Alice Knapp was the first director of the legislatively created Consumer Healthcare Division within the Maine Bureau of Insurance, was a founding board member of Maine AllCare and is a former Richmond selectman.

I detest hypocrisy, a practice historically engaged in by both Democrats and Republicans, party supporters and their critics. However, hypocrisy is off the charts with Republicans and their supporters these days during this lawless age of serial liar and authoritarian Donald Trump.

One recent breathtaking example is the July 12 Maine Sunday Telegram op-ed by Jacob Posik (“Good riddance, Graham”), identified as the political director of Maine Civic Action and the director of legislative affairs of Maine Policy Institute.

Left unsaid was that those organizations are generally understood to be right-wing advocacy groups and that the Maine Wire, published by the Maine Policy Institute, almost exclusively criticizes the political left and Democratic administrations while actively supporting conservative and Republican candidates.

Posik writes: “former partners … described abusive, intimidating and disturbing behavior during their relationships with Platner …[and o]ther women shared similar accounts with the New York Times.” Posik is referring to a June 4 New York Times report that cited interviews with six of Graham Platner’s former dating partners.

Jenny Racicot, cited in the NYT piece as providing the “reckless and unsettling” account, subsequently and to my mind credibly revealed the episode of non-consensual sex (yes, rape) that led to the implosion of Platner’s candidacy — a candidacy with which I had been all in until the most recent Racicot account.

“Good riddance, Graham,” Posik writes, ‘[w]e’re frequently lectured about the importance of character, decency and moral leadership in our politics …[and w]hen you excuse unacceptable conduct because it advances your political goals, you shouldn’t be shocked when that same conduct eventually consumes the very movement you worked hard to build.”

If only that were so.

Republicans have remained solidly behind Donald Trump despite the 27 women over the years who have stepped forward to accuse Trump of various forms of sexual misconduct, including rape, forcible kissing and groping. E. Jean Carroll won a 2023 jury verdict against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation.

Not to mention Trump’s unforgettable “Access Hollywood” serial sexual assault acknowledgment.

To his credit, Posik wrote a July 15, 2015 Maine Wire piece in which he stated in part: “[F]ew pundits … could have predicted how favorably [Trump’s] embarrassing rhetoric would affect his standing in the political polls … As exciting as Trump may be on camera, he’s already cornered the market in dull and idiotic statements … There’s a distinct line between not being afraid to say what needs to be said and saying what is simply untrue. Mexican immigrants aren’t rapists and bad people, and generalizing the entire ethnicity as such is an appalling and misguided conclusion …The truth to Trump’s campaign is how truly terrible he would be as the leader of the free world … The simple truth is that Trump is disconnected from the American public and doesn’t have the expertise to fill the office for which he’s running.”

Huh? Yet the July 12 op-ed criticizes those “who enthusiastically rally behind someone whose conduct and character are plainly unbecoming,” while failing to note the Republican Party’s continuing support for Trump, or that the Maine Wire has endorsed Bobby Charles, a staunch Trump supporter, for governor. Character, indeed.