2 days Ago
Hindsight may be 2020, but in 2024, Donald Trump’s vision is firmly faced forward as he becomes the first president since Grover Cleveland in 1892 to reclaim the White House in a nonconsecutive second term. It’s the greatest political comeback in 132 years. Of course, Colorado didn’t contribute.
While our state is solidly blue, the country isn’t. Trump clinched 31 states and won the “popular vote” by nearly 5 million — the first Republican to achieve that milestone in two decades. Trump’s decisive win offers powerful reassurance to Republicans questioning election integrity since 2020.
This time, he claimed both the electoral and popular vote, sweeping across swing states and traditionally blue states. Let’s be honest: Those clinging to stolen-election conspiracy theories remain upset only because Kamala Harris lost. For them, keeping Trump from power means keeping their “grift” alive.
The election itself thoroughly debunked the conspiracy claims. Or are we to believe Colorado is the one state Democrats somehow managed to rig this time? Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams had the clueless audacity to send out an email claiming, “We won!” But the party’s utter shellacking reveals that the failure of Williams and his posse is complete. As of Friday morning, Trump was performing worse in Colorado than in New Jersey (down 5.
1 points) and Illinois (8.6 points) — and almost as bad as in New York (11.6).
That says it all. Williams can’t blame Dominion voting machines or Secretary of State Jena Griswold, either. Even Griswold’s egregious password leak was mitigated by numerous layers of security.
Williams ’divisive leadership only dragged Colorado Republicans like an albatross. In the 8th Congressional District, Williams was useless to Gabe Evans, who’s close behind Yadira Caraveo. Jeff Hurd scraped by in CD3 in spite of the state GOP.
Colorado was already blue, but Williams turned an uphill climb into a 14’er. The question now is, have Colorado Republicans learned their lesson? Will they finally throw out the Williams Brigade and replace them with new leadership? As for Democrats: Do they realize that incessantly calling Trump “racist,” branding him “Hitler,” labeling him an existential “threat to democracy” and mocking his supporters isn’t a winning strategy? Apparently not. “White men without college degrees are going to ruin this country,” sneered Democratic strategist Ally Sammarco on X.
On “The View,” Sunny Hostin blamed “cultural resentment,” misogyny and sexism for Harris ’defeat, while simultaneously accusing “uneducated white women” of voting “against their reproductive health freedoms.” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough also cried misogyny, claiming men “do not want a woman leading them.” Rev.
Al Sharpton took it further, blaming Black men for “some of the most misogynist” attitudes during the campaign. “A lot of Hispanic voters have problems with Black candidates and with other Hispanics that don’t like each other,” he claimed. Vox’s Zack Beauchamp fears Trump’s next term could realize his “antidemocratic dreams,” becoming “American democracy’s gravest threat since the Civil War.
” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow warned “a lot of our fellow Americans” reject our “multiracial, pluralistic society, preferring “the strong-man thing.” All this condescension misses the key point: it didn’t work before, and it won’t work now. Trump’s Hispanic support surged by 13 points in swing states, with 45% backing him compared to 32% in 2020.
He won a majority of Hispanic men (54%) and 37% of Hispanic women. In Starr County, Texas — on the Mexican border and 97.7% Hispanic — Trump flipped a 60-point loss from 2016 into a 16-point win this year, taking 75% of the vote.
Until now, Democrats had won Starr County in every presidential election since 1892 — fittingly, the year Cleveland reclaimed his office. Trump made inroads with others, too, securing 20% of Black men and winning white suburban women (51-47). In an extraordinary shift, he captured more of the under-30 vote than any GOP candidate since 2008, even edging out Harris among young men.
The social stigma against Trump is virtually gone, replaced by viral memes and video remixes of Trump soundbites. Democrats ’Trump playbook needs a serious rewrite. Insults and scare tactics aren’t working.
As bluesman Byther Smith sang, “You oughta be ashamed to treat me the way you do. You the one who’s doin ’wrong.” Alas, many Democrats persist in doubling down on the same snide rhetoric and defamatory accusations that alienated voters in the first place.
Let’s be real: Republicans may have floundered in Colorado again, but they won the electoral college, popular vote and both houses of Congress. Democrats shouldn’t dismiss that with a holier-than-thou attitude or to write off Trump’s supporters as uneducated or racist. They’d do well to follow President Joe Biden’s hopeful, unifying tone in last Thursday’s Rose Garden speech.
And therein lies the most important lesson. As we prepare for the peaceful transition of power, leaders across political boundaries must call for mutual respect and restraint. We’ve seen the cost of unchecked anger: the left’s violent riots in summer 2020, and the right’s capital riot in January 2021.
The last thing we need is a repeat. As certification of the election and the transfer of power approach, we must all put America first, temper the rhetoric and boldly move forward. For the good of the republic, let’s honor our nation’s founding principles — together — by choosing calm over chaos and discourse over division.
Jimmy Sengenberger is an investigative journalist, public speaker, and longtime local talk-radio host. Reach Jimmy online at Jimmysengenberger.com or on X (formerly Twitter) @SengCenter.
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