Augie, Jaeger, Otto: three maniacs that own me.

I have to say, after years of listening to Democrats call Trump supporters cultists who blindly follow their leader and punish anyone who steps out of line, watching the reaction to Haley Stevens today has been incredible. She refused to support a candidate whose views she finds morally repugnant. She gave him multiple opportunities to address her concerns, and ultimately decided that she couldn't support him. She even went so far as to endorse his Republican opponent. And the entire Democratic establishment lost its mind. What exactly do these people think Stevens has to gain from this? She's not going to become a Republican. She's not going to suddenly find herself welcomed into conservative politics. She's damaged her standing with her own party, alienated people she has worked alongside for years, and has likely destroyed whatever political future she had with Democrats. You can disagree with her decision or think she made a terrible political calculation. But I find it very difficult to look at someone willingly accepting those consequences and conclude that she's doing it for personal gain. I have disagreed with Stevens on plenty of things, and I expect I will continue to disagree with her. But I have a tremendous amount of respect for someone who is willing to take a stand when it actually costs them something. Abdul El-Sayed is one of the most transparently dishonest politicians I've watched in a long time. He constantly tells people he's Michigan First. He wants to talk about Michigan, he cares about Michigan, his priority is Michigan. Fine. Then why does he spend so much time talking about Gaza? Watch the clip below. This man brings up Palestinians and Israel constantly. He has absolutely no problem making foreign affairs part of his political identity. But the second someone challenges him on what he's saying, suddenly he doesn't want to discuss foreign policy anymore. He's running to represent Michigan, you see. Mamdani does exactly the same thing in New York. They get to make whatever inflammatory statements they want about Israel, but when someone asks them to defend those statements, we're told that they're focused on their constituents and have more important things to worry about. How convenient. El-Sayed wants Michigan voters to believe that American aid to Israel is somehow standing between them and affordable groceries, rent, and healthcare. We're talking about a minuscule fraction of federal spending. Cutting it would accomplish absolutely nothing for the average Michigan household. But ask him about spending American taxpayer money on UNRWA or other international organizations, and suddenly the concern about money leaving Michigan seems to disappear. I would genuinely love to hear a journalist ask him why American dollars going to Israel are an affordability crisis while American dollars going to organizations he supports are perfectly acceptable. It's such an obvious question. And yet he gets to keep repeating this nonsense. I don't expect politicians to agree with me about Israel. I don't even care if they particularly like Israel. But I do expect them to be able to defend their own positions without hiding behind generic slogans every time someone asks a difficult question. And what I find especially revealing about today's reaction is how little room the Democratic Party seems willing to allow for someone who draws a moral line in a place the party doesn't approve of. We've long been told that Republicans are incapable of independent thought, that dissent is punished, that loyalty to the party matters more than principle. Well, look at what happened to Haley Stevens today. Whatever you think of her decision, she made it knowing exactly how her party would react. And they went ahead and proved her right.