While half of American voters have stomped through the Garden of Progressive Delights, Illinois is ever more shackled by insider deal-making, special interests of the liberal kind, and an autocratic Democratic machine. Case in point: As if organized labor hasn’t wrung enough out of the nearly broke state, its largest and most radical public employee union is threatening a strike over demands that would add billions to Illinois’s red ink.

It’s as if Illinois, which gave President-elect Donald Trump a landside thrashing, was a country unto itself. Illinois voters not only gave Hillary Clinton a 16-percentage-point margin, they also dispensed with Republican incumbents Leslie Munger, the state comptroller; U.S. senator Mark Kirk; and Rep. Bob Dold, who represents the swing district on suburban Chicago’s affluent North Shore. Illinois is a blue state bobbing on a sea of red.