This rare Republican can't avoid being crushed — by her own party

They partied like it was 1999 in Gov. Mike Kehoe’s office this week.

Kehoe unveiled Catherine Hanaway as Missouri’s new attorney general at a news conference Tuesday in his office. Hanaway represents a major upgrade over Andrew Bailey — who was called by Donald Trump to bring his thuggery to the FBI.

Being better than Bailey is lower than any limbo bar in the world. Hanaway is a normal person with the intellect, character and résumé for the AG job. Bailey is the polar opposite in all four respects.

Hanaway is what’s known as a “normal Republican.” She also is a hard-right social conservative — especially on women’s reproductive freedom — to a degree that almost guarantees she won’t be loved in her new job by anyone to the left of Attila the Hun.

Bailey, on the other hand, is a MAGA Republican to his venomous core. And herein lies the real uncertainty about Hanaway’s path ahead.

Catherine Hanaway is most definitely a RINO in the minds of Trump’s MAGA base. That’s not my definition; it’s theirs. The point’s not even debatable.

Watching the video of Hanaway’s introductory press conference, one could easily imagine Republicans were back in 1999 or thereabouts, when Hanaway was a freshman Republican state legislator. Kehoe was in Jefferson City as well at that time, as the owner of a prominent car dealership.

Everything said Tuesday was just normal GOP fare from the previous century. Hanaway would lead with her proven toughness on crime, she’d be pro-life, she’d advance “conservative values,” she’d draw upon her proud rural roots, and she’d protect individual rights.

But the event was far more notable for what wasn’t said. That would be anything that might soothe the psycho psyches of deep red MAGA world.

There was not a single reference to the scourge of the illegal-immigrant invasion, nor sanctuary cities, nor the need for the state to cooperate with ICE. There wasn’t a single reference to supposed genital mutilation of kids, for which Bailey slandered Washington University while Hanaway sat on its Board of Trustees.

There was no talk about the need to end habeas corpus or to increase the use of National Guardsmen and even federal troops to fight crime in Missouri. Hanaway even referenced St. Louis positively without the obligatory “Democrat-run” MAGA qualification.

Asked if Trump had been consulted or otherwise had input into Hanaway’s selection, Kehoe answered with a most abrupt — and I’d say telling — firm “no.” These folks better hope video of this doesn’t get shown on the walls of Stephen Miller’s vampire cave.

Here’s the problem for Hanaway and Kehoe: MAGA didn’t die this week. And it’s not going away anytime soon in the state of Missouri.

Left to her own devices, Hanaway might perform as a solid prosecutor like she did in St. Louis as U.S. Attorney, but with deference to the political winds that blow harder through her office in Jefferson City. She’d focus on the job, with the aforementioned right-leaning politics.

But Hanaway’s not going to be left to her own devices. Not as long as Trump is president.

Trump’s ceaseless and sustained assault on democratic institutions offends the instinctive sensibilities of real Republicans almost as much as it does those on the Democratic side. Real Republicans pride themselves as the party of states’ rights and less government and more privacy — and while they haven’t lived up to that much — it’s quite another thing for RINOs to embrace full authoritarian control.

On the other hand, we’ve seen what’s happened with Hanaway’s good friend, Rep. Ann Wagner, who quite literally sold her political soul — who cares about the Epstein files and all this talk about sex trafficking stuff? — in full subservience to the rule of Trump.

It’s not a question of whether Hanaway will be called upon to sacrifice her core beliefs — just as Kehoe is preparing to do now on Trump’s gerrymandering demands — it’s a question of when.

Whether that manifests itself in endless, feed-the-base frivolous partisan lawsuits at taxpayer expense like Bailey did — or whether it might involve something more deadly and serious — a MAGA reckoning will be coming for Hanaway.

As a citizen and as someone whose early career was privileged to feature working for the wonderful Kit Bond — mine when he was governor, hers as a young Senate aide — I truly wish Hanaway well. For all our sakes.

But I wouldn’t bet against the power of Trump and MAGA in Missouri. Horrific times lie ahead.

These aren’t the good old days