Lewis argues moderation is a disqualification in Colorado politics

The air in the Vail Valley still carries the crisp, thin chill of late autumn, but inside the political sphere, the temperature has dropped to something far more brittle. For decades, the assumption was that Colorado’s political machine ran on a predictable rhythm: Republicans held the line in the mountains and the west, Democrats anchored the front range and the south, and somewhere in the middle, a pragmatic center held firm. That center is gone. We are no longer living in a two-party system; we are living in a loyalty test, and the exit polls are flashing red for anyone who dares to think independently.

This is the counterintuitive truth buried in recent commentary by Lewis: moderation is no longer a virtue. It is a disqualification.

When Lewis left Colorado in the 1990s, over 80% of voters claimed allegiance to a major party. Today, that number has plummeted to under 50%. More people now say neither party truly reflects their views, yet the parties themselves have become rigid, impenetrable fortresses. Republicans dominate nationally, Democrats hold the governor’s chair in Colorado, and neither side seems interested in opening its tent to the 25% to 30% of voters who are actually up for grabs. Instead, they are purging their own ranks of anyone who doesn’t kiss the ring.

Consider Gov. Jared Polis. When Lewis and his family moved back to Colorado a few years ago, they attended a local event and met the governor. He wasn’t the caricature many expected. His views were balanced, pragmatic, and at times, dare I say it, even a touch conservative. Yet, the reaction from the base was immediate and biting: “He’s not a recent Democrat.” That comment stuck. It implied that to be a true Democrat in this new era, one had to be ideologically pure, not practically effective.

The Republican Party, or what Lewis now calls the “Trump Party,” faces the same internal rot. If Liz Cheney is no longer welcome, and Sen. John Cornyn is primaried out for occasional disagreement, what room remains for independent thought? The party revolves around a single individual, not a coherent platform. Loyalty is the only currency that matters. “We are America First and should stay out of foreign wars” — until we don’t. “The American economy comes first” — until policies create economic pain and we’re told it doesn’t matter.

But the most fascinating evidence of this shift isn’t in the national headlines; it’s right here in our own backyard, in the way local leaders are treated for simple acts of governance. Recently, Gov. Polis commuted the sentence of Tina Peters. Step back from the politics for a moment, and it seems entirely possible that Polis simply believed the sentence was excessive, particularly given that no election results were changed. It was a pragmatic decision.

The reaction, however, was not pragmatic. It was a political execution. Because a single action offended core Democratic activists, Polis was publicly attacked, criticized, and treated as though he had committed political heresy. Sen. Bennet even suggested that, if elected governor, he would not consider Polis as a Senate replacement. Disagreement was not merely disagreement. It became disqualification.

This is what makes the current moment so distinct from the past. In the 1990s, you could be a conservative Democrat or a liberal Republican and still hold office. Today, you must be a loyalist first, and a thinker second. The mechanism differs between parties, the Republican purge is often driven by primary challenges from the right, while the Democratic response is often a top-down enforcement of orthodoxy; but the result is the same. The center cannot hold because the center has been declared enemy territory.

If you look closely at the way these decisions are made, you see that the voters are just voting for the least objectionable candidate, not the most inspiring one. We are left with leaders who are afraid to make a mistake that might anger the base, rather than leaders who are brave enough to make a decision that might help the people. The party is over. The loyalty test has begun.

Outside the offices of the state legislature, the wind picks up off the Elk Mountains, carrying the scent of pine and distant snow. It’s a quiet, indifferent sound, reminding us that while we argue over who is a “real” Democrat or a “true” Republican, the mountains don’t care about our primaries. They just keep rising, steady and unyielding, while we fracture below.