MINOT — Imagine you're Doug Burgum.

A small-town North Dakota boy made good. He literally "bet the farm" (as he's told us ad nauseum during his various campaigns) on turning a software startup into thriving business that was ultimately bought out by Microsoft. He's made a fortune for himself as a competent and hugely successful businessman, and he launched his political career as a moderate Republican looking to cut through the political noise and get stuff done.

But then the Republican Party changed. Unfortunately, Burgum's political ambitions did not. Success in the GOP today means being a sock puppet in Donald Trump's theater of the absurd.

Burgum has become a sycophant, a toadie grasping for the next rung of the political ladder by emulating everything Trump does, from his boorish r

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