Utah Democrats back Evan McMullin for Senate

The Democratic Party as we once knew it has essentially ceased to exist.

Utah Democrats had a candidate to challenge Republican Sen. Mike Lee in November. It's not as if Democrats in Utah are better than anywhere else, as they hopelessly botched the COVID response in the Salt Lake City area – but then again, Republicans botched it to an extent in the rest of the state. But now Utah Democrats have voted at their convention to ditch the Democratic candidate for Senate and instead support independent Evan McMullin.

McMullin ran for President in 2016, painting himself as a "respectable" conservative, in contrast to Donald Trump. By all accounts, McMullin is no progressive, and he probably wouldn't have been a major Democratic candidate 30 years ago. The Democrats back then were enough of a big tent party that they might have nominated candidates of differing policy stances – but not someone who flat-out wasn't a Democrat.

Any Utah voter who is legitimately a Democrat or outside the conservative fold is now finding themselves with no candidate to vote for. Of course, with the Democratic Party being the twisted mess it is now, this isn't unique to Utah, as Democratic candidates have inched more and more into what would have been considered right-wing authoritarianism just a few years ago. I'm also accustomed to local races where there is often no Democratic candidate, because corrupt Democratic party bosses often make backroom deals with the Republicans to let the GOP run unopposed. This story also reminds me of that congressional race in Hawaii some years ago where right-wing Democrats fielded their own candidate to split the Democratic vote and "prove" that more liberal candidates couldn't win. But at least these events aren't such an obvious concession as what happened in Utah where the Democrats actually backed a separate conservative candidacy of someone who isn't even a Democrat.

Democratic "leaders" don't give a damn about anyone except themselves and their corporate allies.