Easy Sunday: What could go wrong?

I have done far better financially when a Democrat is president.

So has the country.

George Girton, a college classmate, was playing around with ChatGPT from his home in Southern California. He fed data from the St. Louis Fed on new jobs created in the U.S. and prompted ChatGPT to make a bar graph of those numbers during the terms of recent presidents. It produced the chart below. 

It was easy and fast to do, he wrote me. No surprise. He was a software developer for his career. 

I would summarize the chart this way: More jobs during Democratic administrations than Republican ones. George's chart reminded me about the boom and bust rhythms of the economy during presidential terms of office.

Below is a chart of the U.S. stock market, beginning in 1985 when I began my 30-year career as a financial advisor.

1985 to 2026

The big trend over the 40 years is onward and upward. 

But notice something: that big capital M-shaped graph line in the middle. The left point on that M is the market top in March 2001, in what we now understand to be the end of the internet bubble. The internet bubble didn't seem fragile on the 18-year run-up to form the left side of that M. The "irrational exuberance" seemed pretty rational during the years that  technology stocks kept climbing. The midpoint bottom of the M is the 2002 bottom after the recession that followed 9/11. Stocks generally lost nearly half their value in two years. Technology stocks lost 80 percent of theirs at that midpoint of the M. The market rebounded to make the second high point of the M in 2007. That coincides with the time of great optimism among bankers, pension funds, and homeowners who believed that financial engineering with mortgages had created a risk-free way to make money. After all, real estate only goes up, and people never fail to pay their mortgage. By the time the market hit bottom in March 2008, amid the Great Financial Crisis, the market was back in price to where it was about 12 years prior. Adjusting for inflation, it was a 14-year period where investors made no money. 

The bar graph below overlays those numbers to presidential terms.

Democrats tend to regulate; Republicans like to de-regulate. Cheap money and deregulation lead to misallocation of resources and debt that cannot be repaid. Trump is careless and impulsive. He has a history of foolish risk-taking with debt, leading him to file for bankruptcy six times. He has an incoming Fed chair who wants to accommodate him. The Fed is proposing to reduce the reserve requirements for banks. Trump is deregulating crypto.  Trump is shaking up the international order. We are in a war. 

Lots could go wrong.

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Is God a dude?

     “God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is nonbinary.”

      James Talarico during a debate in the Texas House of Representatives

 

"Nonbinary" was an impolitic thing to say. Talarico allowed a word from the realm of partisan politics to invade the realm of religion.  "Nonbinary" is a fighting word from one side of the culture wars over pronouns, gender expression, and the role of trans people. He might still have gotten in trouble from some had he said that God is so great that the heavenly spirit is beyond gender," but "nonbinary" was a pure gaffe.

Gaffes aren't when a politician says something untrue. A gaffe is when one says something that is true, but must not be acknowledged.

Texas' senior U.S. Senator John Cornyn jumped on the gaffe with a Twitter/X post. Gotcha!  

I enter a discussion religion's understanding of the nature of ultimate truth mostly as an outsider. I'm not religious, but I realize that many people are, and that it has become central to U.S. politics. Some readers feel sure they know exactly who and what God is, and that God is most certainly male. Not "beyond," not ineffable, not spirit. Male!  

I get the willies when I try to get my head around the nature of reality, religious and scientific, especially since Newton is out and now the world is quantum everything. Was there a creative force that predated creation? Who knows? Can anything predate anything if time isn't real? What with time dilation and that Schrödinger's cat thing, and superposition, I give up.

As I reflect on the here-and-now world of politics, I feel pretty sure that whatever created the universe was not a being in the form of a physical human male -- a gendered being with upper-body strength, a penis, body hair, and a healthy heterosexual interest in females.

Such gods existed at the time the Bible was put together. Zeus was indeed binary. Greek statues depict a tall, bearded guy. Zeus is hyper-sexual, married to and flagrantly cheating on his wife, Hera. He unleashed lightning bolts in a way that President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth unleash bombs on Iran. 

The God my parents prayed to, and the one I grew up accepting passively, was invisible, omni-present, and spiritual. It was, as Talarico said, nonbinary because such a god is too big and too ephemeral to be limited by gender. 

Within the "serious commentary" arena of Republican media, the National Review says that I am wrong and Talarico is spouting nonsense. Of course God is male; how dare Talarico say otherwise?

