The other day, at the beginning of March, I woke up for the first time in years without a sense of urgency as I grabbed my cell phone to check my email. I woke up and did not check my email even before I was fully out of bed. I checked later, and when I did, I was specifically looking for two or three emails from colleagues, about the HOA meeting later that day, or about a letter we needed to send to a guest speaker at an upcoming forum, or some such.

What I was not looking for, for the first time in years, was a news alert announcing that Donald Trump was dead, for one reason or another.

I stopped caring so much if Donald Trump died in his sleep on January 20th, about noon. I still care. It would still be nice, since he is still a threat to the entire world, and especially the United States. But his dictatorship is over, and the reckoning has begun, and I’m thinking he will have a hard time running an effective campaign for president from within Wallkill Prison.

I think that what I’ve been experiencing could be called PTSD, of a sort. Having experienced PTSD (following acts of terrible violence and/or maiming) I have to say it doesn’t feel just like that, but maybe there are different versions. And, maybe I’m still experiencing it. Maybe we all are still getting over Trump and, likely, that is going to take some time. Or, if not getting over, maybe growing used to the new situation where Trump is not the dictator, but still a boogeyman in the background along with the Proud Boys and other White Supremacist insurrectionists.

I say Wallkill, but maybe it would be Sing Sing. Sing Sing would be good.

Anyway, I’ve only spoken at length to one person who was in the Capitol at the time of the January 6th Republican Insurrection. He is a mild mannered guy in politics who had worked hard to get around party divides, and bring people together around issues of common concern. But after the insurrection, when he realized that it was the Republicans in the Capitol that were hoping for mayhem, destruction, and even death, even helping make it happen, he has had something of a Come to Jesus moment. I was there with the proverbial Jesus long ago. I stopped trusting Republicans way back, and my disdain has only grown, and I have railed against the “independent thinker” meme for years. (That’s, like, “I don’t vote on party lines. I look at the issues, then chose the candidate based on their stance on the issues,” said by someone who usually doesn’t vote.) January 6th did not change my mind at all. This person is, I think, likely to experience some really serious PTSD, having actually been in the building, to hear the screaming, the gun shot, the exhortation to remove identifying pins else be captured by the enemy that has breached the breaches…

I recommend that folks examine their own PTSD or quasi-PTSD — which may be mild and it may be strong, but is likely to be at least somewhat hidden — to see if there are any demons that need to be held down in the bucket until the last bubble floats up.

I have taken solace, and kept some degree of strength and sanity, with a particular idea. First, an idea that I don’t like, by way of contrast.

This is the domino or Ponzi idea. You and I decide that the best thing to do is to vote for a particular candidate. So we each get ten people to agree, and then, they get 10 other people to agree, and so on. If I do this with a particular idea here in Minnesota, within fewer than 7 iterations, I’ve convinced twice as many people as actually live here (including babies) to vote for my candidate! That won’t actually work, wont’ actually get past the first iteration.

A version of that is the domino effect. I push over one thing, it pushes over the next thing, and so on, until finally all the things are pushed over (figuratively). That doesn’t even work very well with actual dominoes. The reason why there are YouTube videos of it actually working with dominoes is that if you get this to really work impressively, of course you take a video of it!

Here is what I do instead. Imagine a heavy ball, like a bowling ball, suspended on a long chain from some object high atop the thing. It is motionless. Now, stroke it with a strip of 34 pound (heavy weight) paper. The ball will hardly move. But if you wait for it to ever so subtly move back to where you stroked it, and a little beyond, where it is about to swing once again in the away direction, and stroke it then, the next swing will be a tiny bit father. If you keep doing that, the heavy ball on the long chain will eventually be swinging so far that it will be hard to stop, certainly unstoppable with a strip of paper.

And that is what I do every single day, and it is what I’ve been doing every single day since Trump was elected. I was doing it a lot before, but every single day, sometimes multiple times, since then. Probably 5,000 strokes since November 2016.

