The way you describe it, it sounds like the meta-problem is endemic corruption or incompetence in the Illinois Democratic party. That's a common failure mode fo

The way you describe it, it sounds like the meta-problem is endemic corruption or incompetence in the Illinois Democratic party. That's a common failure mode for a complacent government/party. The Baltimore and DC city governments have struggled with that in recent years, and in a different way the U.S. nationally just got finished dealing with a cartoonishly corrupt and incompetent President given complete immunity by his party. I suppose you and I are both desperately hoping the Republicans can get their act together and make an effort to help govern responsibly. How far would you go though to put a Republican in state office? Maryland Governor Hogan (R) is wildly popular (70-80%) across party lines [1], but according to Wikipedia, though Hogan shuts down the really extreme conservative stuff, he's otherwise a normal reality-based non-MAGA Republican. He also seems to be corrupt or at least shady [2]. Hogan claimed he wrote in Ronald Reagan in his 2020 Presidential vote so I guess that's the bar here: if you'd vote for Reagan today in the name of party balance or whatever, then go ahead and vote for Hogan or his Illinois equivalent when they appear. (Also the fact that over 70% of Maryland Democrats support someone who looks back fondly to Reagan should put away any notion that Maryland is some out of control liberal state.) To your last point, as you know the GOP has played a long game since (here he is again) Reagan of sowing reflexive distrust in Democratic governments. Since you said it, I'll grant that the distrust here is justified due to Democratic misrule, but it's worth considering how much GOP fearmongering has made it so voters think the only solution is bringing in a Republican rather than attempting to fix the Democrats. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Hogan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Hogan [2] https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january-february-march-2020/who-does-marylands-governor-really-work-for/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january-february-marc...