National Review

Talarico is not retreating. He is pushing ahead, explaining a non-gendered God in public appearances when the subject comes up. The GOP under Trump closed ranks with an evangelical Christian patriarchal and gendered view of Judeo-Christian belief. It is God-the-hands-on dominator, dispenser of harsh, righteous justice, a war god on behalf of his chosen people, the USA, not the empathetic God of the Sermon on the Mount. Talarico's dilemma is that the Sermon on the Mount version of God is a kind and generous nurturer, a classically feminine expression of gender roles.

The special sauce that makes James Talarico someone who could possibly win election in Texas is that he has openly linked Christian faith to the values that he wants expressed in legislation. Polls show him doing better than either of his two Republican rivals. Talarico's liberal social gospel version of God, the one expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, is hard to live by. It conflicts with human nature and our instincts of survival. In the context of the current worry over the erosion of American "manliness," Talarico is on the wrong side. He hasn't grown a beard. He reads as a choir boy, not a cage fighter. He may not be aggressively masculine enough, and the "nonbinary" word lingers in the air. He is unmarried. And his political message seems just a little bit soft-hearted, too much like Jesus, not enough like Zeus. It is more satisfying to bomb enemies than to love them.

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New Democrats

There are different ways to be a Democrat.

Three candidate are on track to win because they defy expectations in some conspicuous way.

Today's guest post is by Jack Mullen, the former Medford resident who worked beside me in pear orchards and later at a congressional office of U.S. Rep. Jim Weaver. He introduces three candidates who have a conspicuous characteristic that communicates authenticity and some link to working class voters with traditional values.

Guest Post by Jack Mullen

The Super Bowl of mid-term elections is kicking off. New and innovative thrusts by Democratic candidates are taking place around the country.

A national Democratic strategy does not yet exist, indeed need not exist, national punditry notwithstanding, for Democrats to win in November.

Local candidates have a much better feel for local concerns and issues than any of the national party leaders. From the northern tip of Maine to the southern tip of Texas, local Democratic candidates are drawing larger than usual crowds for a mid-term election, especially in small, rural towns.

In Maine, Iraq war veteran Graham Platner’s has a simple and effective case against America’s penchant for involvement in forever wars. He speaks with authority when reflecting on the death of innocent children he witnessed during the Battle of Falluja. Platner provides a campaign zinger when then cites the $6 trillion the United States has spent fighting wars since 9/11.

Graham Platner served three terms in Iraq as a combat Marine from 2003 to 2010. He is a type of campaign brawler with not an inch of woke in his blood, reminding me, in his critique of the Republican party, as a Harry Truman in his 1948 “Give ‘um Hell, Harry” campaign.

Platner brings his small-town background into his campaign. The ex-Marine earns a living as an oyster farmer, daily sticking his hands in the frigid Northern Atlantic, in which voters perceive him as a candidate with an authentic understanding of their concerns.

Donald Trump may or may not inject himself into Platner’s likely November opponent, Susan Collins’ campaign. Chuck Schumer’s endorsement of Platner’s primary opponent, Governor Janet Mills, had no effect, perhaps provided the kiss of death for Mills’ campaign. Hard as it may be for Trump to comprehend, any endorsement from a Washington politician will have a negative effect on a Maine Senatorial race.

James Talarico is a Texas Democrat running for the Senate. Much like Platner, Talarico feels the pulse of his state.

Talarico is an unabashed Christian who emphasizes the simple, moral teachings of Jesus in the Sermon of the Mount. Talarico’s view of Christianity stands in contrast to the Christian nationalism MAGA voters try infuse into the nation’s civic life.

Polls show Talarico ahead of both his potential Republican candidates, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and incumbent Senator John Cornyn. Both Cornyn and Paxton are engaged in an expensive primary runoff to see who will oppose Talarico in November.

Talarico is 36 years old. In a nation that yearns for new and younger leaders, Talarico is pitted against either an aging 74-year-old Cornyn or a 63-year-old Paxton. Talarico leads both candidates by 20% in a survey of Texas independent voters.

At the behest of Donald Trump, the Texas state legislature redrew the state’s legislative maps. The district at the southern tip of Texas, the 15th House District, voted heavily for Trump in the last three Presidential elections. Incumbent Congresswoman Monica de la Cruz is having a tough time holding off her Democratic challenger.