Of course, I do things like send an email or make a call to an elected representative, or give 50 bucks to a candidate, or spend an hour on a phone bank, etc. But I like to do somewhat bigger strokes when I can. Like write a letter to the editor for my local kitchen-stop paper, that might get read by, I dunno, 100 people. I employ messaging skills to make that letter a little more effective, and I make sure it gets around on social media. Stroke, stroke, stroke, right there. Or I help organize 100 people to write an email or make a call. Or I recruit or help train a new volunteer who is going to go at that suspended ball in their own way. Tonight, three of us spent a couple of ours on a zoom with a hundred folks helping them craft excellent comments in support of a regulation that will increase the use of electric cars.

It is very important to pay attention to the timing and direction of each thing. Just doing something to feel good about it may not be ideal. Doing just the right thing at the right time can move the bowling ball. Real live activism requires less precision than the actual bowling ball stroking, of course. At the same time, we can calculate the exact effect of the paper stroke but with real live activism we are often shooting in the dark.

Anyway, every day since the day Trump was elected, through his inauguration and eventual departure, I have been pushing the heavy weight just a little bit at a time, enough that I know that I’ve moved it. I can not say that every act has had an effect, but I’m certain that several thousand, together, have.

Oh, and I should say this: There are a few million of us.

Of course, there are always the federal prisons. I hear Yazoo City is nice.

Anyway, this is not done. The future is dangerous and must be paid close attention to. Keba! Kazi yetu haijakamilika.

President Biden will not be able to form a cabinet since Mich McConnell will not let him, unless the two Democratic Senatorial candidates in Georgia win, so do work on that. But either way we’ll be fine. If Georgia sends two Democrats to Washington, we can get a national clean car law, start building out utility scale wind and solar, see some real farm support funding that both reduces fossil Carbon release and cleans up farms while reducing debt. We’ll see movement on health care reform (thought that is going to take a more progressive Senators) and major changes in electoral reform. It is not going to be a progressive’s wet dream, but 2021 will not be the political nightmare each of the last four years has been.

If Georgia fails us and we end up with two years of McConnell stopping every little thing Biden tries to do, that two year period will be the final two years of the Republican party, forever, and we’ll see that deterioration so fast it will be a memorable feature of 2021.

During the course of 2021 more than three different Covid-19 vaccines will be deployed and by the end of the year, enough people will be vaccinated that this plague will end. That will be a record breaking plague ending, compared to the other big ones, which usually have gone at least a few years. All plagues end, on their own, or at least have so far. Notice that we are not having a Bubonic Plague right now, and we are not having a 1918 flue pandemic right now. But that usually takes a bit longer. School will be back in session next school year, though perhaps normalcy delayed by a month or a month and a half. By the end of November all the kiddies will be in classrooms.

I suspect the spring back of the economy will be strong. In particular, I’m hoping that at a global level the spring back happens in areas that are now suffering from the kind of para-apocalyptic strife that breeds terrorism and war. Torn up regions of the Levant may become centers of energy production or other economic boom behavior, and less cauldrons of discontent and radicalization. That will take a few years, but it will start in 2021.

I assume the press will give Trump his due, which means, basically, ignoring him. The oxygen of attention starved of his Covid-streaked lungs will kill him, as public entity, and his followers, now the biggest threat to national unity, will forget he existed and crawl back into their politically dark holes. Every year the political orientation of the US shifts from deplorable to reasonable by about 1% (because of differential death rates vs. immigration and education). That means that after an 8 year long Biden-Harris administration with mostly Democrats in Congress, we will be done with them.

We need to see changes start that will take two decades to complete. The coming year, 2021, will be the year the seeds are planted.

Minnesota’s second district, represented by Angie Craig (a DFLEC endorsed candidate) is identified by the media as a swing district.

Is it?

In 2016, Jason Lewis got 47% of the vote and thus beat Angie Craig (first time candidate), but Paula Overby, running as a third party (Independent) candidate took 7.8% of the vote. I am certain that Overby took very few Republican votes. She acted as a spoiler.

