Stephen Miller's Nightmare

I was in Ohio this past weekend, mainly to co-host a fundraiser for Amy Acton, who is running for governor of the state against a billionaire Trump pal who nobody seems to like, including many Republicans.

I am slightly acquainted with Acton – it's a long story how we became acquainted – and in light of that, and (this is me waving my arms indicating "everything"), I decided, for the first time since I was a teenage Republican, to get off the bench, take off my journalist hat, and do a little fighting for democracy.

Some may say that I'm violating some rule about journalists taking sides in politics. Maybe I am but it seems to me that it is long past time for every American to get off the bench and fight for their country, which, as much as I treasure what I've been doing to make a living for the past decades, means more to me than my career. If there are professional repercussions, so be it.

Thank goodness for local independent bookstores. Denise Phillips, owner of Gathering Volumes in Perrysburg, Ohio, near Toledo, was my co-host. Denise once had a corporate job, like a big business serious corporate job, and decided to quit and open a bookstore. Some of her Perrysburg neighbors may or may not appreciate her using her store to back a candidate, but she didn't leave a safe corporate job to open an indie bookstore without taking the "indie" part seriously.

We had a nice little turnout. It wasn't fancy: No champagne, no fillet mignon dinner. There were baby carrots and cheese cubes and these little eclair things. There was no entertainment aside from me saying a few words, and David Pepper, who's running for lieutenant governor with Acton, giving what amounted to a pep talk and a smart analysis of why Acton can win, and how, even with a Trump-loving GOP majority in the state legislature, a Governor Acton could do a lot of good. We didn't raise millions, but the people who came kicked in some money and got a free book from me for their trouble whether they wanted one or not. I am not above forcing my books onto people.

And here's the thing I want to tell you: These people are fired up and angry and ready to go to the mat. Even better, in Trump country, the scales are beginning to fall from eyes. As if to confirm my observation, the morning after the fundraiser, a headline in the New York Times read Angry Ohio Voters Could Turn Their State Purple Again.

The only nit I'd pick with that headline is that Ohio has always been purple. But it's been so egregiously gerrymandered, even in defiance of the state's supreme court, that the GOP would seem to have an iron lock on the place. But in statewide voting, like, say, Ohio's reproductive freedom amendment, which passed, it doesn't look quite so red.

Ohio is also one of the most corrupt states in the nation. That's not a coincidence. Autocratic regimes, which Ohio has become, often sour into corruption. This is how a guy like Max Miller, scion of a rich pops, a flunky for Trump, with no grand accomplishments in his life, and now accused of spousal abuse, manages to get elected to the United States Congress. He's running to retain his seat – the only real job he's ever had – but even with the district stacked to be safe for the Republicans, his opponent, iron worker Brian Poindexter, is scaring the bejesus out of him.

This represents a big shift, in my view. The whole MAGA world has always been about scaring people. Be afraid! Be afraid of gay people, and transgender people, and socialists, and Muslims, and Jews, and professors, and Black people and foreigners of all kinds, unless they're white people from South Africa.

"It's like now we don't do things in our state," one woman at the fundraiser said. "It's like we are having things done to us." Data centers, gerrymandering, utility rates, corporate giveaways, funds yanked from schools, longtime neighbors being kidnapped or harassed by ICE. The Buckeye January 6 contingent aside, most people in the state are pretty nice. They retain a sense of Midwest fairness. So even some people who voted for Trump are recoiling.

See the food truck sign at the top? I spent some time on the Columbus Commons, a big green space next to the statehouse with a concert shell at one end, for Festival Latino. The truck was one of many serving all kinds of food from Spanish-speaking cultures, but this one caught my eye for its Vietnamese-Mexican fusion and being based in Canal Winchester, just up the road from Lancaster where I grew up.

When I was a boy, Lancaster was known as "the whitest town in America." That wasn't really true; there were a tiny handful of Black people there, but you get the idea. MAGA want people in places like Lancaster and Canal Winchester to think that their own culture is being replaced. But it's not. It's being added to.

I will go to my grave insisting that a grilled rib eye with fresh Ohio sweet corn and fresh Ohio sliced tomatoes is one of the best meals on earth. But I like Vietnamese and Mexican, too, and so do lots of other people.

The white and black and brown people learning to dance Latino dances on the commons had fun, not fear. I learned to square dance as a kid. I'd sure like to learn to salsa.

Contrary to what Stephen Miller and JD Vance (Ohio's least favorite son) want people to believe, there's nothing scary about any of this. Ohioans' refusal to be afraid freaks out Stephen Miller because that's all he's got. And now even some who supported Trump are seeing the damage and danger. I have a friend in Williams County, Ohio, the rural county where The Hospital is set. He is also working to help elect Acton. About 70 percent of voters there went for Trump. After my fundraiser with Denise, he sent a text to me, a copy of one he received. It was a request for Amy Acton yard signs. "I need 7...I wasn't expecting that much interest when I texted my group. FYI, all but one is a registered Republican."