Do y’all remember when folks with kooky ideas were mostly just fun? Sure, they thought aliens built the pyramids. And maybe they were convinced that the Illuminati were secretly controlling the world. But those ideas were easy to dismiss because we collectively understood that information that couldn’t be verified was essentially fiction. Unfortunately, this kind of fun kooky persona has evolved into something far more sinister. Now, we face real world danger based on wild and unsubstantiated lies. What’s more, we’ve learned that simply being an elected official does not indicate a person is sane, stable, or even capable of good judgment.

Enter Jeremy Trebas, former House Rep and current candidate for Senate District 13. Trebas is facing off against Democrat Casey Schreiner. To be clear, I didn’t support Schreiner in his previous bid for Governor, and I don’t consider Schreiner to be a progressive. I don’t live in District 13 so I have no personal stake in this matter. I just think Trebas is really, really stupid, and the folks in his district deserve to know that.

Trebas’ concerns and areas of focus have become increasingly odd, to say the least. Most recently, Trebas spoke out in support of the Montana woman who killed and skinned a husky. An odd position to take, because loving dogs is perhaps the only truly a-political position Montanans all share. We’re dog people, even those of us who don’t hunt. Hunters too, shared a state-wide shiver seeing the innocent animal skinned and paraded as if this woman hadn’t just murdered a household pet.

In a surprising show of tenacity, Schreiner recently shared a number of Trebas’ more concerning posts. Among them, Trebas criticized Malmstrom’s Pride Month celebrations equating the events to “parad[ing] mental illness and degeneracy.” Perhaps Trebas is unaware that the military community includes service members that are also LGBTQ+? Does he view these service members as degenerates as well?

In conjunction with Trebas’ well-documented bigotry, he has vocally joined forces with another vile and destructive propagator of human pain, much like himself. That’s right, Candidate Trebas is here to tell us that we should all be kinder to- Polio. No, really. A resurfaced post of Trebas states, “There was no need for the polio vaccine.”  Personally, I respect Trebas’ bodily autonomy (even if he doesn’t respect mine). Therefore I am totally okay with Trebas needlessly catching polio. But to argue that we didn’t need a vaccine for a disease that was killing and paralyzing kids? That’s heartless. Even for an anti-choice, anti-puppy, homophobic Republican.

So to close: Trebas is PRO shooting huskies and ANTI polio vaccine. Let’s hope he includes this info on his next mailer.