The next cycle, with no spoiler in the race, Craig beat Jason Lews 53:47% That is not an overwhelming victory, but a 14% difference is not what we see in a “swing district,” or even a “leans Dem” district. It is what we see in a blue district.

The current cycle, Marijuana Now Party candidate Adam Weeks, a Trump supporting conservative, was recruited by Republican operatives to run explicitly as a liberal spoiler. “I can do Liberal” he confessed to a friend when he told him that he had been recruited to do this. He then died of a drug overdose and in so doing, “unofficially withdrew” from the race. I expect Craig to beat her Republican challenger by a greater margin than she won with last time, possibly closer to 15%.

The only reason Minnesota CD 2 is called a “swing district” or even “leans Dem” is because the Republicans were running a con game, and two cycles back, Paula Overby, for unknown reasons (I am not saying she was recruited by Republicans), acted materially to spoil the race and enough voters fell for it that the Republican, one of the most odious of the Republicans (now running against Tina Smith for Senate) won.

It is often said that when people show up, Democrats win. True. But it is also true that when Republicans don’t cheat, Democrats win. Ideally, people show up AND Republicans don’t cheat — really, are stopped from cheating because they always will — then Democrats win.

Here is the current state of the races most likely to matter in this quest.

Arizona: Democrat Mark Kelly vs. Republican Martha McSally. Kelly has led McSally forever, coming close to even or behind in very few polls. However, the most recent polling is concerning. A long term 6+ point average lead has devolved since the middle of October to a present near tie, and in the most recent poll, McSally has pulled ahead.

Republicans often have a major negative push in a campaign during the last two weeks, and that often pushes the poll numbers closer, but often, that does not seem (in my opinion) to change the actual voting, depending on the local culture. For example, in Minnesota, that usually backfires. But I don’t know what is likely to happen in Arizona.

Conclusion: Tossup.

Colorado: Democrat John Hickenlooper vs. Republican Cory Gardner. Gardner was essentially elected by accident in 2014, and Hickenlooper is popular. This race is considered to be so obviously Hickenlooper’s that there is hardly any polling.

Conclusion: We’ll assume this is a Democratic takeway.

Georgia: Democrat Jon Ossoff vs Republican David Perdue. There is no particular reason to expect Ossoff to win this race, but right now Georgia is undergoing a shift that could put him in position. As of late, the polling puts the two candidates at dead even, but that is probably a temporary quirk.

Conclusion: Republicans retain seat.

Iowa: Democrat Theresa Greenfield against Republican Joni Ernst. Challenger Greenfield has shown strong polling since mid summer, but once again, due to some last minute Republcian mojo, the race is suddenly essentially tied. This is coming down to how annoyed people might be with Ernst for not cleaning out the swamp, vs how concerned Iowans are with protecting their way of life, which is silly because Democrats are actually better at growing corn than Republicans are.

Conclusion: Tossup

Maine: Democrat Sara Gideon vs Republican Susan Collins. Susan Collins is one of the most annoying Republican Senators, because she is always pretending she will ultimately do the right thing, then never does. Not once. Ever. Challenger Sara Gideon is taking the fight right to Collins and is going to wump her in the final vote.

Conclusion: Democrats win, followed with 18 months by an indictment against Collins. What for? I don’t know, but obviously somebody owns her and once the spell is broken, which is till be on November 3rd, that can lead to indictmentitis.

North Carolina: Democrat Cal Cunningham vs Republican Thom Tillis. Cunningham essentially threw this race away and guaranteed a Republican win, and thus, no Democratic control of the Senate, because he couldn’t keep his SMS in his pants. But, on the other hand, Republican Thom Tillis is so disliked in his state that he is still losing anyway. Cunningham’s indiscretion basically shifted polling from a farily strong chance of winning to a race that is within the margin of error.

