Colorado is ready for the return of the Big Lie. It never really went away, after all. It was just sort of muted after more than 60 courts across the country ruled unequivocally that the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was fair and accurate, and it was all a giant con.

But it’s an election year and potential losers are hedging their bets, so the Big Lie is making a comeback tour.

Addressing it is a little like playing whack-a-mole — you have to keep knocking back the weirdness wherever it pops up. But here in Colorado we have what it takes to bring the hammer down.

If you don’t believe it, just ask Tina Peters, former Mesa County clerk who last week was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors in connection with her efforts to manufacture evidence in support of the Big Liar.

The message is clear: we don’t mess around when it comes to election fraud. The Peters case is a high-profile example of how the state holds elections officials accountable to protect the integrity of the process. 

So, when Trump went off on Truth Social last week, saying all-mail voting was brought about by Gov. Jared Polis and has made Colorado “a POLITICAL CESSPOOL where, even if you were leading, it would make no difference!”, it unleashed a storm of righteous outrage.

Kyle Clark, the 9News anchor, promptly dissected Trump’s rantings, noting that mail-in voting was instituted as a result of a bipartisan effort dating to years before Polis was elected governor and it was “implemented by a Republican secretary of state.” 

Clark also noted that the Heritage Foundation, hardly a leftie bunch, had uncovered only 15 cases of voter fraud in the 10 years since mail-in voting began in Colorado. 

“The two most prominent cases were a former GOP chair and a man suspected of killing his wife who admitted casting her ballot for Trump,” he said.

Both were apprehended and prosecuted.

Catching cheaters is one strategy for ensuring free and fair elections in Colorado, but there are several others. 

Secretary of State Jena Griswold said protecting elections involves a galaxy of programs to ensure the integrity of the process. They include using paper ballots because they “can’t be hacked,” maintaining the security surrounding vote-counting equipment, having a strict chain of custody of all ballots and equipment, doing background checks on election workers, launching a cyber command center to counter any potential threats to systems, and assembling bipartisan teams to test equipment and oversee voting audits.

Still, she knows there always will be skeptics and doubters.

With all the disinformation that has been circulating about mail ballots since 2016, “it has shaken some people’s confidence,” she said. “We may not be able to convince everybody, but we want to make sure there’s enough good information out there.”

It seems to be working. Ninety percent of voters use mail-in ballots, she said.

But the hostile minority who have embraced the disinformation circulating from foreign adversaries and sore losers in this country can wreak real havoc. 

The Big Lie has incited a torrent of violent threats against elections officials and poll workers in Colorado. 

In the past year, Griswold alone has received more than 900 threats over bogus election fraud accusations. For this and other reasons, the state has seen a 38% turnover rate in county clerks since 2020.

The secretary of state’s office has created a $5 million fund for security personnel to protect county officials from people trying to disrupt elections and to apprehend those who attempt to harm people or the process. 

It’s a crime in Colorado to threaten election workers. It’s also against the law to carry firearms openly at polling places or where ballots are being processed. 

“It can get really scary,” Griswold said. “No person should have to face death threats for doing their jobs.”

The system that Trump flagrantly, deceptively mischaracterizes as a “CESSPOOL” is one of the most respected elections operations in the country, dubbed “the gold standard” by the League of Women Voters.

Every registered voter is checked for eligibility, Griswold said, and every signature on every ballot is checked to make sure only one ballot is cast per registered voter. The state is also part of an interstate compact that compares ballots to make sure no one is voting more than once.

“If we find any indication of double-voting, it’s referred for prosecution,” she said, “but it’s extremely rare.”

Nobody takes that for granted, though. It requires constant vigilance. 

The pressure is intense on every county clerk and every election worker to ensure each voter is eligible and every vote is counted. Protecting elections requires the willingness to hold every scofflaw, every cheat, every bad actor accountable.

Which brings us back to Tina Peters, the most recent example that the system is working.

Her sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 3. We could see her in an orange jumpsuit by Election Day 2024.

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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The sisterhood is facing 97 more days of brutal misogyny. Fasten your seatbelts, my friends, there’s dangerous turbulence ahead.

We’ve endured it for centuries, of course, but it always gets worse when the creepy, creaky old guard gets nervous. And my oh my, the wave of popular support for Kamala Harris in the past month has them palpitating, red-faced and flummoxed.

They were already feeling uneasy. It was obvious. I mean, they even invited a 70-year-old former WrestleMania knucklehead to speak at their convention to help them look less flaccid — and that was before the charismatic Harris emerged as their challenger. 

It’s not her political ideology, her experience or her politics, but rather who she is that makes them so determined to exploit America’s lurid history of sexism and racism for naked political gain. 

It’s pathetic, of course, but it’s just the latest chapter in a long tradition of tactical bigotry going back at least to the days when Nixon’s “Southern strategy” and George H.W. Bush’s racist Willie Horton ads were employed with such unapologetic glee.

And face it, the mere existence of women candidates makes these arrogant critics of so-called identity politics go absolutely nuts with identity politics of their own.

Over the years we’ve seen them launch relentless attacks on women, including hostility and violence aimed at Nancy Pelosi, arguably the country’s most gifted and successful House speaker; disgusting sexualized insults targeting Hillary Clinton when she was in the Senate and running for president; the nastiness aimed at Liz Cheney because she refused to sacrifice her integrity to the MAGA hordes; the blatant disrespect shown toward Pat Schroeder, who was criticized way back when for, among so many other things, serving in Congress while being a mother. 

Somehow it made all these women so much stronger — and their supporters so much angrier.

So, this election season, we’re looking at a tough, canny, battle-tested and motivated segment of our population facing off against a bunch of spoiled, entitled frat boys with bad haircuts and puerile attitudes.

And it’s guaranteed to be an uphill fight. The old guard has rallied a cavalcade of tax-evading billionaires to finance its campaign to keep their grip on power and money forever.

But they’re facing a surge of new energy and, so far, the strategy to rally racists and misogynists has come off as just another sign of weakness in the hoary old boys’ network. 

And the backlash to it has been awesome to behold.

Consider the explosive viral response to the Trump campaign’s effort to ridicule Harris for her mention of her mom’s “coconut tree” comment about how each person lives in the full context of their lives and those who came before them. 

Trump pushed out the clip of her comments and called her “Laffin’ Kamala Harris.” 

Instead of an insult, it became a rallying cry.

Then, in addition to the coconut tree memes taunting Trump, a whole line of coconut tree campaign merch quickly appeared along with the widespread public awareness that apparently no one has ever heard him laugh. Think about it.

Then there was JD Vance’s “childless cat ladies” remark that mobilized tens of millions of American women who, for a whole range of perfectly admirable reasons, don’t have children. 

Once again, thanks to Vance, “The Handmaid’s Tale” was featured in characterizations of the Republican Party’s approach to women as breeding stock and the resulting commentaries and memes were spectacular. Through it all the VP candidate hasn’t even had the sense to back away from his preening misogyny. He embraces it.

Thanks to him, Taylor Swift doesn’t need to endorse Harris. She’s the face on the most prominent childless cat lady meme of all — and given the speed with which they are lighting up social media, that’s saying something.

Then there’s Trump at a meeting of the Association of Black Journalists last week questioning Harris’ racial identity. “I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black and now she wants to be known as Black,” he said to a roomful of astonished Black reporters. 

His ignorance of the facts is, as usual, breathtaking.

Harris’ father is Black, from Jamaica, an emeritus professor of economics at Stanford. Her mother, born in India, encouraged her to embrace her Black identity as a child. Harris, who was born in California, attended Howard University, pledged the Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, and was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus when she was in the U.S. Senate. 

Jeez, don’t you love it when an old rich white guy tries to tell us who’s Black and who isn’t?

Obviously, none of these tactics should come as a surprise to anybody who has observed the political scene. It’s business as usual and Harris has seen plenty of it.

On a recent campaign call with prominent Colorado Democratic leaders, State Rep. Leslie Herod spoke of a conversation she’d had with Harris last spring.

“She told me, ‘As women, when you break glass ceilings, you get cut. Do it anyways. It’s worth it.’ ” 

Clearly, this isn’t the polite women’s movement of the Geraldine Ferraro era anymore. The insults, the abuse, the disrespect, the attacks on our freedom in recent years have galvanized women. In the wake of the Dobbs decision and the realization that we have so much more to lose, we’ve never been more motivated or better prepared to respond to it all.

“This is not gonna be an easy election,” Herod said. “There will be glass flying, because we are gonna shatter that glass ceiling, but we need each and every one of us to be involved. … She is not gonna win this thing alone. She is gonna win it with every single one of us behind her.”

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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In the spirit of Trump’s call for national unity, I have decided to begin tentatively reaching across the political divide. No, this doesn’t mean I’m ready to endorse Lauren Boebert. I’m still me. 

But it’s clear we can’t go on living in this state of constant turmoil and mutual hostility, especially since we’ll all be living in Donald Trump’s America soon because the Democrats apparently are willing to cede the entire federal government to the MAGA movement to assuage Joe Biden’s delicate ego. 

Leaving the comfortable bubble of like-minded friends and hanging with people who drive large vehicles with gun racks and bumper stickers calling for civil war is terrifying. (A tip: if somebody packing heat asks you how you voted on wolf reintroduction, run.)

My first venture into this territory was entirely accidental. 

I recently attended a rodeo in Fraser with friends and family members. It was supposed to be fun.

It started innocently enough with the national anthem and rousing tributes to the various branches of the U.S. armed forces. We all appreciate the military and I guess a rodeo is as good a place as any to show a little love.

Then the dude in the broadcast booth reminded us how lucky we are to live in a country founded on freedom of religion. The founding fathers, you’ll recall, were especially devoted to freedom from state-sponsored religion, which he failed to mention. But, well, never mind. 

It turned out it was just a warm-up to an extended Christian prayer over the loudspeaker.  

Trying hard to be open-minded, I figured it must be standard practice for a sporting event that involves young people being tossed on their heads, stomped by large bovine creatures and rolled over by pissed-off horses.

You never know when it might have to serve as a substitute for the last rites if things go horribly wrong, I thought. 

Can I have an amen, my bronco-busting brothers? 

The events finally began. A rodeo queen and her princesses galloped by looking regal with their tiaras stuck on their cowgirl hats. Bareback riders were tossed to the dirt and scrambled to escape with their lives if not their hats. Calves were roped and tied more or less. Sheep threw toddlers off their backs to fulsome applause from proud parents.

And between the riders, filling the endless intermissions when absolutely nothing was happening in the ring was the chatter between a clown — I think his name was Billy — and the arena announcer who had just led us all in prayer. 

The duo specialized in unabashed misogyny with tasteless insults to their wives, blondes, mothers-in-law and women in general. 

A barely veiled reference to the n-word also was considered hilarious. 

There was Denver-bashing, California-bashing, woke-bashing … you get the picture. 

