It brings me no joy as a Republican to have to criticize another Republican, but I believe that there is a certain breach of trust that has to be condemned when it is messaged to the various Republican voters of a state. In the case of Colorado, a state where Republicans have been doing progressively worse as elections have gone on and most recently losing the Colorado Springs mayoral race last year to a Democratic-backed Independent, the emphasis should be on what can draw potential voters back to the Republican Party. What, if anything, could grow the party versus turning people away? Well, saying “God hates Pride”, comparing LGBT-related materials to demons, and using state party money to back your campaign for Congress seems like a poor way to actually grow a party that needs to appeal to a suburban, moderate crowd.
Enter Colorado GOP chairman Dave Williams, one of many fringe GOP chairs that have entered the public spotlight in the wake of Donald Trump’s domination of local GOP chapters. While I have made no doubt that I prefer Donald Trump over Joe Biden as my presidential candidate, that choice is based on risk assessment versus genuine enthusiasm. Joe Biden is genuinely incompetent whereas Donald Trump is just perennially annoying bordering on politically opportunistic. If Biden is the latter two things but bad at his job, I would rather take the man who can at least get me cheaper fast food. However, the Trumpian acolytes who have dominated down-ballot party organizations in the GOP such as state party chairs in Minnesota, (previously) Michigan, Nebraska, and Colorado have led to Republicans losing races by larger margins, forsaking possible pick-up opportunities, and embracing defeatism except in the primaries where Republicans spend more time viciously attacking one another than the egregious policy positions of Democratic politicians.
I’ve made my point about the excesses of Pride Month clear and how the good intentions of the celebration of various identities have become the predicate for various people to foment legitimate grievances against the LGBT community. While there are bad faith arguments being presented from fringe religious actors like the Westboro Baptist Church and they should not be indulged, there will be some normal people who ask how does Memorial Day get a single day regarding acts of valor such as D-Day, but sexual expression gets an entire month?
While these questions will have to be answered by cultural critics with names other than my own, they don’t, however, suddenly mean that people don’t generally support the idea of “live and let live”. If Dave Williams was as serious about his brimstone email as he believes, what incentive is there for him for then backtrack for a gay congressional candidate like Valdamar Archuleta (R-CO) who is running against Diana DeGette (D-CO) who is based in deep-blue Denver? Realistically speaking the district isn’t going to be competitive within any number of reasonable standard deviations, so Williams backtracked on his own sermon-like beliefs to try to show “party cohesion” knowing that Archuleta probably isn’t going to win and that he just alienated the hard-right evangelicals at the same time. If one is to defend that Williams made a mistake as party chair, this begs the question: what does he think the Colorado GOP believe in that most, if not all, of the party members would support calling gays “demons”?
This has serious ramifications for the presidential race. Colorado is still on the periphery of being a competitive seat in the presidential election with the rating hovering around Likely Democratic to Safe Democratic for most aggregators because of Donald Trump’s performance with Latinos in polling. If the electorate is looking at unhinged emails coming from Williams about other issues such as immigration, abortion, etc., where the conversation needs to be more tactful, those few thousand votes that could decide a close race could slip away from the GOP came (as unlikely as it may be to happen). The other issue that I find worrying is the using of state party funds to finance his own political campaign for Congress, something that other candidates for the same Colorado Springs-based congressional district haven’t had access to. This is part of my general dislike of party chairs being able to also hold congressional office, be mayors, or some other dual position of power. Either you should run a political party, or you should run for political office, but the intermingling of the two roles should be kept strictly divorced.
With all of this being said, there is supposed to be a vote that will decide if Williams will remain on as the chairman of the Colorado GOP to which I hope he is voted out for the purpose of better optics and viability of the state party. We’ll see what happens with the vote and hope for the Colorado GOP repudiating both Lauren Boebert and Dave Williams in the same night. If the state chooses both of them to be the new Congresswoman and Congressmen for their districts, will it be any wonder why the Colorado GOP lost their state for another presidential election?
Sources: Fallout from CO GOP’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric continues, Williams asked to resign (denver7.com)
RNC recognizes Pete Hoekstra as the new Michigan Republican Party chair (nbcnews.com)
Minnesota GOP ‘in ruins’ after shocking scandal – POLITICO
Republicans to call meeting on whether to oust Dave Williams as Colorado chair (yahoo.com)
https://apnews.com/article/nebraska-republican-party-primary-522edca6a334ef8200014701bcb172f1
The Conservatarian Millennial 