🧵 Across the country this week, voters sided with fascism,...
Quentin Young@qpyoungnews
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Nov 09, 2024
~3 min read
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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.
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.
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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.
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Given the results in the state Tuesday, Colorado is positioned to stand as one of the nation’s bulwarks against abuses from a darkened Washington.
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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. But Coloradans gave Harris — the sane, democracy-minded candidate — an 11-point victory.
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Some of the details of how the state defied America’s red shift are notable. 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, Boebert country, of all places.
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If any race in Colorado was a local test of the right’s ascendancy, it was in CD8, one of the nation’s handful of toss-ups. The Democrat looks to have done better there than in 2022.
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The ballot measure policy choices of Coloradans also establish their fortitude in the face of rights-stripping Republican priorities:
✅abortion rights
✅repeal same-sex marriage ban
✅excise tax on guns
✅abortion rights
✅repeal same-sex marriage ban
✅excise tax on guns
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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.
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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. He dubbed the plan Operation Aurora.
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Operation Aurora 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.
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An estimated 156K undocumented immigrants live in Colorado. And Trump will find countless political opponents in Colorado. The state as a whole rejects his platform. How will the state protect residents from his attacks?
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Gov. @jaredpolis owes Coloradans an explanation of the state’s role in countering a Trump-led assault on them. His spox said he wouldn't let CONG "carry out extralegal" missions. But he must detail what he’ll do as head of an anti-Trump state to protect it from imminent outrages.
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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.
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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.
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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.