We stayed almost to the end, though I’d had enough of it after the first fat mother-in-law riff from the creepy so-called clown.

The grandchildren pronounced the commentary rude and the rodeo boring. 

As for bridging the cultural divide, I’d call this an epic failure.

My next attempt to find common ground was more successful, and actually gives me some small hope.

I was visiting old friends at their house on the Jersey shore, which is Trump country all the way. T-shirts, yard signs, bumper stickers all convey the message in case you arrive unprepared.

The next-door neighbors were Timmy and Linda who, having been forewarned that Democrats would be stinking up the neighborhood, still wrapped us in warm hugs and told us to use the house, sleep in the guest room, help ourselves to the drinks in the fridge.

They immediately invited us to join them on their boat for a tour of the area and dinner at a dockside restaurant. And they agreed to remove their Trump flag from the back of the boat to make us feel more comfortable.

I’m not kidding even a little.

We joined them on their patio over beers where Fox News was on the TV in the background. We laughed and joked around and never strayed into discussions of politics. Honestly, there was no need.

Over appetizers at the restaurant on July 13, bulletins flooded our phones and the TVs overhead with the news that a bullet had glanced Trump’s ear at a rally in Pennsylvania. All of us were horrified. Timmy and Linda were shocked and saddened, but never expressed even a whiff of vitriol toward anyone. 

In those first uncertain minutes, we were standing together in fear for the country and ourselves.

We motored back to the house under a moonlit sky, listening to Frank Sinatra on the stereo and talking about our kids. 

While the night at the rodeo reinforced every awful stereotype, the weekend at the Jersey shore upended any narrow view of the Trump faithful.

Maybe Linda and Timmy are exceptional. But at least now I know not everybody in a MAGA hat wants to lock up Joe Biden, burn down every abortion clinic and poop in the Capitol rotunda.

It’s not much, but it’s a start.

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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Several of Colorado’s Democratic Party insiders say they are through coddling Joe Biden. His reelection campaign effectively ended with his disastrous June 27 debate performance. There’s no sugarcoating it.

“There were essentially three things he needed to do in that debate,” said Curtis Hubbard, principal at OnSight Public Affairs, a political consulting and public policy firm in Denver. He needed to present a vision for the next four years. He needed to remind people that Trump is a liar, a convicted felon and a threat to democracy. And he needed to ease people’s anxieties about his age.

He failed completely on the first two, he said, and “catastrophically” on the third.

“You had a guy who lied blatantly for 90 minutes,” Hubbard said, “and he was deemed winner of the debate. I mean how f—ing bad is your performance.”

So, if Biden withdraws, are the party leaders capable of pulling off a change this late in the campaign? I mean, we’re talking about Democrats.

One Democratic leader who has served as a past convention super delegate said, “It’s bananas” to think the Democrats “will join hands and anoint a new candidate they all can agree on” in the next month. It won’t happen.

Hubbard remains unequivocal: they have no choice.

“It’s important to remember that it was the Biden campaign that pitched the debate this early in the process. They knew what was at stake. Then he went out and sh** the bed. So, it’s on them.”

We’re not switching horses, said the former super delegate. “Joe Biden is our horse. There’s no other option.”

But others disagree strenuously.

They say the Democrats need to face facts and persuade Biden to pass the torch, take a valedictory lap at the convention in August and retire to Wilmington to write a memoir.

Hubbard compared the situation to the painful conversations so many of us have had with elderly parents when it’s time to take away the car keys.

“It’s not easy, but you have to do it before a tragedy happens. In this case, if Biden stays in the race, we risk the election of a criminal fascist who has now been given a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Supreme Court.

“This is not hyperbole.”

Another Colorado Democratic Party insider who spoke on condition of anonymity noted that the Biden campaign’s response in the 72 hours after the debate on its own was revealing.

If they really had confidence in their candidate, the consultant said, after a bad debate you would “flood the zone,” getting the candidate on morning news shows, late-night talk shows, interviews with newspaper editorial page editors and barnstorming the country.

Biden doing a couple of scripted events and then spending the weekend with his family at Camp David was not a good look.

What many of the Democratic leaders were doing after the debate, Hubbard said, “was asking people to shut their mouths, cover their eyes and ears” and pretend they didn’t see what happened on national TV. “It was gaslighting.”

He said he was surprised by the morning-after “circling the wagons” by party leaders instead of encouraging an “honest conversation.”

OK, but it’s late in the game, and a presidential campaign is a huge undertaking even when a candidate has years to raise funds and prepare. That reluctance to abandon the candidate at this point is understandable, right?

Sure, Hubbard said, it will be tough to make such a radical move, but “it cannot get any worse than it is right now.”

Biden’s chances of beating Trump were 50-50 going into the debate and only got worse. Post-debate polls have just started to dribble in but worries about his age — even among loyalists — have exploded. A poll released on Wednesday found Biden had slipped to six points behind Trump.

And while there are no easy answers, there is a clear path forward.

Never mind the long list of potential Democratic standard-bearers, many insiders say, the likeliest and most viable candidate is the vice president, Kamala Harris. She would inherit Biden’s war chest and his 50-state campaign apparatus. She’s been tested on the campaign trail for a year. The delegates could be expected to transfer their support from Biden-Harris to a Harris-Somebody Else ticket.

“Enthusiasm in this election is at rock bottom,” Hubbard said. “It was even before the debate.” If Biden drops out, “it opens the door to possibility, promise, even the kind of hope for the future that harkens back to Obama in 2008.

“The choice no longer would be just voting for the lesser of two evils” as it is now in so many voters’ minds, he said. “It would be good versus evil.”