Conclusion: Tossup. Anything can happen in this race, but either way, somebody’s gonna lose them a trailer.

South Carolina: Democrat Jamie Harrison vs Republican Lindsey Graham. Graham is a long time frequently re-elected figure in South Carolina, so it is his race to lose. But he could. Graham is ahead in most polls, but has tied in three Quinnipiac polls in a row. There are indications that there is a rapidly turning tide. I’m going to assume this will not be a change, but the race is interesting enough that I put it on this list so you will know what to fret over on election night (and a while after).

Conclusion: Republican win. Or will it be?

Most likely outcome: Democrats take Colorado and Maine, and maybe one other race, and Republicans stay in control of the Senate. This causes all useful legislation to stall for another few years, and global warming gets so bad it can’t be fixed.

Most hopeful outcome: Despite Democrats stepping on their own SMS, as it were, and that fact that in most sates Republicans can out campaign Democrats with their eyes closed, Democrats take Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, and scare the bejesus out of Graham but he keeps his seat. That’s one more than needed.

Another possible scenario: Democrats also lose Smith’s seat in Minnesota. Suddenly, she is on the verge of falling behind. Minnesota voters are unreliable. It could happen.

Welcome to 1861.

“On the eve of his 52nd birthday, February 11, 1861, the President-Elect of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, walked onto a train, the first step of his journey to the White House, and his rendezvous with destiny.

From the moment the Presidential Special left the station, a new Lincoln was on display, speaking constantly, from a moving train, to save the Republic. The journey would draw on all of Lincoln’s mental and physical reserves. But the President-Elect discovered an inner strength, which deepened with the exhausting ordeal of meeting millions of Americans.” (Publisher’s summary.)

I herby recommend* Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington by Ted Widmer.

This is a very good book, compelling, startling, and if you don’t already know the story, highly informative. I won’t push it because it is already widely acclaimed. Even the guy who wrote Hamilton says it is a must read. I know you are going to get it and read it. Instead, I will point out two arguments made in the book that are not necessarily the main arguments, but that I found to be very important.

First, trains. The story is of course almost entirely played out on a train or near a train, in a train or on the way to or from a train. This gave the author license, appropriately and we are glad he took it up, to discuss the role of trains in the formation of North and South differences in the US. I won’t make the argument here, I’m just telling you that you will find it in the book (mainly in the beginning chapters) and you will find it fascinating.

Second, Lincoln’s prowess as a speech writer and speaker. Surely you’ve heard the story that Abe Lincoln write the famous Gettysburg Address as an afterthought on the back of a napkin on the way to the battlefield (on a train). That of course, never happened. Lincoln worked hard on that address, over a longer period of time. It is a finely crafted speech based on a thousands of years old oration by the first citizen of Athens, but of course much updated. Lincoln crafted that, and other speeches, with an earned, and learned, appreciation of rhetoric as well as history.

But it is also true that Lincoln was probably not the best presidential orator before he was president. Prior to 1860, Lincoln argued cases against fellow lawyers in front of tough judges. He entertained his colleagues on the circuit court with memorable stories and parables, back in the days when the “circuit” meant lawyers, and sometimes judges, travelling, eating, and sleeping together while going from one town to the next to handle cases. He ran for office a few times (won once) and engaged Douglas in the famous Lincoln Douglas debates. He studied the classics, and he studied history, not formally but by walking in total hundreds of miles to to borrow books. Then he ran for election again and won, having made very few speeches during that campaign. So, on the day Lincoln was elected President, he was a skilled communicator, but not necessarily a skilled presidential speaker, at a time when a skilled presidential speaker seemed rightly to be a key factor in ultimately keeping the United States alive.

And he understood this, and every day for the entire train trip, he worked on that. He gave over 100 speeches in 13 days. A handful of these, including the one he gave at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, are counted among the great speeches. Another handful, he really screwed up, such as one of the first, given in Ohio, in which he pulled an Omar, saying something like “nothing is really happening.” (Ilhan Omar meant, “one thing happened and then an inappropriate reaction to some other thing occurred in an exploitive manner, which was bad” and Lincoln meant “so far no full-on battles have been fought yet.”) For both Ilhan and Abe, the press and the detractors went to town.

