Dear Senator Scott Sales,

We, as Montanans, have been observing closely over the course of our most recent legislative session. It’s been fascinating. Watching aging, independently wealthy white men argue is a time honored political tradition in our country, and I’m glad to see that you’re making the most of your twilight years.

As a cyclist, especially, I’ve noticed how much of your time in Helena has been spent on things like deliberately making roads less safe, cracking jokes, and finding time to get your name into some pretty ugly national headlines about Our Fair State. That’s certainly more than I have to show for myself. It really is impressive.

This year it started with your fierce resistance to expanding protections for road cyclists, but you really got a head of steam going when you described cyclists as “the most self-centered, rude people navigating on the highways and county roads I’ve seen,” and went on to characterize people who ride bikes as inconsiderate. This is all before drumming up a proposal to tax out-of-state cyclists as “invasive species,” which, let me tell you, that was a real knee slapper.

But so I propose, Senator Sales, that you have, perhaps, been inconsiderate yourself.

For instance,

You have not considered that “cyclist” is not an apt descriptor. Cyclists are not some phrenologically distinct subspecies of homo sapiens*. Cyclists reflect a cross section of humanity, and humanity is, as a rule, kind of inconsiderate. Ol’ Dave Wallace even took the time to assure us that we will worry less about what people think of us when we realize how infrequently they do. And when we’re in the midst of that great diurnal migration known as “commuting,” our collective concern for the feelings and priorities of other commuters falls somewhere just above our care for the future of Syria’s children and just below what we might like to have for lunch on any given day next February.

You have not considered that we, together, road users, really are just pretty lax in our adherence to traffic policies and legislation. That yes, cyclists do sometimes violate the rules of the road when riding, but that those same people violate the rules of the road when driving, and as long as we’ve got a bunch of rule breakers running around out there wouldn’t it really be better from, say, a public administration/public safety perspective, to have those people at the helm of as little kinetic energy as possible? And by the way do you really signal for three hundred feet before changing lanes? Do you know how long three hundred feet is? Also this one?

You have not considered, perhaps, that, all joking aside, you are the joke. Because I believe that you have considered the responses you would receive to your comments and legislative amendments – the frantic handwringing and letterwriting from the liberal set. That you, the president of an objectively low functioning state legislature, looked at a popular, bi-partisan bill to address very real problems with aquatic invasive species and saw an opportunity to fluster some Democrats in a college town. That this is the same thing as showing up drunk to an intervention, muttering jokes to your necktie and wondering why no one else is laughing.

You have not considered that “For Sales” bumper stickers, with proceeds going to Bike Walk Montana, are a way better joke.

You have not considered that we are, humanity, remember, tiring of buffoonery as leadership, if leadership is what you call whatever it is you’re up to over there.

But so anyway I just wanted to drop you a line, say hello, and let you know that your jokes are worse than that stupid fucking bolo tie.

Please send my regards to Charles and David,

Sincerely,

Your Gentleman at Large

*also fyi phrenology isn’t a real thing which I really shouldn’t have to mention but given your stance on public education, higher education, science, facts, etc. who even really knows