Opinion: Keep on Rockin’ in the (Colorado) Free World

Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park (U.S. Park Service photo).

Across the country this week, voters sided with fascism, criminality and schoolyard cruelty.

But the picture is different in Colorado, which in the election Tuesday showed unusual resistance to America’s drift toward authoritarianism.

Pockets of Trumpist energy do mar the state. But while disconsolation befell so much of America as a vengeful autocrat claimed a mandate to lead the country, Coloradans who still value the Constitution and cherish democracy had some reason to feel righteous. And, given results in the state Tuesday, Colorado is positioned to stand as one of the nation’s bulwarks against abuses from a darkened Washington.

Republican former President Donald Trump ran on a platform of lies, grievance, racism, misogyny, xenophobia and demagoguery — and somehow that earned him the popular vote Tuesday as well as an Electoral College victory. Coloradans, however, gave the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris — the sane, democracy-minded candidate — a landslide victory. She beat Trump in the state with an 11-percentage point margin, according to preliminary results as of Thursday morning. That’s down from President Joe Biden’s 14-point victory in the state, but it shows the state’s comparative resiliency against the fascist menace.

Some of the details of how the state defied America’s red shift are notable. Across the country, even in blue strongholds like California and New York, voters veered hard to the right. One of the few regions that went the opposite way was the Western Slope. This is the 3rd Congressional District, represented in the U.S. House by far-right election denier Lauren Boebert. Boebert won reelection this week, but only because she moved across the state to its deepest red district, the 4th. Mesa County, the 3rd’s most populous county and home of Tina Peters, the election-denying former county clerk who’s now in jail for her role in an election-security breach, lurched left 6 percentage points.

If any race in Colorado was a local test of the right’s ascendancy, it was in the 8th Congressional District, one of the nation’s handful of toss-ups. As of Thursday morning, The Associated Press had yet to call the race, but the incumbent Democrat, Yadira Caraveo, had maintained a convincing 0.9%-point lead. If that holds, it would give her a slightly higher margin of victory against the Republican challenger than in 2022.

The policy choices of Coloradans also establish their fortitude in the face of rights-stripping Republican priorities. They resoundingly chose to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution by approving Amendment 79. They repealed a same-sex marriage ban in the state constitution, even though it was inoperative, just to make absolutely sure it could do no harm in the future. They took a significant step toward further gun violence prevention, by passing an excise tax on guns and ammunition.

This all positions Colorado as a rare model of resistance against the MAGA scourge. But the state is far from insulated from the grave risks sure to come from a Trump regime.

The centerpiece of Trump’s campaign was his promise to undertake mass deportations of millions of immigrants, and in October he made Aurora the centerpiece of that plan. His attention had turned to Aurora after local Republican officials amplified baseless claims that Venezuelan gang members had taken over parts of the city. But Trump, never deterred by truth, announced during a hate-heavy rally at the Gaylord Rockies Center that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act to pursue deportations around the country, and he dubbed the plan Operation Aurora.

His campaign said deportations would involve deploying National Guard forces to round up millions of undocumented residents and place them in mass detention camps. He also wants to use Guard troops against domestic political opponents.

An estimated 156,000 undocumented immigrants live in Colorado, out of a total estimated 11 million in the country. Trump will find countless political opponents in Colorado, and the state as a whole rejects his platform. How will the state protect residents from his attacks?

Gov. Jared Polis owes Coloradans an explanation of the state’s role in countering a Trump-led assault on them. Last month, a spokesperson for Polis, in response to a question from Newsline, said, “Governor Polis would not support the use of the Colorado National Guard to carry out extralegal uses such as those the former president appears to be advocating for.” Now that Trump will actually have the power to carry out his diabolical plans, that’s not enough. Polis must articulate in detail what he’ll do as the chief executive of an anti-Trump state to protect it from imminent outrages.

In a statement Wednesday congratulating Trump, Polis, referring to “the Free State of Colorado,” again suggested he’ll take protective action. “We will do everything in our power to protect Coloradans and their freedoms,” he said. 

Good to hear. But that falls short as a message of solidarity with the tens of thousands of Colorado residents who in a matter of months could be targeted by a tyrant for their immigration status, political views or even mere disloyalty to the MAGA personality cult.

In the face of danger, even if state leaders come to their aid, Coloradans, by organizing and speaking out, must also take responsibility for their own rights and physical protection. That’s what happens in a democracy. That’s the way it’s done in a free state.

Editor’s note: The opinion column first appeared on Colorado Newsline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and X.