The consensus among many insiders is that beating Trump is “more likely” with a new candidate than with Biden, who they say has failed to provide a clear vision for the future.

A new candidate would inject optimism and energy into what has become a moribund slog to election day.

Still, the experienced convention super delegate worries that Harris can’t win in a country as racist and sexist as the U.S. in 2024.

“We couldn’t even elect a white woman in 2016,” the insider said.

The others admitted that bigotry among the voters in the MAGA era is a real issue, but they envisioned a number of scenarios that could emerge to neutralize the problem.

One intriguing possibility is that far-right bigots could be counted on to hit the streets “carrying their torches” and so offend the rest of the country that a backlash would propel Harris to victory.

Also, the flip side of the concern about white racism, Hubbard said, is that Democrats need the support of African American voters to win. “If Kamala Harris can rally them, it could be really powerful.”

A key element would be who becomes her running mate.

It will have to be someone who can win in the battleground states, they all said, and “it would have to be an attack dog like no other,” according to Hubbard. “We need someone who can call BS, break through the lies and not allow Trump’s constant lying to be normalized.”

On this everyone agreed.

And the insiders said the party has to be better about highlighting Biden’s successes — for the sake of the president and anyone who might take his place on the ballot.

President Biden has been “highly successful by any measure,” one insider said.  

“He’s done more for the environment than any president in the last 40 years,” another said.

Ultimately, history will judge him favorably, but as with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, his legacy could be destroyed by Donald Trump if he insists on trying to stay in the job too long.

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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Colorado’s 4th Congressional District is predictably, intentionally a gimme for Republicans. It’s roughly 80% white and mostly rural and suburban. Only 17.7% of voters are registered Democrats while 37.1% are Republicans and a whopping 43.6% are unaffiliated.

But while nobody’s betting the farm on an upset, things are a whole lot more interesting in the flatlands this year than anybody might have anticipated before Ken Buck fled the dysfunctional U.S. House of Representatives to save his sanity in March.

This time it’s not the sleepy ho-hum election season as in the days when traditional conservatives Buck and Cory Gardner coasted to easy victories with little drama. No, this year it’s an unhinged MAGA spectacle on steroids.

So, fasten your seatbelts. These next few days before the June 25 primary surely will be a wild ride.

The best way to evaluate the options on the ballot is with the words of the candidates, and in advance of the election, The Sun has provided a convenient spreadsheet of their stated views on various issues.

Six candidates are vying for the Republican nomination: Richard Holtorf, Mike Lynch, Deborah Flora, Jerry Sonnenberg, Peter Yu and the runaway favorite given her name recognition, war chest and raunchy bad-girl appeal, Lauren Boebert.

On the ultimate litmus test: whether they will vote for the convicted felon and rapist Donald Trump for president, all of the candidate unequivocally said “Yes.”

Not a Liz Cheney-style profile in courage among them.

Still, this is pretty much where the unanimity ends, although they all appear to be climate change deniers to one degree or another. So, if you are looking for a leader to address the conditions that have resulted in such things as the $2 billion Marshall Fire and  increased costs and reduced availability of homeowners insurance across the state and the nation, you’re out of luck with the candidates on the Republican slate.

They’re split on whether they would support a federal ban on abortion, with Holtorf, Lynch and Yu opposed and Sonnenberg, Flora and Boebert all in favor. All but Boebert support continued aid to Ukraine, and Boebert also stands alone in saying the 2020 election was stolen.

It gets even scarier when they identify federal agencies they want eliminated.

Sonnenberg wants to cut the CIA, which has certainly had its failures and controversies (appalling torture and abuse during the Iraq war, for one sickening example), but without a competent intelligence agency, U.S. defense departments, businesses, communications, elections and citizens would be sitting ducks.

Lynch wants to eliminate the whole Department of Justice, which I guess means the elimination of all federal laws since there would be no enforcement mechanism. Imagine a country without civil rights protections, food safety regulations, copyright laws, patents, the ability to prosecute corrupt federal officials.

And as for the immigration issue, the candidates are all over the map. While Boebert wants to unleash armies of federal agents to round up the estimated 10 million undocumented immigrants embedded in our communities and remove them from the country, Sonnenberg wants to come up with a way to give them an opportunity to stay, saying it’s a humanitarian issue. Holtorf wants to provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants except for “fighting-age Middle Eastern males” whom he would have deported immediately to “those terrorist countries.”

Yikes.

Meanwhile on the Democratic ticket, Trisha Calvarese, John Padora Jr. and Ike McCorkle provide a stark contrast to the Republican hopefuls and The Sun’s handy guide once again offers details.

All support codifying the protections of abortion rights and reproductive rights including fertility treatments and contraceptives in federal law. All support restrictions on access to firearms, with Padora supporting the idea of raising the age for purchasing guns to 21, McCorkle calling for national safe-storage laws and Calvarese backing a measure to remove special liability protections from the gun industry.

The candidates also agreed on the need for comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would secure the border and provide a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

All three expressed deep concern about climate change and called for urgent action. Padora supports a ban on new oil and gas drilling, construction of renewable energy infrastructure and efforts to provide a just transition for energy workers. Calvarese wants to promote efforts to increase resilience to the devastating impacts of climate change and McCorkle seeks to ensure oil and gas workers are not left behind as the country pursues immediate steps to move to clean energy.

While the outcome of the primary election will be interesting for sure, the real show will take the stage in November.

