Read the Room, Governor

J.B. Pritzker is my kind of governor. When our moronic president threatened to militarize Chicago and begin to deport law-abiding immigrants, Pritzker mobilized his considerable bulk and said that Drumpf would have to go through him. It was enough to bring the assault to a stop, before it went full Minneapolis. Whoever might have been martyred like Good and Pretti lived to fight another day. We have Pritzker to thank for averting a bloodbath.

Regrettably, Governor Polis of Colorado couldn’t manage a similar show of guts. Jared Polis has been a pretty good guy, the first gay Jew to lead Colorado. But he most certainly failed when it came to courage under fire. In the middle of last week, he commuted the sentence of Tina Peters, cutting it in half after two years served, effectively prepping her for release in July. If she were a white-collar criminal with a garden variety rap sheet, no one would have taken exception. But this is Tina Peters, election denialist, who opened voting records to Administration hench-people to call the Colorado results into question. In 2026, that is a cardinal sin. The wounds of January 6 are still bloody and fresh.

Reaction, as expected, was quick and savage. Hundreds of Democrats, including high-placed officials, petitioned the Democratic Party of Colorado to censure the Governor for forgiving the unforgivable. They no longer want to see him at their conventions, eating their hors d’oeuvres and drinking their Chablis. Not even a Solo cup of Diet Coke.

I would have done exactly the same, and maybe my suggestions would have been more severe. Denying the results of the 2020 election is the bright red line dividing the crazies from sane Americans. Tina Peters crossed that line and abetted the effort to re-write history. It’s a classic move in the fascist handbook and it always ends badly for the afflicted electorate. Just ask the murdered Jews of Europe. Hitler charged them with stabbing Germany in the back, the treacherous traitors of the First World War. It was a one-stop train trip from there to Majdanek.

Polis imagined that he had no choice. Putting his fat, stumpy fingers on the levers of power, Trump punished Colorado by withholding relief funds and threatening to dismember a notable science center. That probably hurt, but Governor Polis failed to read the room. Democrats are in no mood for capitulation or weak-willed deference to the threats of this president. Polis can’t run for another term, but he will be punished mightily for this show of self-subordination.

And I predict that it will begin to hurt more. Ms. Tina is likely to be among the first to apply for Trump Slush Fund compensation for the “ruin” of her life. This, despite the fact that she was convicted by the State of Colorado and not the corrupted Federal government. My guess is that she will probably get it, along with flag-wielding cop-cripplers and other barbarians. Sedition in America is no longer a sin. Under the new Trump program, it’s a path to riches and honor.