But overall, what Lincoln did was to fine tune his skill. For two weeks he gave many great speeches — and lived several near death experiences involving crushing crowds, being shot at with friendly cannon fire twice, nearly bombed once or twice, and nearly assassinated by a thousand assassins once — while the whole country followed every move reported near real time by telegraph. Abe Lincoln purposefully (and incidentally) set up a nation wide culture of expectation and commitment. He created, over this two week period plus a few days in DC and his inaugural, a North ready to fight and a South forced to define its own role as starting a war to defend slavery.

That final real life master class in presidential speech giving turned an excellent orator into one of the best ever.

Hey, did you bump on my wording in the first sentence, above? (“The United States are divided between white supremacists and others who feel that African Americans should have the same rights as anyone else.”) That’s how they would have said it before Lincoln’s presidency, and before the Civil War. “The United States are …” The United States became a singular entity because of Lincoln and the war. Now, it is “The United States is…”

If you went back in a time machine to become an antebellum grammar Nazi, you would have to learn this.

There are a lot of reasons for that. (I should mention that any statement of fact, voicing of observation, or expression of opinion about the Civil War will lead to a great outcry about the facts, observations, and opinions, so check below in the comments for that.) One of the reasons the Civil War took almost five years (and never mind that there is an argument that had the Civil War not taken all that time it would not have stuck) is that the Union Generals were crap. Many were political appointees, or for some other reason incompetent. They lost a lot of battles.

One of the things the Northern generals were doing wrong was this. Most “battles” would take a couple-few days. So the two sides slog at each other for a while, and one of the sides gets hurt worse, and maybe leaves the field. Then there is a period of time during which the dead and near dead are collected. Then, later that day or the next day, in cases where the North had prevailed in the first wave of the battle, the Northern officer staff would have tea or do some other thing. During that time, the South would round up reinforcements, regroup, and attack back, and drive the Northern army away. (Alternatively, the southern force would bug out and move out of range, then regroup, while the Northern general failed to keep up, re-attack, and finish them off.)

But US Grant did not operate this way. Grant did not drink euphemistic tea. He would get up at 3 in the morning after the first wave of battle, call together his troops, and attack even more bigly than he had attacked the day before. Personally I think one of the reasons behind this is this was that after the battle, during the reset, most generals would rearrange troops on their front and center line, to prepare for the next day. Grant would hit that front line while his enemies were looking left and right instead of forward.

Once Grant was put in charge of the whole Union Army, having demonstrated the success of his approach in the West, it was only a matter of time before the North defeated the South.

So, here’s the lesson. One way to win is to pull your pieces off the field. Then, when the other side goes to have tea, put everything back on the field, doubled. Then you win.

So, yesterday’s news that the Republcian Party has reduced its ad budget in Minnesota by 90% does NOT mean that DFLers (DFL=Democratic Party) go have tea. It will take a phone call for the Trump campaign to resurge in our state. DON’T BE FOOLED. HOLD FAST. Swarm, don’t rest!

We’ve got this, but only if we don’t get fooled again.

I have a sense of how Deplorables think, since I have walked among them. The Deplorable culture is enigmatic to most educated and genteel people. Some of this will be new to you. I’m here to tell you, as an anthropologist, that it is much worse than you probably think.

I remember once having my stroller-age son with me while hanging out with a garage full of Deplorables celebrating one of their 60th birthdays. The conversation was almost entirely about wife swapping and similar themes. I had to put the kid outside on the driveway so he would not become polluted, and stayed around only long enough to verify that this was really happening. The Access Hollywood tape was a replay of a constant ongoing conversation among Deplorables (both sexes). If you were surprised by it, you are living in a bubble. A nice bubble, do stay there, you’ll be happier. But still, a bubble. This is how Deplorables talk. And think.

