Donald Trump moments before sniffing Rudy Guiliani’s perfume.

I brought 500 leaflets to my latest and perhaps last Minnesota State Republican Convention. The flyers were a reprint of my current full-page Reader critique of the GOP.

The party has adopted Trump’s moral compass, which points only to himself. Its growing with spite and revenge as dementia takes charge. It has no room for the Beatitudes. It is found on the front page of every newspaper. It’s the mother returning from ICE exile to attend her child’s funeral – a child thrust upon an indifferent husband when she was deported.

For a seat in the DECC bleachers at the cost of an off-Broadway play, I listened to MAGA country rock pumped out by candidates during their 10-minute turns at the microphone. A sense of the 2,000 delegates was revealed in a test vote to check the hand-held voting controls.

Asked whether they preferred Minnesota new eight-pointed star State flag or the original flag, it was no contest – 1,853 voted for the old fleeing Indian flag. The new flag got 215 votes. 

Although Trump offered his supporters thanks in 2016 for not making a fuss over gays, his bully’s sense of an easy target was on full display.

“Trannies,” who may constitute one-in-every-hundred Americans, versus gays’ 15 or 20 percent, were shown no mercy. Every speaker who parroted Trump’s promise to protect America’s daughters from men transitioning to imperfect womanhood won ovations. No one mentioned Jeffery Epstein’s offering our daughters up to men.

I have only been acquainted with one such tortured soul. Here is her story.

In my political sunset, I am occasionally contacted by people who want to sound me out for advice. I received one such call in the last year I served on the Duluth school board. I met “Justin” (not his real name) for coffee at Sarah’s Table.

Justin was considering a run for the Minnesota legislature. He was six foot four and I mistakenly concluded that he was gay. A news story after he filed for office made clear he was transitioning to female. He was raised in a fiercely conservative religious family.

I surmised that his running for the legislature as a Republican was a sign of his seeking approval at home. His conservativism was financial and anti-big government.

I advised Justin that seeking Republican endorsement, while not impossible owing to a dearth of Republicans, probably wasn’t worth the effort.

Justin did run as a Republican, and like me in years to come, did so without endorsement. He lost. I heard years later that “Cassie” (not “Justin’s” real changed name) was seen carrying a weapon near the legislature and was thought to be menacing the election’s winner. Cassie was a more tortured soul than I suspected.

I was in Topeka, Kansas, on election night 2016. I was scheduled to give a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars about my grandfather.

Claudia sent me the photo she took the night Trump was elected. Her camera caught a black bear climbing our patio steps. Perhaps it was an omen.

The next year I would run for reelection after being censured by my school board. What would otherwise have been a quiet off-year election would instead bring tens of millions of women out to vote seeking consolation after Trump’s victory. Locally, they would be advised by several of the board members who had censured me.

Cassie, having joined a sympathetic militant feminist group, warned me that they took a dim view of me. Proof of that antagonism materialized at a gay confab in Duluth’s Playfront Park. I met a pair of tough looking women who told me I wasn’t their kind of candidate.

Cassie offered her help so I suggested she start a Facebook campaign page for me.

Soon I started seeing Cassie regularly. She showed up at our church after making fast friends with our pastor. To their credit, my fellow parishioners were not put off by Cassie’s imposing stature and questionable fashion.

Our Presbyterians were not a hectoring, Trumpian congregation. To this day I don’t know if Cassie was undergoing or has undergone the traumatic medical treatments for transformation.

Before my fate was sealed, I got an urgent call from a friend who was attending a Democratic rally at The Reef bar, a local landmark for union politicking.

I was told that a tall woman was calling for the defeat of all Republicans, which seemed to imply me although I was running for a nonpartisan office. I was shocked.

The following Sunday after church I confronted Cassie about the apparent betrayal, catching her off guard. I’m not sure what she stammered in reply. Later, in the parking lot, I heard Cassie’s car dash away with what sounded like a war whoop.

A few years later and many states away from Minnesota, Cassie sent me a request by email asking for our pastor’s email. I passed it on and offered my best wishes to suggest there were no hard feelings.

Losing my political office just as President Trump hijacked America for the next decade gave me a good fight to conduct in my Reader columns. Unlike Donald Trump, I pick on powerful people.

Welty will not be a candidate for Congress this year. There are too many history books that need reading: Lincolndemocrat.com.