Bobby Pulido is a two-time Latin Grammy winner who understands the southern Texas Tex-Mex culture. Twice daily, Pulido performs before large gatherings at traditional coming-of-age parties for young Latina girls who turn 15.

After singing a couple of his songs at these quinceaneras, Pulido brings up health care and personalizes it by mentioning, like most attending a quinceanera, he, Bobby Pulido, no longer has health insurance. Instead, he crosses the border to have his medical procedures done in Mexico at much lower costs.

Texas is a proud state with a rich and diverse culture. Talarico and Pulido realize, unlike Talarico’s primary opponent, Jasmine Crockett, that Texas is a land of God, guns, and fossil fuels. Talarico and Pulido know how to run a campaign given those parameters. Crockett tried to run a national campaign, Talarico and Pulido run an old-fashion Texas campaign incorporating true Texas values.

Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District encompasses a large and diverse area. Whichever candidate emerges in the upcoming primary has an unique opportunity, like Platner, Talarico, and Pulido, to put an unique campaign stamp to address voter dissatisfaction.

 

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Democratic Party Screw-up

Part of why a GOP led by a Donald Trump wins elections is that Democrats can be stupid.

That doesn't just happen at the DNC. It can happen at the local level, right here in Jackson County, Oregon.

The Jackson County, Oregon, Democratic Party leaders read a series of anonymous and retracted emails and Facebook posts with discredited accusations and took them as true or maybe-true, or possibly true, or not totally impossible, who knows??

Then they did something monumentally irresponsible. Monumentally foolish. Monumentally unfair to one of the candidates for Oregon's Senate District 3 Democratic primary, the election for the person to take the place currently held by retiring Jeff Golden.

Denise Krause was their victim.  

As this plays out, the real victims may be her campaign opponents, because it may look like they, or their campaign volunteers, were in on the foolish rush-to-judgment smear. But the biggest victim is the local Democratic Party. They look like idiots because they acted like idiots. 

In the interest of "transparency" they prepared and sent a press release that suggested that Krause's campaign was somehow unworthy -- something that got picked up in the headlines of the news stories that resulted. Why maybe unworthy? Because she had not caved to the demands of the writers of anonymous email chain letters and unproven decades-old accusations. The local Dems turned what should have been questions about dubious rumors, spread as part of all-too-familiar internet trolling we see at election season, into a press release with a red-flag warning. They did this on the day that ballots were received in local mailboxes.

It was malicious or stupid. I hope it was merely stupid.

There is a lesson here about mob-rule and group-think panic over what people rumors and allegations spread on social media. One approach is to assume all bad rumors are true, or at least believed by somebody, so they need to be treated as factual. One local Democratic leader told me all Krause needed to do was cave to the group-think. "My personal feeling is that Denise could put this issue to rest if she quickly severed her relationship with [the campaign consultant.] Boom. End of story." 

To her credit, Krause said no. Good for her. It is a bit of a test of character, and she passed. Her letter is below.

 

An anonymous email account that has since been deleted circulated vicious rumors against one of my campaign consultants over the last few days. This was followed by an anonymous user posting these same inflammatory statements. Then, a small group of party activists reacted to a series of malicious emails and Internet rumors with a press release. 

My political opponents have created a pressure campaign to force me to fire someone I strongly believe has been wrongly accused. I looked further into these allegations and found them to be unsupported and untrue. The original article was retracted, but not before being circulated widely and, thus, eventually picked up now — 25 years later. 

If I had any real evidence that this information was true, then I would act decisively to terminate. But my opponents are weaponizing unfounded allegations to shift focus from the issues of this campaign and trying to win an election not on merit, but on sensationalism. I’m expected to succumb to mob rule based on the malicious spread of bad rumors of forwarded emails and Facebook postings that have been picked up and spread by opposition campaigns. 

I will not react rashly to unproven rumors or false accusations that circulate on the Internet. I will not be a senator who will be manipulated and pushed around by anonymous Internet bullies or opponents hiding in the shadows. 

This is an example of why so many people are completely fed up with the political establishment and dirty politics. I'm seen as a threat because I'm a political outsider running to bring integrity to politics, so we can get to the business of working for the people on very real problems. A legislator in Salem will be tested by corporate lobbyists and threats from Republican opposition ads. I will not compromise my commitment to the people of District 3.

Trump has reach. It is as bad as I feared.

