The political opinions of people in non-partisan office are generally kept to themselves. The part of the population with MAGA views are working to infiltrate lower level offices thinking they can save the day for Trump, but rational individuals understand this means courts will have to force them to do their ceremonial jobs as appointed (or probably step down). The fact that they held those MAGA opinions may have impressed enough people to get them into those offices (we don't legislate against ideas, with the usual exceptions of harming others, shouting fire in theaters, etc.) but these are usually pockets of influence. Though it does puzzle me that enough people could agree that MAGA makes sense to re-elect people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. A few of those other crackpots.

Meanwhile, there is an "unwritten" Justice Department rule about not bringing charges or cases against presidential candidates within 60 days of an election. Or even thinking about them - it is a widely held opinion that when James Comey announced that Hillary's aid's laptop turned up with more emails that they were going to look into it; there was an opinion shift that came with that, and when he announced just before the election that there was nothing to see there the harm was done. But Trump is different, he has been in and out of courts for a couple of years now and these current cases are moving forward. It will be interesting to see what happens after September 5, if there is a pull-back by the Justice Department. The AG was so disappointingly slow in getting that started (waiting until the January 6 investigation by Congress turned up all of the evidence) that if he were to slow the work that is finally happening he might find himself the focus of some pretty nasty memes by Democrats.

Finally, I heard an interview recently about why Trump appeals to the wide swath he does - many of them white men without college educations. If they're feeling a pinch in getting jobs or advancing in jobs or being able to afford the usual things in life - cars, houses, beer, they are tending to blame other citizens (Black, Hispanic, immigrants, and these days, women) or Biden or Obama or whoever they can instead of realizing that our problem here is the extreme consolidation of banks, grocery businesses, agricultural product businesses, hospitals, and Big Pharma. When all of those businesses become almost monopolies in their arenas they can raise prices, and instead of hiring they do stock buybacks (those used to be illegal) and other things to boost CEO pay and reward investors. Food, services, housing, drugs, medical care, they all become less affordable. Blaming immigrants or the Democrats instead of blaming big industry is what got us here. And until we can get industry and big money back out of politics (the Supreme Court decision that said corporations are "persons" and can voice opinions via unlimited donations is called "Citizens United.") Trump ignores his big business friends and has set about turning Americans against each other. Blame the Democrats, blame the liberals, blame anyone else except the billionaire class.

/end of US politics 101 for today/