I’ve had enough conversations with deplorables to know that they are often (but not always) driven by racism. It is not difficult to understand Deplorable policy thinking (to the extent that it is thinking, which it mostly is not) if you know that all of the Democratic Party policy objectives of the 8 years prior to the electoral college mistake known as the “Trump Presidency” were objectives that existed under a black president. Therefore they are dirty, tainted, smudged by the blackness of his monkey skin, all kootied-up by the N*gger, not to mention all wrong. The only good policy is the opposite of his black policy no matter what that is. White is right. That is something you probably knew. You probably hate hearing the thoughts, and I sort of apologize for jamming them into your face. But while what you were already thinking, already knew, is correct, it is not sharp or true enough. The truth is disgusting.

A less known, but critical, aspect of Deplorable culture is how strength works. It is sometimes earned, sometimes given by external forces, and it defines legitimacy. It is OK to claim ownership of one’s own strengths, or to attribute them to Mother or to God, or in some cases Dog (especially a good hunting dog). But it is not OK to attribute any but one causality to lack of strength, or to weakness. That, in Deplorable culture, is entirely the fault of the individual. That is probably something you didn’t know.

So there’s this guy and his girlfriend, probably fiance, climbing a mountain. They are using ropes and other technical gear, and it is a challenging climb. They are both experts. She is above him, by tens of feet. Suddenly, she loses her hold, and falls. Her body strikes the rock face at several locations, bouncing off like an out of control rag doll, finally to rest some 15 feet below him, unconscious. Rescue squads including helicopters are required to bring her out and to the hospital. She survives, but he can never look at her again without seeing weakness. Their relationship ends because of that.

That is a horrible story, but a true one, and one that demonstrates a human frailty: Sometimes we see failure in another person where all they did was obey the rules of gravity, or cancer, or ice on the road. This seems counter-intuitive but it really does happen. It is usually hidden by cultural trappings. The person who told me that story (the boyfriend himself) was just being brutally honest.

Deplorables do this same thing other humans do, but they codify it in their culture and they foreground it in their aggressions. Donald Trump doesn’t like people who get captured. He doesn’t like soldiers who get wounded. Or drafted. Or tricked into serving by some patriotic sense that is, to him, an emotional state of being, normally reserved for chumps and cucks.

If you get this, now you can understand the Deplorable (=Republican) flauting of logical, normal, required, science-based precautions against spreading Covid-19 infection. Getting sick is a sign of personal weakness. Doing things to not get sick is personal weakness. They complained about freedom when asked to wear a mask. It is not about freedom, or at least, freedom as you think of it. It is about freedom to not appear weak.

Well, today, right now, Trump is weak because he has Covid. Indeed, somebody is probably having their way with his wife, back home, because he must also be a cuck, because he is so weak. The guy who once owned a line of suit jackets and ties has no tie and only one suit jacket. The only way he can make friends is to drive around the block in his car waving at people like some little kid or a dog.

Trump-loving Deplorables are not going to run out and vote for Biden because their beloved demigod turns out to be a [imagine the word that must go here]. But they won’t vote for him. When Trump got Covid he lost at least two electoral state wins. That was the end of the election right there.

You might think Trump getting Covid hurts him politically because it underlies the folly of science denialism, or proves that Democrats were right all align about wearing masks, and stuff like that. Nope. That is a fabrication of logic, which rules your liberal mind. To a Deplorable, science is still a lie, mask wearing is still a violation of basic rights, and Covid is still a hoax. Trump is not worth voting for because he is a weak loser with only one jacket, no tie, and somebody is fucking his wife as we speak.

“I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. … Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

What Trump Said

“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. … One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over. … And this is their new hoax.”

