Silence is complicity, and absolute power corrupts absolutely
Published 1:30 am Friday, July 10, 2026
DEAR READER: On March 21, 1974, America was awash in Watergate. Slade Gorton, Washington’s attorney general, had admired Richard M. Nixon, welcoming his support on the campaign trail. Now, Gorton found the escalating evidence of presidential misconduct “profoundly troubling.”
Without legal authorization or any concern for constitutional rights, Nixon had authorized formation of a “Plumbers” political espionage unit to ransack the offices of the Democratic National Committee. In the cover up, he withheld evidence from the Department of Justice and Congress, urged the IRS to harass his enemies and solicited illegal campaign contributions.
Quoting Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Shakespeare and Thucydides, the Athenian historian, Gorton told a hushed Seattle Rotary Club — mostly Republicans — that the president had burdened the federal government with a “moral climate of cynicism and suspicion.” The “finest service” Nixon could now perform for his country, Gorton concluded, would be to resign. “Out of the evidence of his own mouth,” Nixon had given the House of Representatives probable cause to vote Articles of Impeachment, stating that “In any organization, the man at the top must bear the responsibility.” If what Nixon had done didn’t merit impeachment, Gorton asked, “What actions of a future president will? What invasions of your privacy, what violations of your civil rights?”
That 17-page speech, which made headlines nationwide, is one of the most eloquent of Gorton’s half-century in politics. And if it all sounds eerily reminiscent of the White House in the summer of 2026, you’re not alone.
The moral of this story, as Gorton always warned, is that silence is complicity, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
WITH THE Primary Election only 23 days away — Aug. 4 —candidate yard-signs are sprouting like dandelions. Your ballot will arrive in the mail any day now. You can return it with your decisions as soon as July 17.
Unfortunately, if the only homework you’re willing or able to do between now and judgment day is to size up the candidates by their slogans and the Rs, Ds and NPs on their yard-signs, it’s slim pickings. Some of those party labels are so small you’ll need to stop and squint. Not everyone even has a slogan — just those ubiquitous red, white and blue flags that supposedly say it all.
I’m here to help smoke ’em out.
The guy who deserves some credit for the courage of his convictions is Leon Lawson. He proudly stands “with President Trump and the America First agenda” in his bid for the 6th District seat in Congress, according to his campaign website. Endorsed by MAGA Washington, Lawson is a former auto dealer who grew up in Mason County but now lives near Lake Aberdeen. Next to his name on the ballot you’ll see “Trump Republican.” I called Lawson to say I wasn’t going to vote for him, but admire his honesty. He thanked me for mine.
Nor can we argue with Marcia Kelbon’s slogan. The longtime Republican from Quilcene is running as an independent to succeed the retiring Democrat, Steve Tharinger, as a state representative from the 24th Legislative District. “Together, we can do better,” Kelbon’s signs say.
We certainly can.
Kelbon, for the record, goes on to give us more than boilerplate in her press releases. She’s running as an independent, against no less than four Democrats in a Top Two primary, because she believes the current hyper-partisan political climate is “damaging and destructive.” She asserts that she’s always leaned more toward the middle. “On the one end, at the federal level, we have a single party in control, and that party and its leadership are going to some extremes that trouble me,” she says. “And on the state level, we have the other party in control, and that party and its leadership are going into extremes that trouble me.” Most voters land somewhere in the middle, she believes. “That’s where I want to operate. That’s where I think our citizens are best served. That’s where I think the country is best served.”
Dan Evans, our three-term Republican governor and U.S. senator, put it even better in an inaugural address: “I’d rather cross the political aisle than cross the people.”
I’ll take Kelbon at her word and hope for the best if she is elected. For now, it would be good to know which “extremes” trouble her the most.
At every election-year editorial board meeting when I was editor of The Daily World I asked candidates to name their political heroes and say why. Often, too, I’d ask which member of the opposite party they most admired. That gave us some of the most revealing answers.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE Jim Walsh, our peripatetic state GOP Chairman from Aberdeen, is seeking re-election in the 19th District while eyeing a run for governor in 2028. Jim’s signs say he’s “for jobs, schools” and another two years in the House. Presumably for apple pie, too. But there was no more room. I want him to be “for Truth.” We’ll get to the rest of his platform directly.
Daniel Crawford, a Republican who wants to be Grays Harbor County Prosecutor, gives us more than most on his signs: He is for “Transparency, Accountability, and Community.”
Transparency! That’s my litmus test for every candidate who wants my vote this year, especially Republicans. Except for Leon Lawson and a handful of others, they’re not telling us what kind of Republicans they are. President Trump says you’re not a “real” Republican — maybe even secretly one of those “godless communist Dumbocrats” — unless you’re on his side.
