The Paranoid Style in American Politics
First, statistics from the Colorado Secretary of State Active Voter Registration data.
| For the period: 2/2/2023 to 10/1/2023 | Unaffiliated Active Voter Registration – +/- for the period | Democrat Active Voter Registration – +/- for the period | Republican Active Voter Registration – +/- for the period |
| Statewide | +6.1% | -.156% | -.173% |
| Park County | +5.8% | +1.9% | +.23% |
| As of 10/1/2023 | Unaffiliated Active Voter % of Total | Democrat Active Voter % of Total | Republican Active Voter % of Total |
| Statewide | 47.5% | 26.9% | 23.7% |
| Park County | 47.7% | 17.3% | 32.5% |
Assuming my math is correct, the chart tells the story. Unaffiliated active voters in Colorado are not only nearly 50% of the total electorate in the state but in Park County as well. Statistics alone do not indicate which side of the political spectrum Unaffiliated voters occupy. All the statistics should reveal to any reasonable person is blind, lockstep devotion to either of the two major parties, their platforms, and their bylaws is ill-advised. Ill-advised, that is, if one is interested in winning elections in Colorado or Park County.
Notably, the movement from the two major parties in Park County to Unaffiliated status mirrors the statewide migration.
Now, to the point.
The reconstitution of the Colorado Republican Party did not begin with Dave Williams, its current chair. Nor even with Kristi Burton Brown, Williams’ predecessor. (Burton Brown did, however, provide a peek into where the party was headed. In her book, “Do Justice: Practical Ways to Engage Our World,” she says God put us in this world, but we are not of this world. “Our goal is not to be accepted by the world,” she says, “but to introduce the world to the Savior.”)
Whatever the evolution is of the reconstituted Colorado Republican Party—I believe it’s genetic, but that’s another story—it is today the party of unreality, the Big Lie, Christian Nationalism, Trump, demagoguery, and, above all, the politics of paranoia.
Paranoia.
Indeed, despite the statistics, the reconstituted Colorado Republicans under Williams believe it is in their best interests to deny Unaffiliated voters the opportunity to participate in Republican primary races. Williams believes in a purity test for primaries, i.e., only the genuinely red 23.7% of Colorado voters should choose Republican candidates to run in general elections. His solution was to offer the reconstituted Colorado GOP Central Committee earlier this month a proposal to opt out of primaries altogether, something allowed by Proposition 108 if 75% of the committee supported it. Only 65% supported it, so it failed.
But Williams and the reconstituted Colorado Republican party went a step further.
State law provides that any candidate can access the primary ballot by either earning enough party-member support during the caucus and assembly process or by collecting enough petition signatures from voters in the party.
The reconstituted Colorado GOP’s paranoia, however, engenders the fear of any deviation from their lockstep embracement of the Big Lie, Christian Nationalism, Trump, and demagoguery, and therefore, anyone who dares petition onto the ballot is ipso facto impure, a RINO, a traitor.
They’ve revised Article III, Section C of their bylaws, which used to provide party officers couldn’t endorse or oppose any Republican before a primary election. In the party’s best interests, they were obliged to stay neutral. Not anymore.
The revised bylaws now provide that party honchos have no obligation to remain neutral when two or more Republicans are running for a primary spot. They may now oppose any candidate who makes it to the primary ballot without going through the assembly process. Relying on We, the People, through a petition process rather than lockstep conformance to the party apparatchik, thus bypassing the ideologically pure assembly process reeks of adulteration, treason, and RINOISM.
Paranoia.
If Williams and the reconstituted Colorado GOP intend to make Colorado Red, they will fail. They have forsaken the Party of Lincoln for the Party of Trump. Indeed, many in the reconstituted assemblage of uncompromising theocratic demagogues say nuts to Trump. It’s God they’re trumpeting. It’s Dominionism they’re after, not democracy, not republicanism.
The reconstituted Park County GOP (Chaired by Amy Mitchell, who also chairs the Park County Board of Commissioners) is not unlike the reconstituted state organization. In fact, it appears to be the epitome of it. In fact, it may prove to be even more paranoid.
Absolute fealty to unbending ideological claptrap, to authoritarianism, to demagoguery, to a personality rather than an ideal is the stuff of paranoia. It was/is the stuff of Nazism. It was/is the stuff of Communism.
“As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated–if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.”
― Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics
