So, not too long ago, during the then-hysterics going on in the Republican Party as they tried to pick a new House Speaker, I raised the idea Ken Buck would be a really good choice. I argued Buck, as one of the Republicans who accepted the fact Joe Biden won the election, was one of eight GOPers who voted against then-Speaker McCarthy in large part because McCarthy refused to accept the 2020 results and sided with the Big Lie as told by a certain now-indicted former president.

Though I disagree with Buck on, well, lots and lots of issues, I have no doubt he is an honorable man, and he is pursuing policies and actions he believes to be in the best interests of Colorado and the United States. You can have a reasoned argument with Buck, and even agree to disagree, without worrying about his truthfulness and integrity.

Not long after my column ran praising Buck, the House Republican Caucus chose a hardly known relatively junior and very far-right congressman to be the new speaker, U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Not long after that, Buck reported he was receiving four different death threats and, in an amazingly petty action, the landlord for his district office in Colorado has begun an effort to evict Buck from his property, all because he dared to call Trump a liar and to call out fellow Republicans who embrace – and enthusiastically pass along – the Big Lie.

And today, we are greeted by the news Ken Buck has decided to retire from Congress at the end of his term. As he told MSNBC (likely another sin in Trump World), “I have decided that it is time for me to do some other things. I always have been disappointed with our inability in Congress to deal with major issues, and I’m also disappointed that the Republican Party continues to rely on this lie that the 2020 election was stolen.”

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Let’s think about this for a bit: a strong conservative with a strong conservative voting record in the House, is being driven from office – and is allegedly being threatened with murder – because he refuses to climb on board the Big Lie train.

As a former U.S. Air Force Academy political science professor, I’m stunned. The psychosis that has taken over a once-proud party is driving more and more of the actually electable people from the party. At this point, to be accepted as a “true Republican” you must deny the judgment of 60-plus courts, many with Trump-appointed judges, that there was no election fraud. You must deny the results of a far-right groups recount (and other recounts) that proved Biden won Arizona. Heck, that far-right group’s count actually showed President Biden’s margin of victory was larger than initially reported by the state. You must believe some vague constitutional quirk allows a vice president to reject the electoral votes of various states based on orders from the losing candidate. Heck, to be a Republican today even means you must accept Russia as an ally and Putin as a kindly democratically elected nice dictator, I mean president.

Buck, to his everlasting credit, refuses to journey to the miasma-covered marsh that is the modern GOP. He continues to insist on operating in the real world, and for that he’s been threatened with multiple death threats and eviction. In my own congressional campaign in 2008, I had one death threat, from an unstable guy, and that, frankly, freaked me out. I called the cops, they called the guy, and he was not heard from again. I can’t imagine having four such threats and eviction hanging over one’s head for being honorable and honest.

Oh, and in keeping with continued lunacy in the House GOP caucus, the new speaker has, as reported in Colorado Politics, stated upport for Ukraine in its war against Russia (who the GOP previously treated as an enemy) and for Israel in its battle with Hamas, isn’t going through unless Biden cuts the IRS by the same amount as the proposed aid: $14.3 billion.

In other words, the GOP leadership, during a time of profound crisis in our only Middle East ally, wants to pick a fight about how taxes are evil and the IRS needs to be gutted. Funny talk from a guy who runs a huge portion of the government, funded by the taxpayers, but I digress…

And so Buck is not going to be speaker and won’t even be in the House next term. I admit, I kind of wonder, given what happened, if I have superpowers, and if I put forward a name for speaker or some other office, that person will suddenly retire.

Let me try: Mitch McConnell!

Anything? (Rats).

It’s hard to say when the chronic and pervasive poisonous cloud that is Trumpism will clear from the GOP. It wasn’t many years ago when members on both sides of the aisle, for the most part, accepted facts as facts, and argued over what policies were best, based on the accepted facts. But when one party has fully endorsed “alternative facts,” one can only hope that it isn’t too long before the nuts are driven from the party.

I’m not holding my breath though, because right now the opposite is happening, as demonstrated by Speaker Johnson and other GOPers.

I wish Ken Buck the best of luck in the future, and I hope he can find a quiet place to work where his phone won’t ring with death threats, his landlord won’t try to evict him because he speaks the truth, and where being honest isn’t seen as a character flaw.

In the meantime, things are going to get worse, I’m afraid.

Stay tuned.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.