The 4th Congressional District is but one vivid example of the extreme polarization in the country. We’re all steeped in it, struggling to keep friendships and family relationships from disintegrating in the toxic environment.

But while Colorado’s 4th is a hotbed, ultimately it may be a whole lot less predictable than most of us could have imagined a few months ago.

In fact, at this point, it’s a wild card in the volatile political slugfest that is the 2024 election. One recent poll has McCorkle beating Boebert 41% to 27%, with 33% undecided at this point. All those unaffiliated voters can make it a real contest.

And yet …

A lot can change in five months. Voters are only beginning to pay attention. Since the political environment is still in flux, polling is even more unreliable than usual.

In the Wild West of Colorado’s 4th, anything can happen.

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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Last week I hit the wall. I know readers look forward to provocative opinions and biting commentary, but I needed a break from the chaos of the news. C’mon, don’t we all?

I decided to ration my exposure in the interest of self-preservation.

So, I’m not going to engage in analysis of the Supreme Court’s descent into the MAGA cult of mass destruction and irrelevance, or the nonsense on cable news over how paying hush money to a porn star and lying about it on financial documents is no big deal for a presidential candidate, or the fact that legions of Republican elected officials refuse to ensure that women have the right to contraception.

It’s tedious and downright depressing.

I won’t comment on Lauren Boebert’s campaign against the release of the video of her delivering a hand job to her companion during a show at the Buell Theatre. (She got caught. It will be referenced in attack ads for months. Enough said.)

And don’t expect me to join the chorus of people blaming Joe Biden for high grocery prices when study after study has found that the monopoly supermarket chains are ripping us off and taking record-breaking profits.

We’re being exploited and manipulated, and it’s likely to continue for at least another five months.

That means we all need an occasional detox.

Others may be microdosing psilocybin or moving to Uruguay. I’m not there … yet. Instead, I’m deep into escapism.

I’ve prescribed myself an intense course of pleasure-inducing diversions, no alcohol or mood-altering substances required.

I started with regular walks along the Cherry Creek trail, where the flocks of spring goslings are adorable. Don’t harsh my mellow by telling me that they’ll just grow up to be poop factories in the city’s parks. Right now, they are precious, swimming happily behind their dutiful parents who keep a close eye on them and teach them to paddle along more or less in line. I can’t help but love them.

I have turned down the volume on the evening news and engaged in marathon Rummikub tournaments with my husband.

Sometimes dinner gets seriously delayed. (Just three games. OK, best of seven … I’m not really hungry, are you?)

We’ve been at it for days now and I’m not sure who’s winning. Which is perfect.

My reading choices have also been altered.

After a series of great novels delivering blistering social commentary (“Chain Gang All Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah), heartbreakingly visions of hardship and forbearance (“James” by Percival Everett) and reflections on racism and corruption (“Small Mercies” by Dennis Lahane), I fell hard for “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt.

This lighthearted little tale with a lonely widow and an octopus escape artist was just what I needed.

I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say happy endings are underrated, especially right now.

In honor of the summery weather, I planted herbs in my balcony pots and put a bouquet of flowers on the dining table.

Then, needing a megadose of culinary bliss, I baked a colossal cake loaded with butter and sugar (God forbid!) for my grandson’s birthday. I filled it with piles of berries and covered it in thick, gorgeous icing.

Then I ate a huge piece and refused to feel guilty about it. In fact, I brazenly scraped the last globs of cream cheese and mascarpone frosting off the plate with my finger and licked every bite.

I took a quick getaway to a beach where I paddled with manatees, swam with other women in desperate need of collagen just like me, and played gin rummy with people I love.

I settled in for a long-awaited new season of “The Bear,” hoping for real love for Carmie this time and another spectacular performance by Jamie Lee Curtis. I binged on “Hacks.” I turned up the volume on the car radio and sang “Dixie Chicken” at the top of my lungs. I bought a bag of overpriced Bing cherries and ate them until my lips were stained dark red.

I dialed in the focus on a pair of binoculars and watched an osprey dive into a raging mountain creek and come up with a trout in its talons. Awesome.

I watched the hilarious video of a 6-year-old kid mugging for the C-Span camera while his dad droned on the House floor. And then I watched it three more times.

On that note, I took a nap.

And then I exchanged long overdue emails with one of my oldest friends, who caught me up on her life and reminded me of the importance of simple friendship and love.

With no commentary at all, she attached a cartoon by Wayne Ng that was one of the most inadvertently optimistic views of our future that I’ve seen in a very long time.

It had a drawing of Snoopy at the keyboard.

 “And, after all the dust settled,” he typed, “they suddenly realized America had been saved by a porn star.

“The end.”

Ah, salvation is still possible. I’ll get back to the news again soon once I can bear it.

Despite it all, I refuse to abandon hope.

And, well, if all else fails, we’ll always have cake.

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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I’ll freely admit that the financing concept for the mayor’s plan to reverse the spiraling doom loop for downtown Denver is beyond me. 

It involves using the Downtown Development Authority to generate revenue to back bonds worth something like $500 million to build stuff to make downtown more appealing. It’s how the Union Station project was financed, which seemed to work, right?

But while I’ll leave it to the wheelers and dealers (and the mayor) to find the money, I’ve got some ideas about how to spend it to make the downtown neighborhood more, well, neighborly. 

It’s my neighborhood, after all, so I have some significant skin in the game.

Everyone is invited to weigh in with ideas. The city is eager to hear from all of us and has created a site for sharing ideas. I’ll go first.

For starters, the experts all say we have to focus on people. 

