Port: For North Dakota’s legislative leaders, a lesson from Washington

MINOT, N.D. — If we had been to do a rating of probably the most Trump-toadying Republicans, Rep. Kevin McCarthy must be close to the highest. But, as I write this, McCarthy is combating probably the most Trump-aligned of his caucus members to develop into speaker of the home.

There is a lesson there for North Dakota’s legislative leaders.

In 2016, as disgraced former president Donald Trump gained one Republican major after one other, McCarthy was caught on tape telling colleagues that he thought possibly the person

was on Vladimir Putin’s payroll

. However when Trump gained the presidency, McCarthy did not permit these qualms to be an impediment to a detailed relationship with the person. McCarthy

picked out Trump’s favourite Starburst flavors for him

. Trump referred to as him

“my Kevin.”

The overtures of possession in that endearment should not be misplaced on us.

The violence of the Jan. 6 riot cracked however didn’t break McCarthy’s resolve to be a bootlicker. Privately, he advised colleagues that he

deliberate to ask Trump to resign.

When these feedback had been made public, McCarthy denied making them and was

instantly embarrassed when recordings emerged

.

For a second, amid a vote within the Home to question Trump, it appeared McCarthy might need the braveness of his convictions. Although he voted towards impeachment, he delivered a speech through which he rightly mentioned Trump

“bears accountability”

for the assault on Congress. However then he instantly made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to pay obeisance and

beg for Trump’s forgiveness

.

I recount this story of craven conduct as a cautionary story for North Dakota’s new legislative leaders.

Do not pander to Trumpists.

In our state Legislature, as in Congress, members of Trump’s cult of persona — distinct from these solely nominally supportive of him — are the minority. But they’re a loud minority.

I am afraid the impulse from Rep. Mike Lefor, and Sen. David Hougue, the Home and Senate majority leaders, respectively, shall be to appease them.

These people are usually not exhausting to determine.

Freshman Rep. Matt Heilman, from the Bismarck space, has been

retweeting claims that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the “anti-Christ.”

In a since-deleted tweet, Rep. Nico Rios from Williston, spent the vacations supporting kickboxer-turned-Trumpy masculinity “influencer” Andrew Tate in a silly Twitter dust-up with left-wing activist Greta Thunberg that culminated in Tate’s arrest in Romania

on prices of human trafficking

.

Sen. Jeff Magrum, new to that chamber after serving within the state Home, printed

a letter to the Emmons County Report

through which he prompt that assist for a brand new carbon pipeline was each an act of each communism and fascism. Two ideologies that, whereas each authoritarian, are usually not the identical factor.

Many of the NDGOP’s caucus in Bismarck, which makes up nearly the whole lot of the Legislature, are serious-minded people who find themselves in workplace to serve their constituencies.

However there are some nuts within the fruitcake. Some individuals who use social media belligerence and tiresome stunts to attempt to bully their colleagues.

McCarthy’s plight exhibits there is no use pandering to them.