Despite his repeated efforts to undo the harm done to Springfield by Donald Trump and JD Vance, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine seems to believe he has no choice but to continue his support of the former president.
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Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) knows that Donald Trump is an unrepentant liar. He also knows that the former president, as well as his running mate JD Vance, are actively hurting the city where he was born. He knows they are directly responsible for fellow nutjobs (as well as foreign actors hoping to divide the country) making bomb threats that caused two schools to be shut down. Most importantly, DeWine knows that Trump is not a good person.
So, what is going to do about it?
Glad you asked!
He is going to keep supporting Trump and Vance, of course.
DeWine is an absolutely fascinating case study that demonstrates that the current GOP is fully subservient to Trump’s MAGA movement.
For days, he has pointed out that his party’s presidential nominee is lying about Haitian migrants in the city of Springfield. Not only are they there legally, but they also don’t eat pets, both of which are facts that Trump and Vance dispute.
DeWine has become increasingly and obviously frustrated by his inability to get the former president and his sidekick to stop lying.
On Thursday, he was asked whether he had reached out to Trump.
DeWine simply chuckled at first… because it is a ridiculous question. Kinda like, “When you were facing medical debt, why didn’t you just win the Powerball?” or, “When you missed your flight to Chicago, why didn’t you flap your hands really fast and fly there yourself?”
When the governor realized that he would have to answer the question, he noted that he had not reached out to Trump.
“I watched the comments, and I didn’t think it would do any good,” DeWine said.
You might think that this is as close as a Republican governor can get to saying that his party’s nominee is such a compulsive liar that he cannot be convinced to tell the truth for once.
You would be wrong.
Because, a few seconds later, DeWine said this even more explicitly.
“The idea that us asking him to stop doing that would do any good is, I think, ridiculous,” DeWine said.
The governor isn’t even sure whether it is fair to call Trump’s statements lies.
“A lie is something you know is wrong,” DeWine noted. “I don’t know what is inside his head.”
In other words, the governor was essentially saying: “The dude is nuts. What do you want me to do about it?”
On Friday, DeWine took the unusual step for a GOP governor of penning an op-ed for The New York Times in which he forcefully defended the people of Springfield, both the US-born population and the hard-working immigrants who helped revive the city, and pointed out that the Trumpian and Vancian lies have had a harmful effect.
Despite all of that criticism, DeWine then did what virtually all Republicans are doing: He fell in line and ultimately noted that he is a supporter of Trump and Vance.
Some people might call this cowardice. DeWine is 77 years old and this is his last job in politics, so what could possibly happen to him?
Oh, right, he could become the next target of bomb threats, or worse, if Trump decides to sic his MAGA mob on the governor.