I know that seems obvious, but it’s clear for decades downtown developers have focused single-mindedly on making money and have ignored what it’s like to be a human being trying to find a little joy in the urban landscape.

Now the commercial real estate magnates are getting their comeuppance with office workers — who for eons were forced to come downtown — abandoning the area to work from home. 

Apparently, if you can’t require people to come downtown no matter how lifeless it is, you need to seduce them with attractions that will make sitting at home in your pajamas staring at a computer screen all day seem as pathetic as it really is.

The good news is urban design is not rocket science.

People like open spaces, parks, flowers, trees, benches. 

In Seattle, they have “pocket parks” — tiny green spaces where people gather even in the rain to sip a cup of coffee or whatever. In Portland, they’re the “park blocks.” New York City has Central Park and the High Line. You get the idea.

Not every square inch of downtown real estate has to be monetized. 

Jan Gehl, the rock-star urban architect from Copenhagen, has helped leaders rethink the way cities are developed. One of his projects, the Built to Play program, has created urban playgrounds and skateparks in Michigan, New York and cities around the world. 

His mantra: “People and life first, always.”

Who can argue with that? 

It turns out a city that’s good for children is good for everyone, and in Denver you shouldn’t have to pay admission fees for kids to play on slides, kick a soccer ball around or hang out in cool play spaces.

The squealing crowds wading in the water at Confluence Park and running through the fountains at Union Station every summer prove that kids don’t have to have electronic devices or high-dollar entertainment centers to have fun. But they do need space.

Next, moving around the city has to be a lot less awful.

Strategically located parking complexes on the edges of the Central Business District with free, convenient transit service would go a long way toward addressing the problems created by traffic backups, endless stoplights and bloodthirsty competition for parking spaces.

And maybe we should do something about the transit station at Civic Center to make it less like a post-apocalyptic crater on the landscape and more like a convenient meeting place that doesn’t involve drug-dealing.

Oh, and another thing, we could use some retail downtown.

I know, I know. When the Cherry Creek Shopping Center happened, the downtown retail economy crashed. But if the urban core is going to be a vibrant space, we need a few more places to spend our money on something besides cocktails.

In Denver, the mountain views are great. I never get enough of them. But face it, downtown also needs more beauty. 

Urban art and architecture do a lot to humanize a city and define its public persona. We need more of that beyond the campus of the Denver Art Museum.

The refurbished transit mall (Oh, please, tell me someday it will be finished.) would be a good place to showcase interesting urban art and inviting gathering places. The planning for repopulating that vital space should be happening now.

I’m thinking it should have street performers, play spaces, galleries, ice cream, music.

It can be a destination in itself.

Which brings me to my No. 1 gripe about Denver: the noise.

The city’s noise ordinance is a laughingstock.

The major offenders in this organized criminal activity are the motorcycle gangs that arrive downtown at night (and in the daytime on weekend afternoons) to torment visitors and residents. 

They modify their bikes to produce punishingly loud noise levels. (My smart watch has even warned me of unsafe decibel levels when the bikers are in the area.)

They race through the streets in gangs of 30 or 40 or more, gunning their engines, running red lights, doing wheelies on and off the sidewalks, cutting off motorists and pedestrians, and forcing people to flee sidewalk cafes and open-air restaurants to escape the harassment.

When I called my city councilman about it, I was told that everyone is aware of it, but there’s nothing to be done. The motorcyclists simply remove the license plates from their bikes and cops can’t figure out how to arrest them, so they are absolutely free to continue breaking the laws with impunity.

The whole renegade motorcycle scene contributes to the wildly inaccurate impression that downtown is a dangerous, crime-ridden place to be avoided at all costs.

It’s not. It’s a dynamic, diverse, exciting place to live and play. It already has a lot to offer. 

And it can be so much more.

But if the city can’t figure out how to address the out-of-control bikers, even half a billion dollars-worth of civic improvements won’t make people want to be here.

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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Boomers are smug when it comes to street protests. They’ve been memorably tear-gassed and arrested, they’ll remind you. They’ve been prosecuted for burning their bras and wearing flags on their butts, clubbed by police, even shot.

The protests of our youth were noisy and often destructive. Some were exciting. A lot of them were embarrassingly silly or just plain boring. 

The results were divisive, forcing communities to harden their positions on racial segregation, gay rights, the Vietnam war, women’s rights. But everywhere, people were talking about the issues. Books were written. Songs were sung. Movies made.

So, you can’t blame the boomers — most of them now collecting Social Security and spending what cherished time they have left playing pickleball — for waxing nostalgic about the glory days of civil disobedience in the period of what the late John Lewis called “good trouble.”

Because, after all, the protests worked. They forced people to pay attention. 

While the battles over many of these issues continue, a lot of things changed as a direct result of the demands made in the streets of Selma, the fields of California, the gay bars of New York and college campuses across the country.

In his addled state during the dark days of his administration, Richard Nixon met with anti-war protesters holding a vigil one night. Even his aides said it was weird, but the message from his moonlit trip to the Lincoln Memorial was clear. The movement had power. The president of the United States had taken notice.

That wasn’t just the odor of weed in the air that night. It was the smell of victory.

It’s not yet clear whether the pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses this spring will be nearly so effective. 

If you hang out at the encampment on the Auraria campus, you’ll see a well-orchestrated, peaceful demonstration with a posted schedule of events, a rotating cadre of speakers leading chants and singing songs, a crowd of people wearing Keffiyeh scarves — even several toilet tents with explicit rules for proper use.

Tents are spray-painted with slogans: “Boycott.” “Sanction.” “Divest.”