"Making a list
Checking it twice
Gonna' find out who's naughty and nice"
     Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, 1933, popularized by Eddie Cantor and hundreds more.

Donald Trump is coming to town.

On Tuesday morning I wrote "Every Republican is Trump unless they say to the contrary. And they don't."

Tuesday evening proved me right, alas.

It's Trump's GOP.

By now I presume most readers know what happened in Indiana. Eight Indiana legislators refused to go along with Trump's demand that Indiana reconfigure congressional districts to squeeze two more seats from the current 7-2 split, making it a 9-0 delegation. The senators said that the overwhelming opinion of their constituents was to keep their current districts and they would stand with that opinion. 

Trump vowed retribution for their disobedience. He urged they be voted out in the primary election held on Tuesday. He wrote on Truth Social on election eve:

Good luck to those Great Indiana Senate Candidates who are running against people who couldn’t care less about our Country, or about keeping the Majority in Congress. There are eight Great Patriots running against long seated RINOS — Let’s see how those RINOS do tonight! President DONALD J. TRUMP.

It worked. Six Republican Trump-endorsed challengers defeated incumbents; another won an open-seat primary. Only one of the eight survived.  

After the election the defeated incumbents said they followed the wishes and interests of their constituents and lost because of it. State Senator Jim Buck, a 30-year member said, “My district told me overwhelmingly to vote no, and that’s what I did.” State Senator Linda Rogers said, “I don’t regret it. I followed the wishes of my district.” 

My Tuesday blog post was more partisan than I like to be. I warned readers that state and local candidates are not independent agents. Candidates for Oregon governor Christine Drazan and Chris Dudley, incumbent congressman Cliff Bentz, and local state senate candidate Brad Hicks are not individual, independent voices, with their own roots, histories, and points of view. They may want to be such, but Trump has blasted through the normal barriers of a federal system. Trump has a national agenda, and he reaches down into state legislative districts. He has access to a giant fundraising apparatus and he puts it to work. Notwithstanding all the problems in the country, he retains personal appeal with his MAGA base.

Oregon's 2nd District U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz has good reason to fear Trump. Bentz holds office at Trump's pleasure. He holds committee seats at the pleasure of House Speaker Mike Johnson, and Johnson holds power because of Trump. Bentz is on a string that leads to Trump's finger. 

Oregon faces issues that come to Trump's attention: ICE raids in Portland and at farm sites; timber harvest levels; funding rural hospitals; vote-by-mail; and, if the  Oregon vote is anywhere close for the office of governor, a U.S. Senator, or a Member of Congress, then the outcome of that election. Trump reaches into local issues and demands a result "at all costs." Forget local constituents and local interests. All politics is national, and it needs to serve Trump's agenda.

If a Republican officeholder tries to be independent of Trump, they aren't independent for long. Even a weakened, unpopular Trump has political power and he knows how to use it. We saw that in Indiana. They may not look like Trump, but do not forget that when it is something Trump cares about, Christine Drazan is Trump; Chris Dudley is Trump; Cliff Bentz is Trump; Brad Hicks is Trump.

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Do endorsements help?

Which is better?

Tonia Moro, with a endorsement by Jeff Golden, our current state senator, or 

Kevin Stine, with an endorsement by three former Medford mayors, Lindsay Berryman, Al Densmore, and Gary Wheeler, or

Denise Krause, with endorsements by a variety of unions and membership organizations, or

Cristian Mendoza Ruvalcaba, with endorsements by the Oregon Nurses Association and several school board members, or

Jim Crary, who said "I didn't seek endorsements because I think my message is more important than endorsements."

Southern Oregon readers who are plugged into local media know that Jeff Golden's endorsement of Tonia Moro is front and center in her campaign.

It may well be dispositive. People in Senate District 3 have twice elected Golden to the state Senate. He was a familiar voice on Jefferson Public Radio's morning news and opinion talk show. He is known to be liberal, an environmentalist, and someone now publicly describing his frustration with Oregon's Governor Tina Kotek. She and Democratic leaders have been trying to soften Oregon's reputation for being anti-business with some policy moderations, particularly as regards accommodating high-tech facilities in the "Silicon Forest" area west of Portland. Golden voiced his unhappiness with Kotek's changes.  He endorsed Moro alluding to that policy shift, saying that "some of the trajectories of Salem policy are headed in really troublesome directions."

