
And I see it now in San Luis Obispo County. Only this time, the missionaries wear yoga pants and BLM T-shirts.
When the British colonized Africa, they came with muskets, trinkets and the King James Bible. At least they were honest enough to say, 'We're here to civilize and trade.' No one claimed they moved to Lagos for the weather.
Contrast that with SLO County. Today's colonizers arrive not in redcoats but Teslas. They marvel that Paso Roblans wave at the sheriff, not because they're high, but because they know his name. They ask, 'Why is there an American flag outside the church, but no LGBTQ++ flag in the classroom?'
This isn't just demographic drift. It's felt like a cultural coup. Yes, the change has come through ballots not bayonets, but the effect is no less perturbing. In 1990, San Luis Obispo County was a Republican stronghold. The GOP held 52% of registrations, outnumbering Democrats by more than 21,000 voters. A political landscape as red as a SLO County sunset. Today, the tide has turned. Democrats now lead by over 5,000 voters, holding 38% to the GOP's 35%.
What was once a bastion of agrarian grit and frontier faith has been re-tilled and replanted into a progressive outpost. Cal Poly, once an apolitical haven for ag and engineering, now resembles a Berkeley annex with rodeo, oenology and trigger warnings.
For a crowd obsessed with condemning 19th-century colonialism, 21st-century progressives seem oddly eager to reenact it. They denounce empire while building their own. Like missionaries with MacBooks, they believe the locals are running outdated software in desperate need of an upgrade. They seize school boards like administrators with manifest destiny, introduce DEI programs like colonial governors introducing cricket, and dismantle tradition in the name of 'equity.'
The natives, of course, must be saved from themselves. Always the excuse of the colonizer.
However, while it's easy to critique the colonizers, the harder task is the cure. History teaches us that conquest is easy; coexistence is hard, but not impossible. Look to Botswana, Canada and parts of Europe where cultures, when not hell-bent on dominance, manage to share a flag and a future. So can we.
The first step? Ditch the missionary robes and martyr complexes. Abandon the intoxicating binary of 'left' versus 'right'. Of 'us' versus 'them'. If local leaders and activists of The Democrats and GOP such as Tom Fulks, Bruce Gibson, Randall Jordan, John Peschong, Moms for Liberty and The Lonely Liberals can pursue their agendas with mutual respect, we may yet replace cultural conquest with something more lasting and meaningful, genuine coexistence.
We need a politics of 'and' not 'or'. Heritage and innovation. Liberty and responsibility. Compassion and common sense. These aren't enemies, they're nutrients in the soil of civil society. Civilization doesn't demand that we trade truth for tolerance. We can honor pride without erasing patriotism.
We must prioritize pragmatism over purity. Real change doesn't spring from ideology; it grows from ideas that work. In SLO County, that means fixing water infrastructure before funding unconscious bias seminars. Building affordable homes before signaling virtue. Upholding academic standards over chasing DEI quotas and union indulgences.
Progress isn't a performance, it's a plan. Let's get back to one. Judge policy not by whether it's progressive or conservative, but by whether it improves lives.
We don't need a crusade; we need a Local Civic Compact. A shared vow, from newcomers and natives alike, to preserve what made this place worth moving to in the first place. Free speech, even when it bruises. Education, not indoctrination. Heritage, not hysteria. Conversation over creed. Dialogue over dogma.
Let Paso be Paso. Let the Five Cities, Cayucos and Cambria surf their own waves. SLO County is not Hollywood with vineyards or Silicon Valley in cowboy boots. The closer power sits to the people, the more likely it serves them. If we look to Sacramento to dictate our values, we become vassals in someone else's experiment.
Which brings us to the final question: Do we want to be right, or do we want to make a difference?
Being right is easy. We can play keyboard warriors and bask in our own cognitive dissonance. However, making a difference takes compromise. It means losing a few fights so others might win something lasting. Real progress begins not with purging, but persuasion.
SLO County stands at the intersection of two American impulses. The grit that built it from the ground up, and the orthodoxy now eager to remodel it from the top down. We need humility to admit we don't know everything and the courage to defend what we do.
Progress, like truth, doesn't shout. It listens. It holds the past not as an anchor, but as a compass.
Let's not mistake moral conceit for civic virtue. Civilizations don't endure because one wins. They endure because both sides grow up. Together.
Or, as Twain might have said, 'The secret to getting along ain't agreeing, it's remembering you've got to keep living next door after the shouting stops.'
Colonizer Clive Pinder married into a fifth-generation Paso Robles family. He lives in Templeton, hosts CeaseFire on KVEC radio and opinionizes for The Tribune. Find more of his columns at
