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One late summer evening back in the early ’80s, my father and I sat in an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser station wagon parked outside a deputy sheriff’s trailer home near Drake, North Dakota. Dad was treasurer for the deputy’s campaign for McHenry County Sheriff, and we were waiting to take the deputy to a campaign event. I was a teenager then, but living in a small farm town in rural North Dakota, I still believed that every family must be somewhat like my own. It was evident from outside that the deputy was the only person in the trailer, so I asked, “Why isn’t he married?”
“Well,” Dad said, “I think he might be gay, but I don’t see why that would mean he couldn’t be a good sheriff.”
My dad was born in 1938 and raised on a North Dakota homestead farm. We were in early 1980s North Dakota. Dad wasn’t being “woke.” That wasn’t even an idea back then. He wasn’t out to make a political statement. He was just being decent. Dad was something we like to call “North Dakota nice” in the non-ironic sense. We take people as they are without any self-righteous judgment. We stay out of their personal lives and mind our own business. Many folks go around declaring their Christianity and talking about what Jesus would do. My dad showed me. He led by example.
His words were simple, but they carried the weight of something much larger — the importance of judging people by their contributions, not by the categories society places them in. He modeled a principle that in any community, large or small, it’s our actions, not our identities, that define us. 
I would later attend the United States Naval Academy, a school that bills itself as a leadership laboratory. I was a student there and returned to teach leadership and oversee a company of midshipmen. In my military career,  I have been under the command of some great leaders and a couple whose example showed me what not to do, but I’ve never had a leadership lesson as powerful as the one Dad taught me that evening. Maybe that is because I was an impressionable teenager or because it flipped a script I had absorbed from society. Whatever the exact reason, it was a formative experience, a lesson that stuck for life.
Around that time, Stonewall’s echoes were still fresh, the “Save Our Children” crusade was at its peak, proselytizing bigotry to mainstream America, and AIDS was beginning to wreak havoc on gay communities across America. During a recent press conference, Reagan Administration Press Secretary Larry Speakes had laughed when asked if the president was tracking the AIDS epidemic, and people in the room laughed when a reporter added that it was being called the ‘gay plague.’ Activists sounded a warning and pressed for action, but the North Dakota prairie remained well insulated from that world.
But, the same forces tearing at the fabric of the nation were also chipping away at “North Dakota nice.” Jerry Falwell’s pompous Moral Majority was at its political zenith, and Rush Limbaugh’s premier was just a year or two away. The precursors to today’s reactionary social warfare were falling into place.
Today, we face a new theater in the battle for equal rights, but the rhetoric is all too familiar. There’s more focus on identity, more morality policing by extremists who care more about labels than lives, more about controlling than caring. Across this country, candidates—including my opponent—are accepting donations from organizations that have supported rolling back gay rights and deny the existence of those who don’t fit their narrow norms. They want to force conformity, to make every personal decision their business, to regulate our bodies, our love, and our families. From your doctor’s office to your bedroom, they want to tell you what is right and wrong and, in doing so, strip away the freedom, dignity, and respect that should be the foundation of our society.
I’m running to stop this nonsense.
When I heard Governor Tim Walz speak in Philadelphia, saying, “We respect our neighbors and the personal choices they make. Even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves, there’s a golden rule… mind your own damn business.” Those words struck a chord because they reflect the values that once defined small-town North Dakota—where privacy was respected, not because there was nothing to see, but because we understood that everyone deserves the freedom to live without judgment.
My dad taught me that actions, not identities, define us and that we should judge people by the good they bring to the world, not by the boxes society tries to put them in.
We need to stop worrying about labels and start solving the challenges we all face. But we also cannot let the extremist right roll back the clock, dragging us to a time when fear ruled, and hatred thrived. I’m running for Congress not just to stand up to the hate, but to do something about it.
If you believe in this vision, if you’re tired of the noise and ready for action, I ask for your support. Together, we can build a state and a country where fairness and dignity aren’t just ideals—they’re the laws we live by. Your donation can help us turn this vision into reality. So, let’s stand up, speak out, and get to work. Please consider contributing to my campaign today—because the fight for a better future needs all of us.
With the U.S. House seat open, the race for North Dakota’s sole congressional district has never been more competitive.
Trygve Hammer is a Navy and Marine Corps veteran, a former public school teacher, and a freight rail conductor. He was appointed to the Naval Academy from the fleet and served as a Marine helicopter pilot, forward air controller, and infantry officer. 
From bunking down in oilfield camps to engaging uninterested teenagers in the classroom, Trygve’s career has been a tour of duty in the trenches of American life. Trygve’s commitment to public service is unwavering. He lives by the ethos “Officers Eat Last” and is ready to serve as North Dakota’s next Congressman, putting the people's needs first.
Watch Trygve’s campaign launch video here [ [link removed] ].

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