Montana

born and raised in MT in a time when we had true political heroes from the state such as Jeannette Rankin, Mike Mansfield, Lee Metcalf, Arnold Olsen and Pat Williams among others, I weep bitter tears.

Yes, we still have good persons who fight mightily for the state, but these MAGAt Faux Xtian Out-of-Staters who have inundated the state with megabucks now run the show. Having Bullock lose to Daines in 2020 nearly broke my heart.

Bad as Daines and the two GQPer Reps are, however, Felon Gianforte is by far the worst of the worst.

Two of my sisters and much of my extended family still live in the state and we will always love our Big Sky Country. But I remember growing up among people of both political persuasions who valued diversity, culture, art, music, literature, education and internationalism, who believed in science and who were proud to be vaccinated so as to keep the community safe. No, things were not perfect, but in those days, there were more who tried to make things better than there were who were selfish.

My sons still remember spending parts of their summers with my parents and having the run of my small rural Montana hometown which at that time functioned much as the "village" envisaged by Hillary Clinton in "It Takes a Village." Those days are long gone, although some underlying remnants can still be found from time to time.

What Xtian Nationalism in MT has done is to destroy the very basis of community in much of the state, just as it is trying to do to the entire nation.