Let’s take it as written that I’m no P.C. softy seeking to avoid controversial positions or bend to the identity politics mobs.  Even so, I’m scratching my head that independent candidate for governor Joe Trillo would think it worthwhile to send out a press release attacking Starbucks for caving to left-wing pressure in Philadelphia:

“On three different occasions police officers, called by store management, asked the two males to leave the location because they were trespassing.  When the men refused requests to leave, they were arrested.  That’s the way it goes.  If two white men were arrested for refusing an officer’s instructions to leave, we would not be learning of this story,” Trillo said.

“I am so sick of hearing people scream the word racism every time a minority gets arrested for something unlawful.  Sorry folks, if you’re asked to leave a business’s premises, you leave.  It’s not racism, it’s what happens when you break the law,” he added.

And the relevance to Rhode Island is… what?  What would he do, as governor, to combat the scourge of liberal companies’ caving to pressure from liberal activists?  Or is he treating his run mainly as an opportunity to play pundit?

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That explanation is as good as any other, at this point.  In a press release from earlier in the week, Trillo insists:

Today, I’d like to officially and publicly set the record straight:

• I did NOT get in this race as a spoiler or to help Gina Raimondo win.
• I am NOT working with Gina Raimondo or “providing her with talking points to use against Allan Fung.
• I am NOT running to get my step-daughter a job.
• I am NOT going to back out of this race!

That would have been a good moment to pivot and explain why he is running; instead, he focused entirely on wanting to beat Fung and Raimondo.  But why?

In earlier press releases, he’s said he wants to “change the status quo,” but that’s an objective subject to multiple interpretations.  If any of those interpretations fit very well with his declaration that the Rhode Island GOP would have “blood on its hands” if it knocked Speaker Nicholas Mattiello out of the General Assembly, I’m not seeing it.