This requires a little backgrounding before getting into the story. Bear with me, it’s worth your time.
First of all, it involves a Republican food fight. Tim Michels (profile here), a rich guy who owns a $17 million Connecticut castle, wants to be Wisconsin’s governor. So does Rebecca Kleefisch (profile here), a former Miss Ohio Teen USA.
Another character in this melodrama is Brian Hagedorn (profile here), a GOP member of Wisconsin’s supreme court (in Wisconsin, state supreme court justices are partisan, and act like it). Trump, who has neither understanding of nor respect for laws and court rules, is very angry at Hagedorn for rejecting an election challenge that didn’t comply with procedural requirements (details here).
So anyway, Hagedorn’s teenage son took Rebecca Kleefisch’s teenage daughter to a high school homecoming event, and when a photo of this surfaced, Trump erupted. Because you know how he feels about disloyalty.
Kleefisch had tweeted her daughter’s homecoming photo, like doting mothers do, little suspecting it would trigger Trump’s volcanic temper. How would she know? Who could have predicted this? Oh, and by the way, that was in 2019, over a year before Trump lost the 2020 election.
Fast forward to April 2022, when Trump met privately with Michels to discuss the tweet and photo. Michels walked away from that meeting with Trump’s endorsement, leaving Kleefisch to sputter, “I’m outraged my opponent would use a photo of my underage daughter for political ammunition in order to score an endorsement.”
As of June 2022, Michels and Kleefisch were tied in polls for the GOP nomination to face incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers; but a month later, Michels — now in possession of Trump’s endorsement — has a commanding lead, although both trail Evers (details here).
The bottom line is you could lose Trump’s endorsement if he doesn’t like your kid dating the kid of someone he doesn’t like. Apart from being uproariously funny to people who enjoy watching Republicans feuding among themselves, this is so sick it should make Trump’s endorsement worth less than nothing; and if voters put any value on an endorsement given or withheld on such a basis, that’s a problem for our democracy.