Yesterday, Marylanders went to the polls to vote in the state’s primary election. In a fit of absurdity, Maryland’s Republicans have voted to set up an election denying, insurrection supporting, Trumpist as their standard bearer for 2022.

In one of the most liberal states in the Union, this is who Maryland republicans have decided is their best hope to keep the governor’s mansion. Maybe it’s the kind of play that will work in Tennessee or one of the Dakotas, but it doesn’t carry water in Maryland. I can only assume Maryland Republicans have well and truly lost their collective minds. 

Running to the hard right is not how Republicans get elected to state-level office in Maryland. As much as I’ve never been in love with Larry Hogan, he was precisely the kind of moderate conservative that can get elected in this blue state. If nothing else, having a solid moderate governor helped mitigate the more wildly liberal impulses of a General Assembly that’s perennially controlled by Democrats. With a legislative branch that’s never met a tax, toll, or fee it didn’t like, that wasn’t nothing.

What Maryland Republicans have said with their vote is they’re more concerned with the Trumpian nightmare vision of Party Purity than in actually holding on to the governor’s office. As a result, come November, they’ll get a governor that will cheerfully go along with and lead the charge for whatever flurry of new taxes, regulations, and laws the Democratic legislature dreams up.

Maryland Republicans have made their wishes known… and I’m looking forward to November, when I’ll have the chance to vote against every single election denying, insurrection loving, Constitution loathing, anti-republican (small “r”) candidate they’ve saddled themselves with. Believe me when I say I’ll cast every one of those votes with a smile in my heart because the Constitution and this republic are not negotiable.