Jim and Mike’s Excellent Adventure

Guest Editorial by Douglas Siddoway

There’s a scene in the 1989 cult classic, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, where Bill, one of the film’s two time-travelling stoner protagonists, appears as the Greek philosopher Socrates and tells a confused and befuddled Ted “the only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing”.

It weirdly came to mind this week as Donald Trump continued his unrelenting march to destroy democracy and America’s standing in the world, and Jim Risch and Mike Crapo continued to sit on their hands, apparently not knowing anything that would motivate them to do something.

I’m disappointed by the stunning silence of our two senators, but not surprised. Like some of you, I’ve written them since the inauguration, only to be rewarded with a patronizing response from Risch about “Trump’s “historical electoral mandate” (in truth it was one of the narrowest victories in presidential history) and an AI-generated paean from Crapo about the “prerogatives of the executive branch”. No wonder every thinking person in the country is up in arms and ready to take to the streets. With Constitutional guardians like Risch and Crapo, who needs enemies?

Risch’s silence deserves special rebuke, he having supported Ukraine until Trump gave him a revised script that abruptly ended eighty years of mostly successful European foreign policy and ruptured long-standing NATO alliances. You’d think he would have used his position as chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to at least go through the motions of questioning Trump’s lies about Ukraine and what this amateurish change in policy means for the rest of us once Russia predictably invades Poland and the Baltic States, but no. The only noises emanating from Risch’s office are those of a morally questionable career politician groveling for dispensation from DOGE and King Donald’s damaging executive orders.

Crapo arguably bears less responsibility for the current mess, but that’s only because he’s not charged with foreign policy and so far has been able to hide behind the façade that he and the other Senate Republicans actually fulfilled their Constitutional ‘advise and consent’ responsibilities in crowning Musk and rubber-stamping the incompetent loonies comprising Trump’s cabinet. Maybe it’s too much to expect from someone whose only apparent profile in courage moment was publicly apologizing to his church and constituents for having a couple of vodka tonics at a Northern Virginia cocktail party years ago.

If you haven’t had the time or interest to follow any of this, suffice it say that in the span of a little over a month—just about the same amount of time it took Hitler’s Nazis to dismantle Germany’s democratic government and begin burning books and herding undesirables into concentration camps—Trump, Musk and the new tech bro MAGA elite have methodically and savagely implemented a process that, unless stopped, will destroy just about everything we stand for and believe in.

If you’re a Trumper, then good for you. Send me a postcard once you connect the dots and realize you’ve been duped. And if you’re not a Trumper, then please write the folks who were elected to represent you and give them a piece of your mind.

Years from now historians will debate whether America’s downfall was the result of Trump’s lying, narcissistic and authoritarian culture war divisiveness, or a milquetoast Congress that couldn’t summon the courage to put on its big boy pants and assert its proper Constitutional role. My money is on the latter. Idaho deserves courage and statesmanship at this critical moment in our history, not cowering complicity.

Douglas Siddoway farms and practices law in Fremont County.