Training sessions are held to prepare protesters for encounters with law enforcement, including “the four steps to avoid accidentally talking to police.”

No. 4, considered the most important, is to say, “ ‘I want to talk to my lawyer,’ then shut the f— up.”

What’s harder to see is the endgame.

The war goes on and on. Efforts at negotiating a ceasefire and hostage releases have so far been fruitless. And even if universities agreed to divest from companies that do business in Israel, such as Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple … the list is long, it’s hard to imagine that outcome bringing a speedy end to the fighting and a two-state solution.

In the meantime, antisemitic behavior worldwide has exploded, and Israel’s international standing has been seriously eroded by the 7-month-long war that has produced an estimated 30,000 casualties, many of them civilians, children, journalists and humanitarian aid workers.

It’s a horror show.

At the same time, the protests on campuses have been growing by the day despite law enforcement crackdowns in Texas, California and New York. 

In fact, the harsher the police response, the more emboldened the protesters have become. The attention is intoxicating. 

It’s proof they are getting noticed, which is the whole point.

Clearly, they won’t be ignored. But they will be exploited.

There are the House Republicans, who are calling for an end to federal funding for universities that don’t aggressively quell the protests. Trump is using social media to blast the demonstrators, saying “STOP THE PROTESTS NOW!!!” And Republican leaders have called on President Biden to send the National Guard to campuses to arrest the demonstrators and stifle dissent.

It’s an election year and chaos is political catnip.

At the same time, Hamas leaders and Iran’s Supreme Leader have issued statements applauding the student protesters, lending credibility to the far right characterization of the student activists as terrorists (which is ridiculous).

So, the campus encampments keep growing and the deliveries of vegan pizzas keep coming, along with media attention from the whole world.

The tradition of peaceful protest and civil disobedience is a time-honored one. It’s also messy and inconvenient, with messages that are often simple-minded and puerile.

Face it, not every demonstrator is going to be as eloquent as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Still, like it or not, this is what democracy looks like. 

Let’s just hope we can keep it that way.

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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As the body count keeps mounting from mass school shootings, grocery store shootings, theater shootings, concert shootings, bowling alley shootings, street shootings and suicides by firearm, it’s easy to think nothing has changed since the Columbine High School massacre 25 years ago.

That’s a big mistake.

And it’s a profound insult to Tom Mauser.

Mauser, father of Daniel, has devoted his life to the memory of his 15-year-old son and a relentless quest for sanity in the face of America’s uniquely bizarre and irrational obsession with guns. 

Last week he was in Washington, D.C., to support the Biden administration’s action to close the gun show loophole by expanding the definition of a “firearms dealer”  and requiring more gun buyers to undergo background checks. 

It was, after all, guns purchased without background checks at the Tanner Gun Show that were used to kill Daniel and 12 others at Columbine. The appalling fact that it took 25 years to take this obvious baby step in national gun policy was not lost on Mauser.

“We cannot wait another 25 years” to get significant gun safety legislation, Mauser said at a media event in D.C. 

Mauser wants more action, more limits on so-called assault weapons, more recognition of the egregious price we pay for legislators’ willingness to genuflect before the craven manipulators in the gun industry. 

Mostly, he wants people who share his views to be represented.

In a country with more guns than people, polls show addressing the impacts of gun violence is becoming a major policy issue for an overwhelming majority of Americans — particularly young people. The Pew Research Center found six in 10 Americans say the nation needs stricter gun laws, that guns are too easy to obtain and that gun violence is a major problem.

The polling also found broad bipartisan agreement on policies that would restrict access to firearms by increasing the age for purchase to 21 and preventing those who are mentally ill from buying guns. 

A majority support a ban on sales of semi-automatic assault-style weapons.

And majorities in both parties oppose policies that allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, passed by Congress in 2022, remains wildly popular with the support of some 76% of Americans. It was the most comprehensive gun safety legislation in 30 years.

Public support for such measures is growing, even if too many lawmakers still don’t have the guts to act.

But this has been the case for a long, long time.

When Colorado’s Republican-led legislature, cowed by gun industry lobbyists, failed to pass a measure to close the gun show loophole in 2000, Mauser and others overcame numerous legal challenges to place Amendment 22 on the ballot. 

It passed with 70% of voters supporting it.

“What it showed,” Mauser said, “was that it was easier for the gun lobby to buy, badger and bully 51 legislators than it is to buy, badger and bully millions of voters, and people will support a common sense gun violence prevention law when presented the evidence.”

But the ability of the National Rifle Association to “buy, badger and bully” lawmakers has been knocked back in recent months.

Wayne LaPierre, former CEO of the National Rifle Association, and two other executives of the organization were found liable in February in a civil jury trial for ripping off an estimated $64 million from the organization. 

Lawyers produced evidence, among other things, that LaPierre had used $500,000 in NRA funds for personal trips to the Bahamas and $11 million for flights on private jets. He also awarded millions in NRA contracts in exchange for lavish personal gifts.

Long the face of one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the country — and the guy who provided talking points to then-President Donald Trump when he announced his opposition to universal background checks days after 17 students were slaughtered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School  — LaPierre resigned in ignominy in January.

His legacy now is marked by abject greed as well as facilitation of mass murder.

Young people continue to die by gunfire in growing numbers in the U.S. An analysis by Pew found the rate increased by 50% between 2019 and 2021. And while suicide rates are declining elsewhere around the globe, in the U.S., they are rising with gun suicides reaching an all-time high in 2021.