It happens to include Rochester, which is where the Mayo Clinic is located, which gives Liberals (or, at least, Centrists) a chance. This is why Tim Walz, a high school teacher and National Guard lifer was able to represent CD1 as an elected DFLer (DFL = Minnesota’s Democratic Party) for several terms. He had to walk that fine line. He is essentially a progressive, but won there anyway. For various reasons, however, he almost lost his most recent election, and was destine to finally get voted out by an increasingly Trumpian mass of corn farmer, despite having support in the medico-academic community around Mayo and the University in Rochester. He ran that cycle for Governor, and that is what he is now.

Two years ago, Dan Feehan, representing the DFL, and Jim Hagedorn, representing the Republicans, faced off. Dan was a great candidate and a great person, a Paul Wellstone inspired combat veteran. He served for a time as the acting Assistant Secretary of Defense, under Barack Obama. He has since worked with the Farmers Union in Minnesota, focusing on Healthcare.

Jim Hagedorn was the offspring of a former US Representative (Tom Hagedorn) and was half raised in McLean, Virginia and half Truman, Minnesota. For years he ran a blog called “Mr Conservative” that included a LOT of sexist, misogynistic, racist, islamophobic, and anti-Native American yammering. When people noticed and he got called out, he claimed he was only joking. The Washington Examiner declared him “the worst midterm candidate in America” last cycle.

When the corn farmers and medical professionals of the increasingly conservative 1st District were asked to chose between the two, 291,085 people voted, and by virtue of a mere 658 votes, Hagedorn had won the district.

Then he went to work being an asshole. I won’t go into all the details, but here is the latest in a DFL press release:

Hagedorn’s Report Confirms Corruption Within Congressional Office

Independent investigation needed to answer remaining questions

St. Paul, MN – On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, Congressman Jim Hagedorn quietly released his internal review of the ongoing corruption scandal in his Congressional office. Despite Hagedorn hiring a lawyer for crooked politicians to get him off the hook, the basic facts of the report are damning:

• “Congressman Hagedorn fully agrees that he is ultimately responsible” for the potentially illegal mismanagement of over $450,000 in taxpayer dollars.
• Abernathy West is likely tied to Congressman Hagedorn’s top staffer who spent half a year breaking ethics rules and potentially directing our tax dollars into his pockets.
• Congressman Hagedorn allowed two businesses to rip off U.S. taxpayers by dramatically overcharging Hagedorn’s office for services for over half a year.
• Congressman Hagedorn is still employing John Sample, a staffer whose company received over $110,000 in taxpayer dollars from the Congressman’s office. As multiple ethics experts have said, Hagedorn’s decision to do business with his own staffer “violated House rules” and constitutes “a problem,” raising “neon signs flashing red signals all over the place.”

Hagedorn’s far-from-independent report fails to answer numerous, serious questions:

• Why did Congressman Hagedorn lie about completely delegating his mail program to his chief of staff when that was clearly not true?
• Why did it take reporting months after-the-fact for Hagedorn to become aware of the potentially illegal activity taking place within his own office?
• How was it that Congressman Hagedorn hired two different staffers who funnel our tax dollars into their pockets?

The report confirms that there still needs to be an independent investigation and Congressman Hagedorn owes it to the people of southern Minnesota to publicly release all relevant correspondence including text messages, emails, and letters prior to Election Day.

DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement:

“It’s laughable that Jim Hagedorn would ask the public to trust him and his bought-and-paid-for report after Hagedorn spent months lying to Minnesotans and trying to cover up the corruption within his own office. Even a lawyer for crooked politicians couldn’t conceal the fact that there was massive wrongdoing in Hagedorn’s office and that an independent investigation is needed to get to the bottom of it.

“Congressman Hagedorn is responsible for using almost half a million of our tax dollars to line the pockets of his employees. This corruption within Hagedorn’s office went on unchecked for months until media reports exposed it to the public, at which point Hagedorn lied to the public and tried to deflect blame. The people of Minnesota deserve better than crooked politicians like Jim Hagedorn.”

Now would be a good time to give Dan Feehan some money, or help his campaign in some other way.