Author

David Darby
David Darby is a believer in American democracy who has held a variety of senior positions in Montana, both in state and federal government, including State Budget Director. He also served for a decade overseas as a senior US Treasury Department advisor to foreign governments. He is retired and lives in Billings.
Montana Republicans seem all too quick to suffer fools gladly
By: David Darby - March 20, 2023
What in God’s name has happened to the Republican Party? Large groups of it now, in the words of the Apostle Paul “suffer fools gladly” on a regular basis. Clearly, most Republicans are not fools. But many have left the party, offended by the “Make America Great Again” emphasis on hate, lies, racism and anti-democratic policies. […]
How democracy and Montana may be dying
By: David Darby - October 8, 2022
Are Montana Republicans fascists? Goodness no! But the story is more complicated. Conservative columnist Gary Abernathy wrote recently that Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, and other Republicans willing to chastise Trump and their party in general should leave the party. It is not their party anymore, or Ronald Reagan’s, or Dwight Eisenhower’s, […]
How much ignorance can we survive?
By: David Darby - July 10, 2022
We are all ignorant, just not about everything. We know a lot about some things, hopefully including our vocations. We have a working knowledge of other things. And we know nothing or a limited amount about many things. Ignorance, after all, is simply defined as “a lack of knowledge” and it is a part of […]
We are all Ukrainians now
By: David Darby - February 27, 2022
In January 1997, after negotiations beginning in 1995, my wife and I moved to Kyiv, Ukraine. As the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s senior budget policy advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance, I was one of two Western advisors (the other was the IMF representative to Ukraine) in the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers building. […]
A cancer on ‘The Last Best Place?’
By: David Darby - February 7, 2022
For Montanans “The Last Best Place” conjures up many things, including wide open spaces, bountiful resources, honest people, good neighbors, thoughtfulness, hard workers, and government run by people you know. It is one big town with long distances between the neighborhoods. You know folks all over. The kids may drive 250 miles to play a […]
Get ready: Here’s a 2022 election quiz
By: David Darby - October 26, 2021
Keep in mind: We have one political party that is threatening to cause a national economic crisis and another that is having difficulty getting its act together to govern. In Montana, we are implementing laws and policies that are adding to COVID-19 illness and death, and overloading our medical facilities. Given this situation, it is […]