I grew up and spent some of my adult life in Missouri. I interacted with folks in the Missouri GOP quite a lot in the mid-naughts and early 2010s. Lots of GOP s

I grew up and spent some of my adult life in Missouri. I interacted with folks in the Missouri GOP quite a lot in the mid-naughts and early 2010s. Lots of GOP state rep staffers, some state reps, some state-wide candidates who have been oscillating in and out of politics in the years since, etc. I even had a few long meals with Eric Greitens way back in the day when everyone knew he was going to run for something but he was still playing Veteran Charity Organizer and denying any intention to run. (Actually, I always pegged Eric for a moderate/conservative Democrat, but wasn't surprised to see him play the game he played given that his defining characteristic was always his careerism/ambition. I even mentioned after one of those meals that he'd probably prefer to run as a Dem but will definitely be running on the GOP ticket because he cares more about power and prestige than anything else & anyone with a brain knew running as a Dem in any statewide race in Missouri was a dead end. Actually, totally independent of this conversation, Eric is actually a really interesting case study in coalition politics; his resignation was as much about him snubbing folks with appointments than his sex scandal per se. Anyways.) My interactions with folks in MOGOP back then scared the hell out of me. I could see the party coalescing around a pretty dark sort of nihilism. And not even really in terms of policy per se. It's the individual people, divorced of their politics, that really made me scared. On a personal and individual level. The deeply concerning interactions and conversations I had with specific rising stars in MOGOP are actually one of the reasons I left the state. I understand your attitude toward partisanship, I really do, and I've voted for Missouri Repbulicans in the past as well. But that state party is in a really dark place right now. A few good apples -- and they do exist -- don't really matter when party leadership are scary as fuck narcissistic nihilists. (And, yeah, all politicians suck or whatever... but MOGOP is really something else. The rising stars from back then who are all either ascendant or in control now are not just gross politician types... they're genuinely just really scary human beings.)