Gov. Patrick Morrisey has spent the past nine years trying to let President Donald Trump know that he really, really wants to be his pal.Â
His latest effort to spit-shine Trump's shoes is his nakedly political decision to send West Virginia National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., where Trump is taking federal control of the city. The president is falsely claiming that crime in the nation's capital is out of control. Crime in Washington took an uptick two years ago. Since then, it's been down. Considerably.Â
But Trump wants to be a dictator and unleashing military forces on domestic soil for no reason other than to instill fear is what dictators do. Morrisey, naturally, couldn't wait to help.Â
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time the Guard has been used as a political prop in the Mountain State. Two years ago, Republican Gov. Jim Justice (now a U.S. senator) sent troops to Texas to help Gov. Greg Abbot — another autocrat-in-waiting who enjoys punishing the downtrodden — with border security. It was an absolutely useless decision, especially considering the Guard at the time was already mobilized by Justice to shore up critical staffing shortages in West Virginia's prisons.Â
So, lamentably, there's precedent for Morrisey's decision.Â
At least Justice only sent about 50 Guard members to Texas. Morrisey says he's sending somewhere around 300 to 400 to Washington.Â
What's sad is that there was a real hope that Morrisey, while an avid MAGA nut at the podium, was a lot smarter than Justice and would certainly work harder than his predecessor to actually improve things like infrastructure and health care in West Virginia. Â
But, it turns out, all Morrisey wants to do is wade in the shallow end of online and cable news politics. He's putting in an unreal amount of effort to overturn one of the most effective child immunization policies in the country. His reasoning, when stripped of all of the couched language, seems to be that West Virginia children should have the right to get measles or polio, if that's what their parents' particular god says. Sure, it doesn't make any sense. In fact, it's idiotic. But that's what the rabid base wants, and Morrisey is fine with tossing out the red meat.Â
West Virginia Guard troops on the streets of D.C. helping a spiraling would-be dictator bring an iron fist down on fellow Americans is straight-up nightmare fuel. It is the definition of dystopian. It goes against everything this republic used to stand for. And, yet, it's happening, thanks to useful supplicants like Morrisey, who don't have any values beyond what starches the collar of their deranged, beloved leader. Â
