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The Price of Public Service in an Age of Hate
RealClear Politics ^ | ovember 11, 2025 | Melinda Henneberger

Posted on 11/11/2025 1:30:38 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum

How bad could it be to earn $174,000 a year in what’s increasingly a no-show job? One that’s exceedingly tough to do well but that any fool can do poorly, often with no consequences, since once you’ve been there for a couple of years, you can probably hold on forever? 

Very bad, as it happens. So much so that another true public servant, moderate Democrat Jared Golden of Maine, just announced that he will not be seeking another term in Congress. Golden, who left college to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps after 9/11 and served combat tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq, said the threats to his young family’s safety have to be taken seriously. 

This is not the old “stepping away to spend more time with his family.” No, this is, in part, a decision to protect his loved ones. That’s something everyone in public life has to think about now.  

Golden and his wife and their two daughters spent last Thanksgiving holed up in a hotel after a bomb threat to their home. Five other Democratic members of Congress and several people that President-elect Donald Trump had chosen to serve in his cabinet and administration were also targeted with bomb threats and swatting over that same holiday weekend.

The Blue Dog Democrat had lots of ideas about reforming Congress – you remember Congress, right? – to make it work again, but that, alas, was a losing effort. And political life on and off Capitol Hill had become ever-meaner and more joyless as well as downright dangerous.  

In the Bangor Daily News op-ed announcing his decision, Golden wrote, “I have grown tired of the increasing incivility and plain nastiness that are now common from some elements of our American community – behavior that, too...”

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: democrats; violence

1 posted on 11/11/2025 1:30:38 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

The screed of a rat lamenting the society she helped create and claiming the problem is on “both sides” while her compatriots in VA happily vote for a man who wants to murder our children.


2 posted on 11/11/2025 1:39:20 PM PST by RightOnTheBorder
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

A “moderate” Democrat is like a “moderate” muslim. Radical Democrats and muslims want you dead. Moderate Democrats and muslims will just stand by and watch you die.


3 posted on 11/11/2025 1:45:51 PM PST by Noumenon (They killed the guy who just wanted to talk. Now... now they've got me. KTF)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Stop saying service. In reality it’s SELF service.


4 posted on 11/11/2025 1:47:18 PM PST by Lizavetta
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

This is why good people don’t get involved in politics, and our only choices are a turd sandwich or a giant douche.

If you are successful in the private sector, why put yourself and your family through all the crap?

That’s why I admire Trump. He didn’t need this. People loved Trump before he went political, especially black people.


5 posted on 11/11/2025 1:49:10 PM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley: Tell us about it.

Along with many others.

McKinley was extending his hand to an onlooker in a crowded room and was shot.

“In pain, as he collapsed after being shot, William McKinley told his personal secretary, George Cortelyou, to “be careful how you tell my wife,” and later his words were reported as, “My wife, be careful, Cortelyou, how you tell her—oh, be careful,” a statement reflecting his lifelong concern for his frail wife, Ida.”
Died painfully of sepsis and gangrene days later with one bullet still inside despite his doctors’ misdiagnosis.
Leon Czolgosz said he shot President William McKinley because he believed McKinley was the “enemy of the people, the good working people” and that one man having so much power while others had none was wrong. Czolgosz was influenced by socialist and anarchist ideas and saw the president as the symbol of a corrupt and unjust government.


6 posted on 11/11/2025 1:53:42 PM PST by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: Lizavetta

Like Pelosi and McConnell and so many others, they work at their careers to help——help themselves to millions from favors, graft, fraud and misappropriation of funds to numbered bank accounts offshore.


7 posted on 11/11/2025 1:56:48 PM PST by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Public service, my ass.
8 posted on 11/11/2025 2:02:24 PM PST by ComputerGuy
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To: frank ballenger

Then there was Squeaky Fromme.


9 posted on 11/11/2025 2:04:56 PM PST by dfwgator ("I am Charlie Kirk!")
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To: Noumenon

They are moderate but still vote to advance the communist democrat agenda and leaders.


10 posted on 11/11/2025 2:49:24 PM PST by packrat35 (“When discourse ends, violence begins.” – Charlie Kirk, and they killed him anyway)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Very bad, as it happens. So much so that another true public servant...

Gawd I hate that term .... they only serve themselves! Looks at Pelosi and Biden who over their years. of public service have acquired generational wealth. Public graft is more accurate.

I would say to Rep Golden, good riddance! If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen.

11 posted on 11/11/2025 2:54:02 PM PST by Rummyfan (Ok In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support lthe civilized man.👨 so t tv)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

He went to DC to “do good” and ended up “doing well.” Go on and take the money and run.


12 posted on 11/11/2025 3:07:28 PM PST by Henry Hnyellar
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