So, is it “My president, right or wrong” or the Rule of Law and our better angels? — The Party of Trump or The Party of Lincoln? — A party that respects diversity and patriotism or one that whitewashes history, vilifies immigrants and belittles heroism? Naval aviator John McCain, gravely injured when his plane was shot down over Vietnam, spent more than five years as a POW. Afterward, he championed bipartisan reforms as a U.S. Senator and became the 2008 Republican presidential nominee. “He’s not a war hero,” draft-dodger Trump had the effrontery to declare. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
I like people who vow to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I was only 18 when I took that oath, mindful of my family’s seven generations of U.S. military veterans. My yard sign is up year-round. It says “I served for freedom, not fascism.”
FROM WHAT I can discern from campaign websites, Crawford and his opponent, Democrat Jason Walker, who was appointed Grays Harbor County Prosecutor earlier this year, both want to hold criminals accountable, ensure justice for victims and forge alliances with law enforcement.
Sign me up! It would be illuminating, though, for both to address what their party affiliations mean to them — and whether they’re alarmed by prosecutors and judges willing to subvert the rule of law to curry favor with a president who boasts that he is above the law. Slade Gorton’s willingness to risk his party’s censure spoke volumes about conscience and political transparency.
I believe every candidate has a civic obligation to help the electorate sort truth from what Dr. Goebbels called the power of The Big Lie.
Donald J. Trump, without a shred of credible evidence (Mister My Pillow’s poppycock doesn’t count!) maintains the 2020 election was “stolen” from him. Now, the kowtowing lackey he appointed to transform the FBI into his own private KGB is dutifully probing 2020 Georgia ballots to manufacture “evidence” that Trump actually won the state. The Real Republican Party should commission a statue of Brad Raffensperger, the Real Republican Secretary of State who rejected Trump’s suggestion he should just “find 11,780 votes” to overturn Biden’s victory.
Silence is complicity. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
THOMAS PAINE, who in 1776 famously declared, “In America the law is king,” also observed, “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” I asked a local Republican official if he believes the 2020 election was stolen. “It’s hard to know what to believe,” he said.
It’s not! Just get off Facebook and start looking for the facts. We call this “critical thinking.”
Nor do the Democrats on the ballot get a free pass. What, for instance, do they think of former Gov. Gregoire’s stinging observation that it is dereliction of duty for the Legislature to repeatedly ignore fiscal integrity.
Dear Democratic candidates: Kindly tell us, What kind of Democrat are you?
Grays Harbor County Clerk Kym Foster, who filed as a “Practical Democrat,” is unopposed on the Primary Election ballot. In my view, she is also highly competent. But that label may say something frustrated 2026 voters really like, especially those who fondly remember practical Democrats like Lynn Kessler, Jim Hargrove, Brian Blake, Brian Hatfield and the inimitable Sid Snyder.
I FEEL BADLY that Real Republicans have Trump as their cross to bear. That’s why transparency is so crucial in this pivotal midterm election — in some offices more than others. The county prosecutor, no less than the U.S. attorney general or a federal judge, is vested with upholding equal justice under the law. In addition to providing legal counsel to the County Commissioners (presently all Republicans), the prosecutor is required to “Present all violations of the election laws which may come to the prosecuting attorney’s knowledge to the special consideration of the proper jury.”
The county auditor’s sworn duty, likewise, is to ensure free and fair elections. What would the prosecutor or auditor say, if asked by an influential leader of their party — Democrat or Republican — to prosecute a political opponent or just “find” more votes? Sadly, that’s no longer hypothetical. And now that it’s abundantly clear that Donald J. Trump is hell-bent on retribution for anyone who dares defy him, doesn’t every Real Republican and Diligent Democrat have an obligation to defend truth and the rule of law?
Silence is complicity. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.
President Trump, Chairman Walsh and legions of election deniers are now working overtime to discredit voting by mail as fraught with Democrat larceny, claiming that “mail-in ballots are how blue states cheat and win elections.” Never mind that Trump, hypocritically, has embraced brazen racist gerrymandering and exhorted his followers to vote early; never mind, too, that a succession of Republican secretaries of state here, with bipartisan devotion to duty, created a convenient, secure election process, promoted an informed electorate and defended our right to vote for whomever we choose, regardless of party.
Chairman Walsh has challenged Gov. Ferguson to a debate. Great idea. But first things first, let him debate Sam Reed, our award-winning three-term Republican Secretary of State, who faced down bodily threats and the reproach of members of his party for upholding the law in one of the most contested elections in American history — Gregoire vs. Rossi 2004.
I want a front-row seat.
John C. Hughes was chief historian for the Office of the Secretary of State for 17 years after retiring as editor and publisher of The Daily World in 2008.
