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Oh have I got a lot to say…….I’m in no rush. I’ve got some other writing projects to do first.
About “disapproval.” I think this is one of the least appreciated motivations for the actions we humans take. There is nothing that drives people into an opposite direction than disapproval. I became a Republican as much because I was pretty impatient that my generation painted Republicans with a very broad brush. Rich, Indifferent to poverty, war mongers. So when I spent a summer in a Republican Congressman’s offices in Washington DC. My aversion to preachy self righteousness assured I would head in the opposite direction. Not policy wise but partisanship wise. I agreed with lots that my fellow collegians inclining towards the democrats preached but the taint of condescension disagreed with me.
I disapprove of the Trumpification of the Republican Party primarily because its amped up the condescension of the Ailes, Roves, Limbaughs who purged the party into tapioca. Its leaders are now empty vessels cleaning up after the elephants in a parade. How eager so many of them are to see who can eat the most turds.
I disapprove but I understand how disapproval brought me into the GOP originally. But I will not be timid in airing my thoughts. My model will be John the Baptist who so irritated Herod’s wife that she demanded his head and got it.
I have six months before I face off with Pete Stauber in the Republican Primary election for 2026. I just left a message with a prominent local Democrat to explain why, after announcing I would run as a “liberal Republican” for the Democrat’s primary, I have changed my mind to make it five campaigns against Stauber. It was a practical decision based on several thought among them:
1. I suddenly realized I don’t want to campaign with that kind of intensity over the next five to seven (assuming I won the five-way DFL primary). Second parenthesis (And I think my experience and being a disaffected Republican would give me some advantages in such a campaign)
2. I have lots of other things to do at my age like, for instance, continuing my study of French, Reading and writing about history, taking some trips including an April trip to Costa Rica.
3. In reviewing what has been important to me as a stubborn person for the last half century saving the Republican Party from abandoning Lincoln has stood the test of time. Saving it as a Democrat makes very little sense. And as the previous post suggests I may have an affinity with the man who lost his head over Salome. John the Baptist never tired of bad mouthing Herod. I was badmouthing the tendency of the changing GOP falling in the orbit of our modern Herod, Donald Trump, twenty years before my prophecy of a Trumpified party came true.
Over the past couple weeks I’ve been writing with a mind to publish a book showing how reasonable Republicans like my family had the party of Lincoln pulled out from under their feet by knaves like Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay long before they so hollowed out the party that it became an easy place to infest by people who, in some cases, had legitimate grievances few of which other than making America White Again would actually be addressed by our nincompoop Trump presidency.
On that note let me leave you with a striking news story from a Newspaper Trump has sued numerous times and now with taxpayer money.

Screen Shot from the NYT
