How to pay the piper

When I was finishing school and preparing to take a pretty good job, my department chair pulled me aside for a talk that was chock-full of advice.

“You’re going to run into lots of factions in this job,” he said. “Don’t buy into any of them. Don’t be anyone’s boy.” His wise words are coming back to me now, these four decades later.

It seems as though every Republican candidate wants to be Trump’s boy. First there was J.D. Vance in Ohio, who changed his “never-Trump” tune and became Trump’s boy in order to win the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Then there was Alex Mooney in my native state of West Virginia, who defeated the hardworking and respected David McKinley for the Republican nomination for the House by becoming Trump’s boy.

Here in Arkansas we’re overrun with Trump’s boys. Mrs. Sanders, her gender identification notwithstanding, is clearly Trump’s boy. All of John Boozman’s advertisements make it clear that he’s Trump’s boy. Mr. Bequette is evidently miffed that he’s not Trump’s boy.

So here’s my question: How are all of these Trump’s boys going to have to pay the piper? What kinds of lies, fraud, insurrection, and grifting, which emerge from Mr. Trump with great regularity, will they have to support if they are elected?

DAVID JOLLIFFE

Fayetteville