Is Golden's endorsement of Moro a more valuable endorsement than three former Medford mayors' endorsement of Kevin Stine?

Maybe, maybe not. Three is better than one, but Golden is in political traffic now, while these mayors are from the past. Golden's vibe is liberal policy. The mayors' vibe is nonpartisan good government. Stine's service on the Medford City Council for 11-plus years, along with his Navy service and his participation in veterans events including formal flag presentations, are consistent with Stine's good-citizen image. Stine has a strong Medford vibe, as contrasted with the strong Ashland vibe from Golden and Moro. Golden would probably disagree, but it is not clear to me that Stine has significantly different policy positions than Moro or that he would be any less a policy advocate than Moro, but they do communicate different cultural signals. 

Moro has more money than Stine, so she is getting her endorsement ads out there more than is Stine. That may be the difference.

Denise Krause is from Ashland. She could easily have lined up endorsements from prominent individuals since she is a well-practiced grass-roots organizer, but she chose to show endorsements from membership organizations, not individuals. Those suggest her policy interests and areas of support.

Large public employee union

She also listed Ironworkers Union #29, the North Coast States Carpenters Union, the Teamsters Joint Council #37, Pro-Animal Oregon, an animal rights group, and Nurses and Friends for Single Payer, a healthcare advocacy group. Her support from unions is probably helpful in a Democratic primary. Krause's support from blue-collar building trades unions projects broader appeal than the climate-conservation message we get from Moro. College-town Democrats have lost ground with blue-collar America, so this is a good sign for Krause -- or maybe not. Democrats who vote in mid-year primaries may be the ones in the liberal-all-the-way environmentalist-Jeff Golden-public radio segment of the Democratic base. Moro is probably picking up support there.

Cristian Mendoza Ruvalcaba lists the Oregon Nurses Association, his primary patron, as an endorser. He also lists three members of the Medford School Board, an Ashland School Board member, and four out-of-area state legislators, plus other local citizens. He is endorsed by the Southern Oregon PAC of the Oregon Education Association and by the LGBTQ Victory Fund. The teachers PAC is a big one. There are lots of teachers and they are in the habit of voting. Ruvalcaba is signaling something by having gotten and then displaying the LGBTQ endorsement. He got that endorsement; the others did not.

Jim Crary is simple: no endorsements.

I know Jeff Golden well enough both to respect him personally and to figure that he wants a successor who will continue his efforts to slow Governor Kotek's progress in moderating state policy. I suspect he sees it as "backtracking" or giving ground on progress. Two years ago Golden considered running for the state treasurer position, and in his conversations with me while  soliciting a contribution he told me his platform would include Oregon divesting of oil stocks. He said he wanted the treasurer's job to have a distinct environmental agenda. Unlike Jeff, I am OK with Kotek is moderating somewhat if it leads to stronger economic growth. It might put her in better sync with Oregon voters, which I consider necessary and good. And I don't vilify energy companies. I have a car and a truck that use gasoline. I consider it hypocritical to drive a car, but condemn the people who sell me its fuel. I don't think it is immoral to own oil stocks. I own some. They are a good inflation hedge, and those companies manufacture and sell a product that will be essential for several more decades. Let's not kid ourselves about that.

I will happily admit that Jeff is a "better environmentalist" than I am. Probably Moro is, as well. 

For many Democrats, it is a positive that Jeff identified the candidate he considers the environmental champion. For me it is a small net negative; environmentalists are too often at odds with the interests of working people who want jobs and affordable housing. Some environmental positions are luxury positions of the well to do. I have some empathy for people who are trying to get by. If Democrats keep losing those voters we will be stuck with Trump and people like him forever.

I like all the candidates in the race, and will surely vote for the winner in November, but voting is choosing. I went back and forth between Denise Krause and Kevin Stine. I am sure all five candidates are more liberal than I am and all will pretty much follow standard Democratic orthodoxy. I am trying to nudge Democrats back toward centrist positions. I spent too much time doing business and farming to be as impractical as I think Democrats sometimes are. 

I voted for Kevin Stine. He is sort of a Boy Scout and good-government patriotic guy, a bit less a partisan warrior, maybe, but I am OK with that. Yes, he has political ambitions. I like ambitious young people, and want more of them in public office.

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Every Republican is Trump, unless they say to the contrary. And they don't.

Republicans are under Trump's thumb. 

If Trump says "jump," they must jump. Or else. 

Trump is an enforcer. 

Oregon voters have their ballots in hand. Remember as you vote: 

Governor candidate Christine Drazan is Trump. Governor candidate Chris Dudley is Trump. U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz is Trump. State Senate candidate Brad Hicks is Trump. 

 

President Trump's first term was a learning experience for him. This term Trump himself decides what is true and what is legal. He appoints and supports people who do things his way.

Trump purges Republicans who show independence. The world is full of Republican roadkill examples: Vice President Mike Pence, Senators Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, and Thom Tillis, U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. 

I have been critical of my congressman, Cliff Bentz, who dutifully fell in line to disallow counting of the 2020 votes from Pennsylvania, and then voted to help Trump hide the Epstein files. Bentz voted to substantially reduce medical insurance for the working poor (though this district is the third most reliant on this benefit of the country's 435 districts); and he remains silent when Trump's tariff policies conspicuously injure the district's wheat farmers. Bentz is a toady for Trump. Perhaps I should be more kind. After all, he is under orders. If he voted his conscience he would be "primaried." 

Officeholders must obey the Trump script, or else, even when they know better. 

Click: YouTube clip

Republicans learned a script. Say that "Joe Biden was inaugurated," but never utter words that would contradict Trump's claim that the 2000 election was stolen. The script is a signal to Trump and Republicans. It demonstrates forward-looking obedience and fidelity to Trump. 

An election today in Indiana will show whether GOP primary voters will confirm the defenestration of eight Republican state senators who decided that the existing congressional maps in Indiana were reasonable and fair, and thus did not consent to the mid-cycle partisan re-draw that Trump demanded. We won't know the voter's verdict until tomorrow, but we know the conditions for the vote now. Trump condemned those eight state senators. Trump called them "WEAK" and "PATHETIC" and RINOs.

Voters frustrated with Oregon politics and potentially open to electing Republicans have a dilemma. Trump said, "We must keep the MAJORITY at all costs." Trump is demanding that Republicans take extraordinary steps, including this mid-cycle redistricting. He cited in a Truth Social post the pretext of a "Rigged Census" in Indiana. A Republican governor in Oregon could face a similar demand from Trump. A governor Drazen or Dudley might need to claim an excuse to void votes in Democratic-majority Portland. There are a million possible pretexts. As Trump said in Georgia, "Find 11,780 votes." Or perhaps more easily, disallow that many Democratic votes on a pretext. After all, win at "all costs."

A Republicans elected to the state Senate -- for example Brad Hicks -- would be under similar pressure. The local Republican Party voted for a resolution saying the 2020 election should be awarded to Trump. A Republican majority in the state senate might submit a GOP slate of electors for the Republican candidate, notwithstanding the actual vote. Really? Yes, really. That is what Trump demanded in Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania and other battleground states in 2020.  Kim Thatcher, a state senator and former candidate for Oregon secretary of state, the chief election officer in Oregon, led the fight in Oregon to join Texas' demand to void the 2020 election. She was not condemned by Republican voters as a dishonest danger to democracy. She was re-elected, and is a state senator today. She has a future in the Oregon GOP.

If elected, would a Drazan, Dudley, or Hicks create a pretext for following Trump's orders? That is the experience: Cliff Bentz did exactly that, and he remains in office. Kim Thatcher did, and she remains.

Trump understands how to exercise power and enforce his will. No other president in my lifetime is anywhere close to Trump in the ability to force his will. Trump is decisive and cruel. He rewards loyalty by pardoning people who committed criminal acts on his behalf. He punishes opponents by prosecuting them. He purges and vilifies members of his own party who dare be independent. He is vigilant. He notices what takes place in state legislatures, county commissions, and election boards. He is keeping a list of who has been naughty and nice.

Could Drazen, Dudley, Bentz, or Hicks act with independent integrity? They could. It is possible. But I do not see any evidence than any of them shows the tiniest bit of independence from Trump. How can they? They are Republicans running in a Republican primary. 

Until Republicans free themselves of Trump, voters need to conclude that any Republican they elect would be a grave risk to democracy. We don't have to imagine it. We see it.

[Note: I do not disapprove of Republicans as a group. Many were clients. Many are friends. I disapprove of Republicans who consent to being compliant with Trump when is dishonest and does blatantly unconstitutional acts. Trump has destroyed the GOP, as both Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz warned a decade ago.]

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