So, while the measures enacted so far represent progress, they don’t begin to address the problems caused by hundreds of millions of guns circulating in our communities.

But Mauser knows better than anyone that building momentum for real change takes time and he’s in it for the long haul. Walking in the shoes Daniel wore the day he died a quarter-century ago, he bears witness to the grief and horror wrought by gun violence in our ordinary, everyday lives.

“In Washington, it was very moving for me to have the new rule closing the gun show loophole come out just days before the anniversary” of Columbine, he told me as he rode the train home from the airport. “I’m thankful that they did this. Yes, it took 25 years to accomplish something so simple, but they did it. We shouldn’t have to wait another 25 years for more meaningful gun safety legislation.”

Mauser said he stopped in the offices of a couple of the Republican senators who voted for the Safer Communities Act while he was in D.C. 

“I thanked them for the bravery they showed in voting for this. Now they’re saying it’s going too far. They knew they were going to take heat for what they did, so it’s not surprising they’re saying that. We’ve come to expect that.”

For Mauser and so many others, the pain never goes away. And neither does the determination.

“Doing nothing won’t solve the problem,” he said. It’s taken a long time, but “we’re making meaningful change. It makes a difference.”

He’s getting older, he said. It’s a lot of work. But he won’t ever give up.

Daniel would be proud.

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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When voters rejected the proposed annexation of Brown Ranch to Steamboat Springs last week, the vision of a pretty little can-do town with a thoughtful, pragmatic, achievable plan for a brighter future dimmed.

In the three years since a local family donated $24 million to the Yampa Valley Housing Authority to buy the 534-acre ranch on the edge of town, a feeling of hope and possibility buzzed through the community. It was downright exciting.

The housing authority welcomed public involvement. It conducted more than 250 meetings, engaging an estimated 4,000 people over the past 15 months to develop a concept for creating a walkable neighborhood where young doctors, teachers, nurses, first-responders, electricians, plumbers — even dishwashers — could afford to live in Steamboat.

It would be a model for resort communities struggling to hire essential workers, the planners thought. It would create a more dynamic, diverse and sustainable economy. It would unfold gradually over 20 years, allowing the town to adjust plans to accommodate new economic trends and face unanticipated problems.

It would be a proactive approach to addressing the crushing problem of homelessness that afflicts Colorado’s resort communities and drives young people away.

It failed by a decisive margin, roughly 800 votes out of around 5,000 cast.

Among those who worked on Brown Ranch, “there’s a lot of disappointment and profound sadness,” said Tim Wohlgenant, CEO of the Yampa Valley Community Foundation and a member of the project’s steering committee.

The rejection was not a total surprise, he said, but the strong support in the community had given them a sense of optimism. 

Both the Yampa Valley Community Foundation and the Steamboat Springs Chamber of Commerce endorsed the project, and it’s highly unusual for either organization to issue endorsements for ballot measures.

But when Wohlgenant went door-to-door to campaign for a yes vote, he heard a lot of negative reactions to the plan.

“There was a strong opposition campaign that created a lot of uncertainty in voters’ minds,” he said. “They succeeded in making people think it was a huge project with a lot of risk. We saw it as a huge opportunity.”

The problem is age-old and pervasive. 

Every time somebody proposes affordable housing in a community, if you pay attention, you can almost see the hackles rising across the neighborhoods. 

Most of the opposition in Steamboat came from people worrying about increased traffic in a town that already experiences crowded downtown streets, especially during peak tourist seasons. Others complained that providing workforce housing would spur more growth, not merely accommodate what’s already happening.

A few expressed hostility toward those who might choose to live at Brown Ranch, including one speaker at a Steamboat City Council meeting who said folks who live in affordable housing are “a different group of people … It’s terrible.”

And then there is the problem of the electorate itself. It only included the folks who live in Steamboat, not those who work in the city and commute long distances each day because they can’t afford to live there.

In morning-after calls, proponents speculated that the rest of the state will look at the outcome of the vote and wonder what’s wrong with Steamboat, Wohlgenant said. They imagined people from other communities that are facing the same problems saying, “The opportunity was handed to them. The land was donated. What’s their problem?”

But while the Brown Ranch project is certain to be delayed, it’s far from dead. 

Proponents are determined to ramp up communication, build consensus around the project and proceed … eventually.

The delay comes with a cost, however, and not just in the inevitable increased costs for construction.

“Over the next two years, we’ll lose a lot of people who saw Brown Ranch as their hope for staying in the community,” Wohlgenant said. “These are young families — teachers, nurses, waiters, first responders — who thought they could hang on until the opportunity to have affordable housing became available. 

“I don’t think people weighed the cost of the no vote against the risks of the yes vote.”

Meanwhile in Steamboat, locals appear blasé about an application under review for a luxury private club development that would include 750 high-end homes, an 18-hole golf course and five ski lifts in the Stagecoach area of town.

It would certainly affect traffic in town, population growth, infrastructure needs. And it would increase the demand for teachers, doctors, nurses and others who keep a town running but usually can’t spring for a multimillion-dollar mansion in a private club development.

For the proponents of Brown Ranch, the Stagecoach development solidifies the case for planned workforce housing more than ever. 

“No one’s walking away from this,” Wohlgenant said. 

“We’ll get over it. We’ll get back to it. 

“We’ll get it done.”

Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.

The Colorado Sun is a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinions of columnists and editorial writers do not reflect the opinions of the newsroom. Read our ethics policy for more on The Sun’s opinion policy. Learn how to submit a column. Reach the opinion editor at opinion@coloradosun.com.

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